Sample MBA652 Strategy and Leadership in Tourism and Hospitality

MBA652: Strategy and Leadership in Tourism and Hospitality Assignment 3 Sample

Assignment Brief

Length:1500 words (+/- 10% allowable range)
Weighting: 40%
Total Marks: 100
Submission: Online
Due Date: Week 13

Your task

Individually, you are required to prepare a 1500 word Australia’s Tourism 2030 Strategy proposal by critically reflecting on the three pre-recorded interviews from the industry leaders in the tourism and hospitality industry.
Assessment Description.

The purpose of this individual assessment is to give students an opportunity to in part demonstrate their skills in critical leadership, problem-solving and reflective learning relating to the tourism and hospitality industry by analyzing and selecting the most appropriate contemporary leadership practices for the tourism and hospitality industries.

Assessment Instructions for assignment help

Presume that you have been recently tasked to develop Australia’s next national long-term tourism strategy - Tourism 2030, with a focus on the issue of industry resilience.

As part of your preparation for this task, you are required to watch the three pre-recorded interviews from the current industry leaders who provided their insights into underpinning challenges of managing and leading tourism and hospitality workforce in the times of adversity and crisis. The information presented in these interviews will serve as the starting point for developing Australia’s next national long-term tourism strategy.

1. Interview with Stuart Riddell
2. Interview with Ralf Brueger
3. Interview with Alessandra Damant

Based on the key takeaways from these interviews, you are then required to prepare a proposal of the Tourism 2030 strategy. More specifically, your proposal must include the following sections:

• A 1-page long executive summary that comprehensively covers all of the significant report findings (not included in the word limit).

• Critical analysis of the current strategic and leadership risks that the Australian tourism and hospitality industry is facing as the result of the recent bushfires and COVID-19 pandemic.

• Critical evaluation of innovative business strategies that tourism and hospitality providers across the globe are currently deploying in an attempt to restart the tourism and hospitality industry.

In preparing this proposal, you will need to utilize relevant theories and concepts covered in weeks 8 to 12 and use at least 12 sources of information and reference these in accordance with the Kaplan Harvard Referencing Style. These may include websites, government publications, industry reports, census data, journal articles, and newspaper articles. These references should be presented as in-text citations and a reference list at the end of your proposal. Wikipedia and other ‘popular’ sites are not to be used.

Assessment Submission

This file must be submitted as a ‘Word’ document to avoid any technical issues that may occur from incorrect file format upload. Uploaded files with a virus will not be considered as a legitimate submission. Turnitin will notify you if there is an issue with the submitted file. In this case, you must contact your workshop facilitator via email and provide a brief description of the problem and a screenshot of the Turnitin error message. You are also encouraged to submit your work well in advance of the deadline to avoid any possible delay with the Turnitin similarity report or any other technical difficulties.

Late assignment submission penalties

Penalties will be imposed on late assignment submissions in accordance with Kaplan Business School “late assignment submission penalties” Policy.

Solution

Introduction

The coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) is a humanitarian crisis that is deeply influencing individuals' lives and causing financial crises around the world. This has a significant impact on the travel industry sector, which is essential for some, individuals, places and organizations, especially in countries, urban areas and areas where the travel industry is an important part of the economy of the sector.

The Coronavirus crisis has badly impacted travel industry during 2020, with uncommon impacts on employment and organizations. The travel industry has been one of the main areas affected by the virus, as measures to control the outbreak have ended around the world in the travel industry. There is also the risk that the local area will be among the region to pull through from continuing to move and decline globally (Fayos-Solà and Cooper, 2019). This affects the economy of the travel industry and a number of different areas that help and support the travel industry. 

Analysis

Bushfires

Effective leadership for sustainability depends on ex post reflection and the ability to promote collaboration between different stakeholder groups. To achieve this goal for fires, we need to go beyond the narrow view where fires are only considered "catastrophes". "Disaster" A study focused on providing industry best practices to ensure messages are received and delivered to attract future tourists out of the country's or industry's control (Walters and Mair, 2012) in the coming months and years. Over the years, fires have impacted tourism industry like Airlift and many other crucial regions in Australia and are likely to be developed as a part of the programme (Walters and Mair, 2012).

The strategic risks associated with Bushfires includes economic loss to the nation, property loss, liability risk to the Australian government, loss of major resources from the forest, reflection of mismanagement due to unable to control such situation by government on time, and loss of major tourism revenue due to fallen in the visitors from other countries.

Leadership risks includes possibility of physical harms to forest staff and other people living attached with forest; financial harm; loss of reputation of government as it shown incapability of controlling this mass disaster; and failure and loss of accountability.

Coronavirus

Australia is a free democracy in Westminster with a legislative structure. Now, it holds the position of top 10 successful developed countries across the world for minimizing and controlling the impact of deadly virus on overall economy (COVID-19) in 2019 (Ritchie and Roser, 2020). Approximately 16% of the Australian population is 65 or older, with the highest epidemiological risk, and 18.7% in the 0-15-year-old group with the lowest risk. 30.30% of the country's disease rates occurred in the 1960s. At the time of writing, 90 of the 93 people who died in Australia on 27 May 2020 were over 40 years of age (Australian Government, 2020). While out of total population, 18.7% belongs to the age group between 0 to 15 years, there are no victims in this group (Australian Government, 2020).

Pandemic coronavirus (COVID-19) infection is an unprecedented crisis in the tourism economy, with a major immediate impact on the region. The OECD estimate of the impact of pandemic shows a 60% decline in international travel industry by 2020. If delayed back to December, the percentage could rise to 80%. International tourism should develop significantly in some regions (eg. the European Union).

Evaluation

Here are the strategies used by travel and hotel providers around the world.

1. Action

The main focus of Covid-19 has been on health and safety issues of hygiene and cleanliness in hotels. The key is to provide physical evidence of the hotel's health and safety concerns. This time the hotel industry will be scrutinized and verified for medical reasons. The security guard checks the temperature with a portable thermometer sprays a disinfectant smoke and leaves a hand sanitizer in receptions, elevator halls and rooms.
To recover from bushfire, large area could be seized for entering by visitors and local people, and left aside to recover it through rainfall in natural way (Amelung and Nicholls, 2014). Additional to this, Government requires taking measures to deal with such a situation if it happens in future.

2. Finance

The second important consideration is the liquidity of working capital. Travel and hotel providers have a 12-month grace period for EMI, Loans, PF, ESIC, GST, Customs, Government Tax, Bank Guarantees, Customs Investments and Security. It can be said that the government has already introduced a three-month grace on interest rates and major bank payments.

Government will invest major fund on restoring the forest by hiring workforce to remove damaged fences and trunks by cleaning at initial stage and put some new fences around as a replacement.

3. Technology

The third consideration moves further into AI and other technologies. Covid-19 has accelerated the need for technology to reduce human communication. The mobile guest app can connect to any button and switch in the room, so your finger doesn't reach you. It included climate control, lighting, shower temperature control, remote control TV, and more (BILSLAND, Nagy and Smith, 2020).

Government would place tracking devices and drones to check if there’s any fire or disturbance in the forest. Additional to this sensor device attached to trees will also play a major role in identifying any hazard before it converts into major disaster.

Appraisal

Consequently, all goals, KPIs, measures and objectives must be defined, linked to long-term success and measured economically. In this context, the strategic importance of the issues under consideration needs to be clarified and explained. Therefore, at this stage, it is necessary to consider all aspects that affect the business unit and are of strategic importance. The final step is to reach a sustainability vision to integrate the approach into a traditional economic approach to create sustainable value (Nesticò and Maselli, 2020). Finally, it is important to remember that the proposed approach has evolved from other traditional ideas, including the critical one. For example, it cannot be denied that cost savings resulting from sanctions can have a positive impact on the outlook for the economy, as well as improving consumer satisfaction. This will no doubt have a positive impact from the customer's point of view by increasing the number of employees. It has a positive impact on internal processes, product quality and customer satisfaction and financial forecasts (Pechlaner, Innerhofer and Erschbamer, 2019).

Strategy Plan

Vision

• Enhancing the Australian private sector to create a compatible environment within economy and bring diversification into the economy through investing in global trade and competition.

Mission

• To advance sustainability in the travel industry that makes occupations and spotlights on advancement of nearby culture and items assets, including economical administration of visit and travel by 2030 (Guo, 2018).

Long term objectives

• Reduce domestic poverty by increasing employment opportunities in the tourism sector.
• Achieving the fundamental goals of sustainable development in the environment (Karji et al., 2019)
• Create community awareness, understanding, and support for tourism development. It encourages close co-operation between the government and the private sector (Whitehead, 2017).

Corporate governance

Corporate governance is the structure that characterizes the connection between investors, management, managers and various partners, to help influence the activity of an organization. It aims to protect investment benefits, strengthen disclosure and openness, promote the board's powerful business, and provide a viable legal and administrative structure. Good corporate governance should enable investor support and provide the appropriate motivational forces to the board of directors and officers to pursue goals that are beneficial to the organization and investors.

The corporate governance structures and business management practices of an organization usually address key points of threats, for example,

• Is the organization run to help investors?
• Are choices made on a moral and careful basis?
• Are the various risks to the organization identified and controlled?
• Should the management and board be accountable to investors for their assets?

Several criteria are used to evaluate and measure a company's corporate governance frameworks. Some factors generally taken into account in assessing corporate governance standards include:

• Responsibility of the board of directors
• Financial reporting and internal controls
• Rights of shareholders
• Compensation of the share
• Equity structure and related parties
• Social and environmental impact.

Destination management bodies

Today, executives' strategies can be summarized in three ways: reduce waste / misfortune, maintain item quality / management, and accelerate creation. Lean is an arrangement of administration, reasoning or a handful of tools, approach and development stage of the company and the lifestyle where it operates. This idea has been implemented and holds equal importance to the competent for process of the firm and businesses in the field of the travel industry. A change in follow-up approach must consider the unique characteristics of each office. For instance, it makes sure about, if there are any losses which are caused throughout the travel industry, with a negative impact towards courier management. Like these lines, the association should find a way to reduce these risks and thereby give the client some advantage, in order to provide better and riskier administrations. Differentiating responses to a real concern is a major concern for organizations and companies around the world, and suddenly for Destination Management Group (Pechlaner, Innerhofer, and Erschbamer, 2019).

Conclusion

The coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) and busfires have emerged as a great loss to the Australian society, the impact doubles when it directly impacts tourism population which holds major proportion of Australian GDP. Appropriate measures could help the nation in recovering quickly from these risks and improve its GDP.  

References

Amelung, B. and Nicholls, S., 2014. Implications of climate change for tourism in Australia. Tourism Management, 41, pp.228-244.

Australian Government, 2020. Coronavirus (COVID-19) current situation and case numbers. Available at: https://www.health.gov.au/news/health-alerts/novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov-health-alert/coronavirus-covid-19-current-situation-and-case-numbers [Accessed on 8th February 2021]

BILSLAND, C., Nagy, H. and Smith, P., 2020. Virtual internships and work-integrated learning in hospitality and tourism in a post-COVID-19 world. International Journal of Work-Integrated Learning, 21(4), pp.425-437.
Fayos-Solà, E. and Cooper, C., 2019.The future of Tourism. Cham: Springer.

Guo, Y. ed., 2018. 2030 Vision for ASEAN-China Strategic Partnership: Perspectives from Think-Tanks. World Scientific.

Karji, A., Woldesenbet, A., Khanzadi, M. and Tafazzoli, M., 2019. Assessment of social sustainability indicators in mass housing construction: a case study of Mehr housing project. Sustainable Cities and Society, 50, p.101697.

Nesticò, A. and Maselli, G., 2020. Sustainability indicators for the economic evaluation of tourism investments on islands. Journal of Cleaner Production, 248, p.119217.

Pechlaner, H., Innerhofer, E. and Erschbamer, G. eds., 2019. Overtourism: Tourism management and solutions. Routledge.

Ritchie, M., and Roser, H. 2020. Our world in data. Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford; Available at: https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data [Accessed on 8th February 2021]

Statistics, A.B.O., 2012.Australian Demographic Statistics. AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE OF HEALTH AND WELFARE.

Walters, G. and Mair, J., 2012. The Effectiveness of Post-Disaster Recovery Marketing Messages—the Case of the 2009 Australian Bushfires, Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 29:1, 87-103.

Whitehead, J., 2017. Prioritizing sustainability indicators: Using materiality analysis to guide sustainability assessment and strategy. Business Strategy and the Environment, 26(3), pp.399-412.