Resort Operation Management

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................1

Company overview..........................................................................................................................1

Learning outcome 1.........................................................................................................................1

P1.1 Various functions of resort operations with the legal and health and safety issue..............1

P1.2 Resort managements structure and the various types specialist programmes.....................3

Learning outcome 2.........................................................................................................................5

P2.1 An effective quality system in resort operations and quality procedures............................5

P2.2 Implementation of an effective quality system and its positive impacts on the
operation of the resort...............................................................................................................6

Learning outcome 3.........................................................................................................................7

P3.1 Incidents that affect the health and safety of customers and staffs in a resort environment
.....................................................................................................................................................7

P3.2 The safety and health procedures implemented by a tour operator.....................................8

P3.3 The safety procedures with UK/European laws and the guidelines of trade association....8

Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9

References......................................................................................................................................10
Introduction
Resort management is one of the emerging and dynamic segment of tourism industry around the
world. It plays an important role when it comes about providing unique and quality service to the
customers. Standard management practices and careful attention are equally important for nay
resort operator. The renowned tour operator, Thomas Cook has two prominent resorts on
Cantaloupe Aqua in Sri Lanka and Secret Bay of Dominica. From the perspective of Thomas
Cook, the report describes the importance of resort management, the functions of resorts
operators, managing health and safety standards and its implementation with the help of
government and local bodies. It also explains how Thomas Cook maintains an effective quality
management program and creates superior value for the customers. The report describes a range
of incidents that can affect resort environment and customers’ health and the procedures
implemented by them to deal with those situations.

Company overview
Thomas Cook is one of the most prominent and top tier Tourism Company of Britain. It was
formed through merger of Thomas Cook AG and My Travel group in 2007 and providing
premium and quality service in 4 countries-United Kingdom, Germany, Scandinavia and
Balearics, along with Asian countries and Caribbean tropical islands and outside European
continental belt. It has a number of touring service including an airlines. From 2008, the started
their operation in Middle East Asia. They provide tourist excursion at different resorts at an
affordable cost. Thomas Cook owns a number of large resorts and hotels where tourists can
travel safely and enjoy high quality service with their facilities of air bus and hotels. They
persistently follow way of innovation and seek to provide highest value towards customer. The
vision of Thomas Cook is to transform their business that can deliver customers more than just
their holiday dreams

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Learning outcome 1
P1.1 Various functions of resort operations with the legal and health and
safety issue
Resort management is a specific function and branch of tourism operation around the world
which covers the food and beverages, safety and health issue maintenance and make up a
coordination of interest between stakeholders through work. Thomas Cook provides its service in
several resorts of Caribbean and Indian resort areas such as, Secret Bay of Dominica, Curtain
Bluff of Antigua, and Bahia Beach resort of Puerto Rico, Anantaya resort and Cantaloupe Aqua
of Sri Lanka and some other phenomenal tourist places (Gee, 2013). The resort operations
include making proper arrangements of accommodation, maintaining logistics and service
supply, providing health and safety checks, communicating with different offices, and ensure
maximum satisfaction for the customer (Barker and McGregor, 2011).

Thomas Cook provide its services in more than 30 countries around the world and provide
customers with all kinds of specialised facilities to visit different famous tourist spots. It operates
several basic functions within their business. The key resort management operations can
discussed under following heads-

Providing facilities: The core value of any resort operator derives from its best service to the
customers. The key strategy is to understand the needs of the customers and customise the
package accordingly to provide them maximum benefits and make them a loyal customer.

Generating revenue: A resort operator has generate its revenue different inclusive facilities with
tourism. Food chain, meeting places for businessmen, recreation centre, or any other service that
renders greatest delight to the customer and creates comfortable environment for them.

Coordination of suppliers: This function requires negotiation of prices and costs with the
material and logistics suppliers and ensuring regular delivery of products from them. As they
belongs to the company as one of the stakeholders, resort operators have protect their interest and
develop a supportive relationship(Gee, 2013).

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Customer service- The key stakeholder for resort management companies is customers. They
need to carefully understand the needs of various customers and design the touring packages
with best available product and service options to them and meet their needs.

Communication: A business flourishes when it can successfully develop a communication

network with its stakeholders. They need to communicate with the head office regarding any
suggestion for their problems, with customers to inform them about new service and facilities,
with employees and suppliers and others. Maintaining a coordination between the different
departments are also necessary for the company (Brymer and Lefever, 2015).

Safety and health measures: Before providing service to the customers, a resort operator must
ensure proper safety of their health and environment. They should carefully analyse the
surroundings of the resort and internal environment to identify any potential factors for accident
and use appropriate measures and policies to ensure the safety of the tourists.

Proposals and legislation: Resort operator should follow the laws and regulation regarding the
industry in a particular region. They should bid a competitive and fair price of their service to the
customers and set up standards of their operations. They need to monitor regularly the interest of
the employees and train them to become a human asset for the company(Brymer and Lefever,
2015). They should comply with the legal standards and regulation and maintain the quality in
their service.

Figure 1: Function of resort management operation

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P1.2 Resort managements structure and the various types specialist
programmes
Tourism is a combination of both products and services. It includes food and accommodation. It
is the places for recreation and relaxation of people. Resort organisations play a vital role in
providing tourists with opportunity to visit those places, which is a part of service and providing
necessary hospitality materials to make their stay comfortable which are generally products. So,
a resort operator has to adopt a structure focusing on their service chain(Barker and McGregor,
2011). The different components of service adds value to this service chain and demands a price
to justify their contribution.

Several structures like, inclusive resort, full board, half board, self-catering and some others.
Based on how service are provided to the guests and how different activities rotate, the suitable
structures can be described as follows-

Figure 2: Resort management structure

All-inclusive: All-inclusive resorts are comprised of all kinds of services offered to the clients
that are included in a package, like lodging service, foods and drinks, transportation, water
recreational activities etc. These resort structure is popular in tropical and warm touring regions
and demands a specific price in package for all its service(Brymer and Lefever, 2015).

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Full board: Full board structure includes all services except air transportation and meal service
or other any other service. Visitors can manually add these services in the package if they want.
This packages are designed for those who want to have good experience from the place but don’t
want additional service(Gee, 2013).

Half board: Half board includes all services except any meal or drinks. It can be only to a
certain price in the package if the visitors want. It are suitable for those visitors who want to get
experience and delight from their tour or excursion on their own but demands a safe
accommodation and some other facilities for their journey.

Self-catering: Self-catering is a kind of service where no meal or drinks are included but visitors
are provided with kitchen and other cooking facilities such as, cooker, microwave or kettle. It is
suitable for those who want a homelike feeling during their tour and foods are available cheaply
in the nearest supermarkets (Murphy, 2015).

Whatever the structure an operator follow for resort management they need to have included
standard functions to provide services and perform other guest-related activities-

Sign of contract and the terms and conditions: Tour operator set prices of different tourism
packages based on what services are included, locations in which it will be provided and the
customers who can afford those services. To confirm that customers can pay for all those
services and maintain some code of conduct during the tour, they have sign on a contract with
specific terms and conditions(Gee, 2013). These terms and conditions include length of service
time, clients and customer particulars, price of service and some other facilities. They need to
disseminate all the information about the terms and conditions through clear and certain
communication channels.

Plan of resource allocation: Every organisation runs its operation with a limited available
resources. So, they need to develop plans on how to generate maximum possible return with
efficient use of resources. Accordingly, they have design their ideas for business operation in
different resources and plan for other resources like, employees, financial investment and other
additional facilities.

Pricing of tour packages: Resort operators have to carefully determine the costs of providing
service to customers per head and charge a price based on the target profit. They can charge high

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price during the peak season because the demand for tourists will be high on that period. The
costs are divided based on administration, advertising, direct cost incurred for service and others.
This pricing should be set in a way that the customer may find it fair and reasonable and on the
other hand, it can be implement the strategic target for an organisation(Murphy, 2015).

Learning outcome 2
P2.1 An effective quality system in resort operations and quality procedures
Effective quality system and procedures for the resorts always come up with better benefits and
outcome for the resort operator. Some of the most famous resorts of Thomas Cook are
Cantaloupe Aqua of Sri Lanka and Secret Bay of Dominica where standard quality management
procedures are followed frequently in every task which has made the visitors loyal to them.
Quality in hospitality industry is defined as consistent delivery of value to the customers through
products and service as per standards(Barker and McGregor, 2011). Visitors become satisfied
with the service of company when they get more of their expectations and this value creation is
important for the company to sustain in the long run. Creating value for the visitors and
managing quality standards, Thomas Cook can retain the customers in the business and these
practices has made them successful in hospitality industry(Verma, 2015).

The functions of value delivery system which have made them successful can be described as
following-

Consider the guest being served: A good and profitable relationship with customers are always
important for a company. Their needs and basic expectations should be recognised properly and
the effective marketing tools and techniques need to be used. Creating a delightful experience in
their visit to the resorts and addressing their complaint in a positive style are equally important
for the companies.

Identify the desire of the guests: Managers of the resort should carefully approach to the
customers and determine what they desire by using questionnaire or review and comment cards.
The customers may not be satisfied when don’t get service as expected.

Using procedures to deliver service to the guests: Generally two procedures are used to
provide guest-friendly service which are-

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Benchmarking- Benchmarking is a process where the company oversees how its resources are
used to deliver service and how it is done by competitors.

Cross-functional team- Cross-functional teams are assigned in different areas of the hotel and
they consider different ways and method how their service can be improved.

Thomas Cook follow the latter procedure for service delivery in foreign resort. It may happen
that a customer booked a package with premium accommodation and food quality but Thomas
Cook could not provide for lack of sufficient accommodation facility. To avoid conflicts and
dissatisfaction from customers, they have arrangement for alternative accommodation and food
service in a resort of similar quality. They also provide the general services in which they should
have a policy of refunding to the customers.

Training staff and employees: The employees are one of the most valuable resource of resorts.
Employees trained in performing required procedures and with excellent communication can
help a company to boost up their performance(Murphy, 2015). They should learn to how deal
with the customer, offer the services in best possible ways, convince them with superior
communication skills and take key decisions about the resort management.

Evaluation and modification of service: The resort operator must should be aware of their
weakness, identify the problems with the service model and find out how they can serve the
customers in an improved way with existing resources. This may requires purchasing new
equipment or tools, launching new policy and training and change the procedures.

P2.2 Implementation of an effective quality system and its positive impacts

on the operation of the resort
Maintaining standard quality management procedures are important for the tour operators. As a
renowned brand in touring service around the world, Thomas Cook provide different kinds of
services to the customers. They have developed own set of regulations for employees and other
key personnel. The employees have distinctive dress code and maintain an appealing style in
their appearance. They communicate in formal and understandable language to the customers
and maintain professional code of conduct in performing their responsibility and answering any
need of customers. They are trained enough to handle any stress situation and take necessary
decisions to manage resources during peak season of tourism(Huybers,2016).

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Different departments such as, front-desk, food and banquet, room management, safety and
security departments are always ready to serve the customer in every possible ways. Front-desk
manager receive the queries of the customers and provide answers in a relevant manner and
attempt to build a good relationship with customers. Thomas Cook promote their tourist
packages to the customers through online mediums and their websites(Huybers,2016).
Customers can book their service at any time. When delivering service, they follow some legal
proceeding and ensure that customers have agreed to terms and conditions about price and some
other facilities. They clearly inform the customer what benefits are available within the packages
and what rules they should abide by to avoid any legal and safety related issues(Verma, 2015).
They follow DDA (Disability and Discrimination) Act so that no customer, employees or any
stakeholders are discriminated based on sex, caste and any other cultural difference. All these
things have improved their last year’s revenue by 7% percent at home and by 11% in other
countries of the world. The growth in revenue and creating greater value from the customers
under most critical environmental constraints are the most significant outcome they got from two
of their resorts in Jamaica and Sri Lanka(Hall et al.,2012).

Learning outcome 3
P3.1 Incidents that affect the health and safety of customers and staffs in a
resort environment
Touring at different beautiful places for spending good time during leisure is a common habit of
people in all countries. People are more eager to visit at places of historical and natural beauty at
home and abroad and People can avail all the luxury facilities at a certain cost which has made
tourism sector attractive and one of the rapidly growing industry for most countries.. But some
unexpected incidents can cause a huge damage to the customers and industry as well (Alvintzi
and Eder, 2012). These risk factors come from a range of backgrounds- environmental, political,
and infrastructural and some others.

Thomas Cook has adopted a good number of policies for emergency situations and trained their
employees to manage and handle these situations efficiently. They always keep ready an
emergency plan for contingent situations to support and manage the customers. Several incidents
that can affect Cantaloupe Aqua of Sri Lanka and Secret Bay of Dominica are-

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Incidents from natural causes: These incidents include hurricanes, floods, tidal waves,
avalanches and volcanic eruption and they are uncontrollable by any regulation or premeditated
steps. Sri Lanka has been devastated during the huge tidal wave and earthquake in 2006 and the
resorts have been submerged under water. Jamaican tropical resorts also have such risk of
damages. So Thomas Cook need to have immediate action plan on such situations to reduce the
damage and transit the customers to a safer place(Pizam and Mansfeld, 2011).

Incidents from transports: These incidents include plane crashes, hijack, safety problems on
aviation and railway. Good resort management can reduce the fatality of the damage from these
incidents. Thomas Cook includes travel insurance facility in every package for the customers.
Thomas Cook provide air travel service in which they have well trained crew and staffs to handle
any harmful situation. All other transportation are also thoroughly checked for safety before any
tour(Alvintzi and Eder, 2012).

Incidents from medical issues: These incidents include outbreak of any epidemic diseases like,
food poisoning, cholera, malaria. Visitors might affected adversely in those situations. Thomas
Cook always ensure quality and safety in food to the customers and maintain health standards in
environment of the resort. They also make emergency medical kit available for customers in
such situations.

Political problems: Political problems can be war, riot, terrorism and others problems with a
political background. Domestic riot problem continued in Jamaica during 1996 with a threat to
visitors. For these reasons, the resorts were affected greatly and was considered unsafe for the
visitors. The resorts had to make proper arrangements against that problem(Hall et al.,2012).

P3.2 The safety and health procedures implemented by a tour operator

Thomas Cook have a number of procedures and regulations to check the emergency issues and
ensure the safety of the customer. They have a bunch of safety management team who work to
maintain highest level of safety and take all precautionary measures during the touring
experience of customers. Above all, the safety management program is maintained all level of
touring experiences for the customers, which are described below-

Safety on accommodation: A team of accommodation agents check the potential sources of that
can cause damage to the customers and sign in a contract from that confirms that all safety

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standards of fire, safety and hygiene are obtained before the visitors arrive. They regularly
monitor the conformity of standards, improve them to high-quality standards, detect the
unacceptable things and eliminate them as soon as possible(Huybers,2016).

Safety on transport: It is ensured that the coaches and airbuses have a thorough safety check
before any travel and all passengers have a travel insurance included in their packages, which is
provided under Confederation of Passenger Transport (CPT). Thomas Cook make them drivers
sign into a contract which includes driving experience, insurance cover, vehicle age to ensure the
set of safety standards on transport. All staff and crews are trained to handle any emergency
situation and follow a code of practice developed earlier(Pizam and Mansfeld, 2011).

Safety on tour: Most of the tour managers are recruited on a freelance basis during the peak
season who are responsible for the well-being of the visitors under his command. So, Thomas
Cook ensure that these managers are checked for CRB to ensure that they are referenced for their
credibility (Hall et al.,2012). All the information about the managers are profiled on a database
and their performance are reviewed at regular intervals. The managers are trained properly on the
guidelines, company safety policies and service standards and trained on the procedures to deal
with emergency situations like, injury and illness of clients, technical problems, or rough weather
condition(Alvintzi and Eder, 2012).

P3.3 The safety procedures with UK/European laws and the guidelines of
trade association
Thomas Cook has operate their business and implement the procedures along with the guidelines
of travel association and government regulatory bodies. Thomas Cook ensures that all rules and
regulations under the framework of such organisations are abided by them. These procedures are
also implemented in Cantaloupe Aqua of Sri Lanka and Secret Bay of Dominica.

With regulations of Federation of Tour Operators (FTO), Thomas Cook handle all customer
related issues such as, refunding of payment in case of failure in service, communicating with
customers, booking the resorts for customers and any other issues (Huybers,2016). With Foreign
and Commonwealth office (FCO), they follow the regulations on dealing with emergency
situations when they have to inform about the conditions of customers to their family and
provide advice to the visitors on maintaining safety during travel. The tour managers and well

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trained staff do these jobs(Alvintzi and Eder, 2012). With British Travel Agency (BTA), they
provide regular treatment for physiological issues of the customer at any unpredictable situation
of accident and restore the resort to the previous condition. Through Duty Office, they maintain a
network of communication with other resorts. They inform the visitors about what safety actions
they need to follow during an accident and it makes them convenient to handle any crisis
situation. The arrangement of alternative service are also done and train their tour guides
following the standards developed by them.

Above all, Thomas Cook stay prepared to face with any contingent situation and has developed a
set of safety measures and regulations for good management on crisis situation. They always
keep a good relationship with the local authorities and government bodies which have supported
their business to run smoothly on any condition (Verma, 2015). For this reason, Thomas Cook
keeps a bunch of emergency service team and crisis management team available for any
technical and physiological support to the customers and contacting with the regulatory bodies
on any incident (Pizam and Mansfeld, 2011). Thomas Cook believes on creating delight and
memorable experience for customers throughout the tour and customers are one of their key
stakeholders. So, protecting their interest and ensuring safety of them to gain the trust are vital
for sustaining their operation.

Conclusion
Resort management is a flourishing sector alongside with tourism. As a management executive, I
found the merging tourist destinations on Sri Lanka and Dominica Island and the growing market
of tourism. In such a position, Thomas Cook can take advantage being a traditional tour
operators and manages its resorts successfully. Several aspects of resort operation are discussed
in this report. It can be said with lesser doubt that Thomas Cook is providing best class service to
its clients in Cantaloupe and Secret Bay. Their air service, accommodation and arrangement for
leisure and fun activities and maintaining the standards for quality and safety are elegant and
provides customer with maximum value and satisfaction.

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References
Alvintzi, P. and Eder, H. (2012). Crisis management. New York: Nova Science Publishers.

Barker, D. and McGregor, D. (2011). Resources, planning and environmental management in a

changing Caribbean. Barbados: University of the West Indies Press.

Brymer, R. and Lefever, M. (2015). Hospitality management. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt.

Gee, C. (2013). Resort development and management. East Lansing, Mich.: Educational Institute
of the American Hotel & Motel Association.

Hall, C., Timothy, D. and Duval, D. (2012). Safety and Security in Tourism. Hoboken: Taylor
and Francis.

Huybers, T. (2016). Tourism in developing countries. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

Jones, T. (2016). Professional management of housekeeping operations. Hoboken (New Jersey):

J. Wiley & Sons.

Laws, E. (2017). Managing packaged tourism. London [etc.]: International Thomson Business
Press.

Laws, E., Prideaux, B. and Chon, K. (2015). Crisis management in tourism. Wallingford, UK:
CABI Pub.

Murphy, P. (2015). Quality management in urban tourism. Chichester: Wiley.

Murphy, P. (2015). The business of resort management. New York: Routledge.

Pizam, A. and Mansfeld, Y. (2011). Tourism, security and safety. London: Routledge Taylor &
Francis Group.

Pizam, A. (2014). International encyclopedia of hospitality management.

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Resort management in Europe. (2016). London: Continuum Publishing Group.

Verma, R. (2015). Tourism management. New Delhi: Centrum Press.

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