Modernizing The Royal Hotel

About Royal Hotel at a Glance…

♣ Belongs to Somerville family
♣ GM: Gerry Baskerville (with good reputation)
Swift, jocularly friendly, business-like towards other, he missed nothing.
♣ Remote location
♣ Used by local families and fewer outsiders
♣ Provides countryside, beaches, sailing, fishing, riding, yatch and tennis club
♣ Provides staff accommodation
♣ Safe; no drugs, violence.

Royal Hotel Case Overview

♣ John Inskip, has recently named as Galaxy’s Operational Director for Westerpool
region
♣ Keen to fulfilling Paul Fisher’s (Chairman of Galaxy) idea for introducing a
further brand “prestige”, Inskip determined to made acquisition of his childhood
dream place, the Royal Hotel
♣ He made discreet visit to the Royal Hotel and immediately drawing his
conclusion, especially on things he believed he could exploits
♣ Inskip’s ideas for the Royal lies on two factors which are 1) Provide a largeup-to-
date bar by converting existing underutilized public room and 2) Build an up-to-
date leisure centre.
♣ In spite of the opposition from Galaxy’s CEO, Chris Edmonds, Inskip get a green
light to make the acquisition, except his idea for leisure centre has been told to be
postponed
♣ Immediately after the acquisition, all the Royal’s over-age staff had elected to
retire, and many other staff had chosen to move on including the current general
manager, Gerry Baskerville.
 ♣ Inskip appointed Donald Saundby, young man with go-ahead ideas, to be the
Royal’s general manager which is it would be Saundby first appointment as
hotel’s general manager.
♣ Inskip plans to Royal Hotel:
o Staff changes
o Change the sign into larger and smarter
o Provide a large up-to-date bar (converting exisitng underutilized public
rooms), thus creating a major revenue.
o Build an up-to-date leisure centre (underpin a rise in room rates & provide
useful revenue stream)
o Donald Saundby (good reputation in Galaxy, up and coming young man with
go-ahead ideas) as GM.
o All the Royal’s over-age staff had elected to retire, and many other staff had
chosen to move on (with the exception of Tommy)
♣ Several changes was put into action, starting from updating Royal’s staffing policies
until the establishment of the Golden bar which projected as a new source of Revenue
stream
♣ Nevertheless, in spite of the effort has been put in place by Inskip, the hotel’s
performance didn’t show any significant improvement, in fact it getting worse
♣ To make things worse, the police has informed the Galaxy’s management on
potential illegal activities taking place at the hotel which contradict Galaxy’s brand
image and on top of that the press also had know about it as well
♣ In the end, John Inskip has lost his position as Galaxy’s Westerpool Operational
Directors and has been demoted to other job.

A Big Mistakes From Start to Finish

No Drawbacks Remarks
1 John Inskip never have direct experiences in“taken charge of a group of inns and
managing "prestige” hotel. He even don’t havefamily hotels in and around
“leisure” category in his portfolio Weterpool” (case, p.62)
2 John Inskip failed to capture the ambiance andInskip tend to have shallow analysis
atmosphere offered by the Royal Hotel andin his discreet visit and not looking
demanded by the customers for second opinion
3 Inskip failed to formulate a clear strategy toInskip refuse to adjust his plan, when
synergize and merging the Galaxy’s value andthe leisure center was told to be
the existing value of Royal Hotel, and howpostponed
they will move forward
4 Inskip chose to appointed relatively young andNone of the new top level
lack of experience general manager, withoutmanagement have extensive
realizing the time constraints he has to doexperience on managing “prestige”
mentoring and supervision hotel.
5 Inskip failed to put a proper monitoring andSaundby tend to execute his idea
supervision mechanism in place without proper consultation with
Inskip
6 Inskip failed to formulated a series of trainingNo training whatsoever has been
activities of all the staff members, especiallydelivered to the staff members on the
on communication the changes and Galaxy’schange management
value
7 Inskip failed to obtained feedback from the
customer to get more insight on the
consumer’s behavior

Case Analysis
♣ About the change that happened in the Royal Hotel.
1. Observable artifacts changed without evaluating basic assumptions
2. Royal’s customers lost a sense of belongingness.
♣ As a result: the overall change was a big failure for the Galaxy Hotels.
♣ The corporate culture of the Royal Hotel before and after the change:
The Result of Change in Royal Hotel
– Decline of revenue
– Decline of occupancy rate
– Restaurant’s performance decreased
– Cancelled previous booking for Banqueting
– Only Golden Age bar that give revenue

Our Suggestions to Make Royal Hotel Much Better

♣ Bring it back to previous condition.
♣ Evaluate the Golden Age bar, whether to keep or not.
♣ Communication initiatives on disseminating the goals and objectives

Information from Marschner

• Tommy gone because no greenhouse anymore. (people used to come for miles to
see him in his greenhouse)
• Freddie was a barman, steward in the shell room. (He like to introduce guests to
one another)
• Customer in Freddie’s Bar used to be chairmen, directors, lawyers, women also,
minister and so on. Dress unformal, casual, opposite of the dining room.
• Critics: The restaurant’s atmosphere change, ruin, noisy; Golden Age so smoky,
noisy, can be heared in the Mr. Marschner’s room.
Lesson Learned
1. Investing on effort to obtained all the relevance information needed prior
determining goal and objectives
2. Set a clear goal, it has to be SMART!!
3. Having clear communication initiatives on disseminating the goals and objectives
4. Develop a clear and consistent Standard Operating Procedures, including
feedback mechanism
5. Conduct consumer behavior research to obtain insight and feedback from the
customer
6. Delivered a comprehensive training series to ensure the comprehension of all staff
members on values needs to be delivered