Facilities for Physically Challenged Guests in Hotels

Hotel Classification Requirements
The following are requirements of the classification norms for providing facilities for physically challenged persons in hotels.

1. Guest vehicle arrives at hotel parking lot
Exclusively earmarked, clearly sign-posted and accessible parking space may be allocated nearest to the entrance.

2. Guest disembarks and enters hotel /restaurant
a. The entrance doors should have a minimum width of 32" to allow free access for wheelchairs.
b. Ramps with anti-slip floors and handrails are a necessary requirement for 4, 5 and 5 star D hotels and desirable for all others.

3. Guest Movement in the hotel
a. At least one telephone in the lounge or lobby or public areas seating area in the lobby should be placed at no higher than 24" from the floor.
This is necessary for 5-Star and 5-Star deluxe hotels, it would be desirable for all classified
hotels to have this facility.
b. The public rest rooms for ladies and gents should have facilities for physically challenged person's i.e. low height urinals as per international specifications.
This is a necessary requirement for all classified hotels. In 1&2 star hotels this may be unisex.
c. Facilities for visually handicapped.

4.Guest uses lift or elevator or stairs
Suitably equipped elevators i.e. minimum 32" width, handrails, audio-announcement of floors and accessible buttons for the physically challenged persons.

5. Guest checks into a room
At least one room should be equipped for physically challenged persons.
This is necessary for all 4, 5 and 5 -Deluxe category hotels and desirable for 1 to 4 star category hotels.

6. Guest goes to restaurant
a. Wheelchair access with suitable table in at least one multi-cuisine restaurant.
b. The entrance doors should have a minimum width of 32" to allow free access for wheelchairs.
c. Ramps with anti-slip floors and handrails are a necessary requirement for 4, 5 and 5 star D hotels and desirable for all others.

7. Guest faces emergency situation
Fire and emergency alarms should have visual and audible signals.

Reference Manual: Manual and Guidelines for providing facilities for physically challenged persons in Hotels & restaurants in India published by FHRAI.
Narendra Mohan Jha

Meals...? What meals??

Meetings can be great learning opportunities! Well, this meeting had nothing to do with meals. The discussion was primarily on how to effectively plan a lesson for students that could maximise retention.

During the course of discussion, setting learning objectives was being outlined and as an example, a lesson-"Types of Meals" from the F&B Syllabus was quoted. The question which came to mind then was "what is a Meal?"

What is a meal?

Try explaining what is a meal? Everyone understands what a meal is. Defining and explaining, however, becomes a bit difficult. Here is a definiton of meal as per the American Heritage Dictionary:
1. The edible whole or coarsely ground grains of a cereal grass.
2. A granular substance produced by grinding

Surprised? Now that is what the word originally meant. Today, we know a meal to be a portion/serving of food eaten at specific times during the day. For example, Breakfast at morning, dinner during mid-day and supper before sunset. This is how traditionally meals were planned during the Middle Ages.

Dinner at Noon?

In the Middle Ages, great nobles ate the most formal dinner, around noon or one p.m. Their dinner was more than a meal; it was an ostentatious display, a statement of wealth and power, with dozens of servants attending in a ritualized performance. Elaborate prepartions were cooked for this grand, daily showsince early morning. The meal usually lasted hours, and was consumed in the most formal and elaborately decorated chambers. Lesser nobles, knights and manor holders ate a far less formal dinner, but at the same time of day.

Today many people find it strange that the biggest meal of the day once centered around noon, but it made great sense at the time. Artificial lighting such as wick lamps, lanterns and candles were expensive, and provided weak illumination at best. So people went to sleep early, right after sunset and their culinary rituals had to be done before sundown.

What about Lunch?

From the Middle Ages to the age of Shakespeare, there are scattered references to occasional extra meals, called luncheon and nuntion or nuncheon. Nuntion was eaten between dinner and supper, and peasants were sometimes guaranteed nuntions of ale and bread on those days they worked harvesting the fields in the lengthy days of late summer and autumn, when sunset and supper came many hours after noon and dinner.

Luncheon seems to have been eaten between breakfast and dinner, when dinner was delayed. Luncheon was taken mainly by ladies and was not a large meal. It was more of a snack on those days when they had to wait for a late dinner due to the political or sporting affairs of their husbands.These late dinners became more and more common in the 1700s, due to new developments in culture and technology.

By 1800 the dinner hour had been moved to six or seven. For early risers this meant a very long wait until dinner. Even those who arose at ten a.m. or noon had a wait of anywhere from six to nine hours. Ladies, tired of the wait, had established luncheon as a regular meal, not an occasional one, by about 1810. It was a light meal, of dainty sandwiches and cakes, held at noon or one or even later, but always between breakfast and dinner. And it was definitely a ladies' meal; when the Prince of Wales established a habit of lunching with ladies, he was ridiculed for his effeminate ways, as well as his large appetite. Real men didn't do lunch, at least not until the Victorian era.

In her first edition of Etiquette, in 1922, Emily Post had seen no need to explain that. But by the 1945 edition, she had to explain that luncheon was an informal midday meal and supper an informal evening meal, while dinner was always formal, but could occur at midday or evening.

In the 21st century, meals are classified as under:

Standard meals eaten on a daily basis have different names depending on the time of day or the importance of the meal:
Breakfast is usually eaten within an hour or two after a person wakes up in the morning.
Elevenses is a drink and light snack taken late morning after breakfast and before lunch.
Brunch is a late-morning meal, usually larger than a breakfast and usually replacing both breakfast and lunch.
Lunch is a midday meal. May also be classified as dinner outside the US.
Afternoon Tea is a midafternoon meal - typically taken at 4pm - consisting of light fare such as small sandwches, individual cakes and scones with tea.
High Tea, also simply called "Tea" is a late afternoon / early evening meal that replaces the evening meal referred to as dinner
Dinner can be at any time of the afternoon or evening and usually denotes the main meal of the day; sometimes it is at lunchtime and sometimes at suppertime.
Supper is usually an evening meal.

Change in customs and traditions due to change in technology and socio-economic pressures are well documented. A good teacher should plan his/her lesson without ignoring the background of the input that has to be delivered to the students.

Ashim R Parida

Reference: Sherrie McMillan in History Magazine

Hotels Vs. Call Centers

There is a growing concern among hoteliers and tourism stakeholders about the unwillingness of hospitality students to join the hospitality industry. Recent research indicates that almost 70 percent of final year students from most hospitality campuses prefer to work in other industries such as BPO, Retail, Banking, Telecom etc. Most often students are lured by big money and predictable working hours in these industries. Sadly, the hospitality business is the big looser and that has an adverse impact of tourism quality in the country.

While there are close circle debates about methods to arrest this migration from hospitality to unrelated businesses , the problem has never been tackled headlong.

The hospitality business is largely owned/managed by unprofessional and first time entrepreneurs who lack experience in this unique people oriented business. The Industry is fragmented and managed in a shortsighted manner. What complicates the issue further is the lack of good practices or benchmarks and thus management methods vary widely across the Industry. Lack of innovations and technology adoption by practicing managers are other reasons why this industry is still a labour intensive industry requiring larger salary outlays which simply is not available.

Few suggestions that can bail us out of this worrisome trend are outlined below:

• Plan and design a hotel afer a thorough market survey.
• Introduce good HR policies to retain staff.
• Reduce manpower and enhance technology interventions in the property.
• Have smart marketing strategies to enhance turnover and profitability.

Hospitality business should pick up a few tricks of the trade from its counterparts in the Airlines business. The staff is more privelaged for similar in the airline industry as compared to hotels even though competencies required are the same.

You may add your comments. And yes! cast your vote...

I, You & They...

After a departmental meeting , one of the lady team members questioned the wisdom of the Director in castigating her in front of others for a very serious mistake that may have caused legal complications. She had no qualms about owning up to the mistake but there was a ruse in her voice which demanded" how dare you blame me in front of others?"

This feeling of humiliation may have demoralised the member somewhat but the point this incident raises is even more serious. The so called "others" present in the meeting were team members from the same department. Thus, to the lady in question, it is "Me" vs "They". In such a situation it is difficult to believe that the department functions as a team in which ideally there would be "We" more than "I, You and They".

Jack Welch once in his book "Winning". observed, "The team with the best players wins" Well, first there needs to be a team and the members must share a supportive relationship. Individual competencies can be strengthened but without the right bonding all teams are destined to fail!

Some of the critical attributes a good team member must possess:

INTEGRITY - people with integrity tell the truth, keep their word, take responsibility for past actions, admit mistakes and fix them, play to win the right way, by the rules. They are real, openly admit mistakes, talk about their lives with both candor & discretion.

INTELLIGENCE - not to be confused with education. Intelligent people have a strong dose of intellectual curiosity, with a breadth of knowledge to work with other smart people in today's complex world.

MATURITY - not to be confused with age, people can be mature or immature at any age. Mature people withstand the heat, handle stress and setbacks, enjoy success with joy & humility, respect the success of others, are confident but not arrogant, have a sense of humor, esp about themselves.

Ashim R Parida

Understanding Students' Need

Managing any Institute is a function of many relationships. The most important is, however, the relationship that exists between the teacher and the taught. Understanding the student's needs is imperative.

In an hospitality Institute it is important to have an environment where students can not only learn the intricacies of hospitality management but also able to develop a hospitality attitude.

At SHM, a new student is treated with a lot of care and starts with a week long orientation program. Parents are also invited to particpate in the program. The first week is often the most critical and daunting for a student since he/she is in uncharted territory. Thus the first few days of interactions need to be planned in a manner where the student quickly acclamitising into a professional academic climate. We invite industry practitioners to speak to the students and take them on a guided tour of the hotels and restaurants to ensure they have a clear image and understanding of the Industry they are going to work in.

Students start out with the expectation of a positive learning experience.
A typical students begins with the idea and belief that the Institute is going to
understand and fulfill their career aspirations. Institutes must understand that the ball is in
their court, and the student-Institute relationship begins with the opportunity
to demonstrate their sensitivity to the student's needs. And that I am convinced is not rocket science!

Ashim R Parida

Looking for solutions..?

Think Simple to Solve Complex Problems.

When we are confronted with problems, the natural tendency is to look for solutions. Discovering the correct solution depends upon our experience and resources. More experience and resources often leads to conditioned thinking and we tend to overlook solutions that may be simple. In many instances as outlined below, out of box thinking can lead to the discovery of simple and easy solutions.

1. When NASA began launching astronauts into space, they found out that the astronauts' pens wouldn't work at zero gravity (ink wouldn't flow down to the writing surface). It took them one decade and $12 million to solve this problem. They developed a pen that worked at zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on practically any surface including crystal, and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to over 300 degrees C.And what did the Russians do? The Russians used a pencil.

2. One of the most memorable case studies on Japanese managementtechniques was the case of the empty soap box, which occurred in oneof Japan's biggest cosmetics companies. The company received a complaint that a consumer had bought a soap box that was empty. Immediately the authorities isolated the problem to the assembly line, which transported all the packaged boxes of soap to the delivery department. For some reason, one soap box went through the assembly line empty.Management asked its engineers to solve the problem. Post-haste, theengineers worked hard to devise an X-ray machine with high-resolutionmonitors manned by two people to watch all the soap boxes that passedthrough the line, to make sure they were not empty. No doubt, they worked hard and they worked fast but they spent whoopee amount of time and money to doso.But when a rank-and-file employee in a small company was posed with the same problem, he did not get into the complications of X-rays, etc. but instead came out with another solution. He bought a strong industrial electric fan and pointed it at the assembly line. He switched the fan on, and as each soap box passed the fan, it simply blew the empty boxes out of the line.

3. A 50 feet long trailer having 48" wheels got stuck while entering a midtown tunnel in New York because it was approximately 2.5 feet taller than the height of the tunnel. The fire department and the state department of transportation spent the whole day searching for a solution, to no avail.Then a child, aged about 9 years, asked his father, "Why can't they take out the air from the tyre tubes? The height will automatically come down"

Moral: Always look for simple solutions. And learn to focus on solutions, not on problems.

Regards
Ashim R Parida

4Yrs Vs. 3Yrs Degree

Our Country is a land of intrigue. Where else can you have so many different degrees being awarded for proving competence in a singular field of study?
India has currently two distinct category of degrees available to aspirants who would want to graduate as a hospitality management professional.

The 4Yr. Degree
4 yr Bachelors Degree in Hotel Managemnt & Catering Technology
This Degree is awarded by Technical Universities across the country
The 3Yr. Degree
3Yr B.Sc in Hotel and Hospitality Administration
3Yr. BA in International Hotel Management
Both Degrees awarded by IGNOU

The Eternal Debate
While many experts believe that a 4yrs rigour in hospitality studies is necessary to develop an acceptable level of competenciy in both operational knowledge and supervisory skills, a few argue against any such strictures.

Having dealt with the curriculum of both the systems, this author is convinced that a 4yr delivery of hospitality education is more sustainable since it offers specialisation and allows young students more time to absorb the principles and apply them to the business of hospitality.

However, curriculum design and academic intentions are just one part of the issue. It is also critical that there is a resource base available in the Institution to support content delivery- both in terms of infrastructure and academic resources including well trained faculty.
I would be happy to understand your take on this issue.

Whats Your Take on This?
Please leave a comment and do vote on this issue in the poll alongside.
Regards

Ashim R Parida