Introduction 

In today�s competitive business environment, hospitality industry executives are faced with abundant challenges, one of the most important being how to lower overhead while revenues are increasing.  This has become exceptionally vital for the large �chain� hotel companies that deal with significant competitions form the independent hotel management companies. 

In recent times, the hospitality industry has gained from tourists� popularity and substantial overseas investment, enabling the construction of many new international standard hotels and resorts, renovation of existing inns, taverns and restaurants and extended travel operations. This time for hotel industry to gain momentum of providing �excellent service� and one of the tools of providing excellent service is through training. 

There have been a lot of papers arguing some imperative components should be aware of future environment particularly when the hospitality industry moves into the year 2000. Professional bodies have also joined with current research in encouraging the hospitality industry to very much concerned and focused on the customer relationship, how this relationship can be measured in terms of satisfaction and value.  Indeed,  the industry is now considering putting much effort on education, and of the element to be paid attention is training and development. 

Recent articles have also been discussing about the key role of HR department that has moved from recruiting, selection, training, remuneration, career path and other deadly cases to �rectify� its presents. For example, rapid changing in environment must be dealt with �freedom� of creativity, new approaches to staff, dealing with new technology conveying learning into their life at work, flexibility in organization model, etc have become part of daily activities.  All these issues are really now the driving forces for the hospitality industry to �tap in� into the current environment. The question is how the whole �perplexing� issues can be answered in today�s business life.  The article argues that the hospitality industry ought to rely on model of strategic business management (as it supposed to be) to accelerate the sensitivity of growing expectations from customers. The model below attempts to accommodate the variety of issues in today�s environment as part of the strategic model. 

 

No longer �gambling� or �intuitive� or �personal feelings� recommendation to establish the business objectives. One thing should be done is compiling significant information of existing market and trying to break them down into scale of priorities. Of course, this must be interrelated to the company� vision, strategic business objectives and too stakeholders. One of the difficulties facing the hospitality industry these days is hiring the skilled person(s) to synthesize relevant information.  The critical point here is the hospitality industry must be able to accommodate its current resources and be persistent about where we want to go. A lot of experts argue that  a strategic management model can only be applied to anticipate the changing environment. Unfortunately, this is not right.  What managers should do is developing the model and �engineering� the environment to fit with the proposed model.  One possible method is to create a market that attracts customers to come, and ensure they will come back again. Price and quality could have been used as the tools to create new opportunities. The model above might be used to put some ideas to fix the old paradigm of �anticipating� and �adjusting� model and move to a �dynamic� model that can be flexible in current and future environment. By (always) related back to your vision and strategic objectives, the hospitality industry has to catch up with future environment. The problem within the hospitality industry is having a lack of vision, and the industry has only long-term strategic plans. What happens with the environment is it changes rapidly. Therefore, the hospitality industry must make and develop its strategic model to speed up its role of current and future environment. This means that the hospitality industry ought to focus primarily upon the needs of all employees be reoriented to changing conditions.  I agree with the latest findings published by IHRA that the human aspects should be given more attention in today�s environment. The model above depicted that understanding and underlying the importance of the strategic business objectives in line with corporate vision should be transformed into �transferable manner� that employees might able to follow them up. Thus, it certainly requires management�s support (i.e. motivation, reinforcement, reward and recognition). The central focus on this model is the hospitality industry must come up with strategies to achieve goals. One possible strategy is to provide training and development that will lead to learning. Encouraging learning has become one of an international theme within the hospitality industry. 

There have been a lot of discussions in this matter whether an organization should provide a specific training for a specific job or we offer a training package leading to multiskilling employees. I would argue strongly that this is �an old song in the new rhythms�.  The issue is not just be able to improve skills, but mastered in specific skills instead. I am emphasizing this as the main concern in the hospitality industry that customers demand professionalism on the jobs. If you are able to have different skills for different jobs, that�s excellent. But, don�t get too excited not being able to provide an outstanding service. The principle for the training process therefore getting new personnel and current staff to be able to play a role to the success of the organization and then how the services or products of the organization can contribute to society. 

The model indicates that the first step to be taken is induction programs that are familiarizing new employees to the organization, their job, and the work unit. I found that during induction programs, the hospitality industry tend to explain in details about the philosophy, culture, ways doing things, etc. This is quite right in one side to ensure that new employees are able to identify their current internal environment. However, this could be downgrading employees� expectation that may have different approaches about the existing atmosphere. Instead of giving employees a bulk of big manuals to them, it would be better off for employees to adapt and be motivated that your contribution is really significant for our goals. One way to attain this is through socialization that encourages employees to unite with current employees. Socialization is the process through which new employees acquire the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that make them successful and to be integrated to the organization and work department. Be ensure that the training programs can and must encourage participants to learn, and managers have to motivate them to ensure that they will apply the new acquired skills in the worksite and learning transfer should be prioritized among managers.  Conducting evaluation would be the possible tool to find out whether training has been transferred or not is. 

Evaluation may be the least area to be considered and developed. Having �smile sheets� is insufficient to render judgment about the effectiveness of your training activities, but it must involve the whole components (i.e. trainees� reaction, learning issues, behavior and results) to find out how effective the programs are. When the evaluation is completed, we are able to expect that the outcomes are positive and rewarding, both for those responsible for the programs and for managers who will make decisions derived from their evaluation training programs. 

All the discussions above want to address the basic issue in the hospitality industry that a certain model must be developed to endeavor to lead in the future market. To some extent the model discussed may give the hospitality industry a picture of how necessary every step should be considered to execute the training programs. Working on wrong assumptions may lead to design inappropriate training programs that could create �an undesired outcomes�. The HR department should also aware of the current issues occurred in the workforce and attempt to �tap in� into the model. 

Summarizing the model into the current issues is the hospitality industry will be in favor position to compete in a world environment that in line with companies� vision and strategic objectives by designing the appropriate training programs. More importantly, human relationships, information and willing to change will be seen as very imperative to attain desired outcomes.  The model chosen attempts to accommodate the topical themes in the hospitality industry.