Tourism Semester Reflection 

I have never taken a hospitality class before. The reason that I chose to take this specific class was because I love traveling. I spent last year traveling Europe throughout my study abroad. I wanted to learn the business behind traveling and hospitality.

There were many aspects of this class that I enjoyed. The top three being, the Best Western Case, role-playing activities, and speaking to the Kimpton Hotel people.

1.     I liked the Best Western Case because I am highly familiar with the brand. When I was younger, I stayed at many Best Westerns. My family never knew if they should book the Best Western because they never knew what to expect. They were always hesitant because for every good experience that we had at this hotel chain, we had a bad one. The brand was not unified. After studying this case, I learned the importance of having unity and cohesion across a hotel brand. Customers should have certain expectations when booking with a hotel chain. I liked that the class broke the case Best Western case into standardized, regionalized, and localized. I learned that it is smart to have standardized hotel policies, colors and brand logos. However, when having a hotel chain, it is also important to give a taste of the region and local culture. This case was the most helpful in understanding the hotel industry.

2.     I also learned a lot from our role playing activities. This method of learning was unfamiliar to me.  I think that I liked this method of learning because it creates options and put me in a situation that I had to quickly resolve. For example, in the Leon case, it was interesting to see some of my fellow classmates use different strategies. I then was able to compare these strategies to my own thoughts. The role-playing activities allowed me to see some common issues in the hotel industry and how to resolve them.

3.     A huge highlight of this class was having the Kimpton people come into class. They were very entertaining and engaging with the class. I learned so much from them because they gave first hand experience and examples to managing a hotel. They also were able to compare and contrast the two different hotels. This demonstrated that although both hotels were part of the Kimpton in Washington D.C, the hotels had a different vibe. I also appreciated them showing us real excel sheets and explaining these daily activities. It summarized everything we learned in class, however they were able to give real life examples.

- Randi