ROLE AND PLACE OF ACCOMMODATION SERVICES IN THE HOSPITALITY SECTOR

One of the most important activities in the service sector is “service, which is based on the principles of hospitality, characterized by generosity and friendliness towards guests”. The hospitality industry covers serving citizens moving from place to place with different goals. As a rule, the sphere of tourism and travel or the tourism industry is distinguished as an area of ​​activity for serving tourists (a certain category of travelers).

The main service produced by the tourism industry is a tourist package or a tourist product, which refers to the right to a tour intended for sale to a tourist. In turn, a tour is considered as a complex of services for accommodation, transportation, meals for tourists, excursion services, as well as the services of guides-interpreters and other services provided depending on the purpose of the trip. Figure 1 shows the general scheme of the formation and implementation of the tour.

From a universal human point of view, hospitality must satisfy at least the primary human needs for nutrition, rest and sleep. Traditionally, the main elements of the hospitality industry include accommodation, meals, and transfers.

(transport), recreation. Each of the segments, together with the others, is an integral part of the dynamically developing hospitality industry, which influences millions of people around the world every day.

Thus, the place of accommodation services in the hospitality sector can be represented by:

1) as part of a tour, a comprehensive tourist service;

2) as a separate tourist service, for example, in the case of unorganized tourism.

Accommodation in the tourism and travel industry refers to any premises that regularly or occasionally provides tourists with overnight accommodation.

Internationally, any accommodation facility is defined as “an accommodation facility that provides overnight accommodation for a traveler in a room or other accommodation, but the number of beds it provides exceeds a specified minimum for groups of persons larger than a single family unit; and all places in a given establishment must be subject to a single management of a commercial type, even if it does not aim to make a profit”.

The hospitality sector accounts for up to 65% of employment and 68% of tourism and travel revenues, and the global hotel industry has grown by 2.8% annually since 2000. According to experts, accommodation facilities represent a “miniature tourism industry” because they provide complex, comprehensive services.

The product presented by accommodation facilities to the market is usually considered as “the offer of a hotel enterprise on the hospitality services market, which is, as a rule, a combination of two or three basic services”.

Scientists and practitioners in the field of tourism economics and management agree that accommodation services have the classic features of services as such. To summarize, we can present them as follows.

Features of accommodation services

Feature Expression

Intangibility A service cannot be assessed until it is provided and consumed. Photos and brochures do not give a complete comprehensive picture of the service.

Consumer participation The consumer directly participates in the service process, regulating its content and features, using all or individual capabilities,

Feature Expression

provided by the accommodation facility.

Connection between the processes of provision, delivery and consumption These processes are inextricably linked. Accommodation services are provided and consumed directly at the company's location. The consumer, forming the content of the service, regulates the process of its provision and at the same time receives the result.

Unstorability The services of accommodation facilities cannot be stored, transported or accumulated. The cost of an empty room cannot be covered by increased sales.

Variability of quality and complexity of standardization The material component of the service (room area, structure of the room stock, furnishings, etc.) is subject to standardization. This shapes the technical quality of the accommodation facility’s services. Since the second component of the service is the activities of the staff, the influence of the human factor on the quality of service (friendliness and professionalism, level of training, motivation) is great. Changes in personnel or changes in their training may mean qualitative changes in the service. It is believed that functional quality (quality of service) is practically impossible to standardize.

Lack of ownership rights By providing a room at the temporary disposal of a guest, the owner of the accommodation facility, however, does not transfer ownership of either the room itself or the equipment located on its territory.

As part of the accommodation facility service, it is customary to distinguish two main components: the material base (technical equipment, infrastructure) and

service (personnel activities). In other words, on the one hand, special premises (rooms) are provided for temporary use, on the other hand, services are provided directly by the staff: porter services for receiving and registering guests, maid services for cleaning hotel rooms, services for ordering a taxi or information service. reference services, etc.

As a rule, the components of an accommodation facility service are conventionally divided into two components: those included in the price of accommodation and those provided for an additional fee. The specific set of the first and second elements depends on the category of the accommodation facility, marketing policy and a number of other factors.

Rooms are the main element of the accommodation service. These are multifunctional rooms designed for relaxation, sleep, and work of resident guests. Their most important function is to enable sleep. The importance of other functions of hotel rooms primarily depends on the purpose of the accommodation facility and the needs of the target client segment. For example, in

Accommodation facilities intended for tourists traveling for business purposes usually provide opportunities for work and negotiations: Internet access, areas in the room or areas outside the room for business meetings.

As a rule, accommodation facilities have different categories of rooms, differing in size, furniture, equipment, equipment, etc. However, regardless of category, the room must have the following furniture and equipment: bed, chair and armchair, night table, wardrobe, general lighting, trash can. In addition, each room must contain information about the accommodation facility and an evacuation plan in case of fire.

The next most important element is the ability to cater for guests. In accommodation facilities, as a rule, the following types of services are distinguished, which are taken into account when determining the cost of the service:

— lack of food services;

— provision of breakfast;

— half board (providing two meals a day according to the “breakfast-lunch” or “breakfast-dinner” schemes);

— full board (three meals a day);

— all inclusive (full board and free use of some cafe/bar services);

— extra all inclusive (full board, additional meals and the right to use all services of cafes/bars of the accommodation facility).

Other services complement the offer of accommodation and catering services. These include the offer of swimming pool services, conference rooms, meeting rooms, sports equipment, car rental, dry cleaning services, laundry, hairdresser, massage room, etc. In this regard, the accommodation service is comprehensive, including accommodation services directly , as well as a number of additional and related services. According to experts, the list of additional services depends on the category of the accommodation facility and may include more than 30 types of services.

The full range of services is determined by the management of the accommodation facility and, depending on how they are designed and combined into a single complex, a certain type/category of the enterprise is formed, such as a luxury hotel, a middle class hotel, an apartment hotel, an economy class hotel, a hotel -resort, motel, private bed and breakfast, hotel-garni, boarding house, guest house, rotel, boat, flotel, flytel.

As a rule, scientists and practitioners include the following main assortment groups of services in the product nomenclature of a hotel enterprise:

— assortment group No. 1 - hotel rooms (rooms, suites and apartments of various categories);

— assortment group No. 2 - places and catering services

(restaurants, bars, cafes, etc.), as well as in-room catering services (room service, minibars);

— assortment group No. 3 - premises for holding

representative events (conference halls, meeting rooms, banquet halls);

— assortment group No. 4 - premises and services for recreation and recreation

(swimming pool, sauna, gym, aerobics room, solarium, massage, etc.);

— assortment group No. 5 - services and transport for transporting guests,

services for ordering tickets, excursions, etc.

From our point of view, we cannot fully agree with such a structuring of the offer of accommodation services. In the author’s terminology, “assortment group No. 5” is a set of services provided by the staff of the accommodation facility on the equipment of the accommodation facility and within the framework of providing the required accommodation conditions. Groups 3--4 represent services that can be provided by other organizations on the territory of accommodation facilities or by non-core employees.

For the purpose of further research, under the term “accommodation services” we will consider comprehensive services, and in our opinion, as part of a comprehensive accommodation service, several levels of importance and inseparability should be distinguished for serving tourists and travelers (Fig. 2).

Currently, there are many types of accommodation facilities in the world, and in order to understand the reasons for such diversity, it is necessary to turn to the historical moments of the development of this service sector. The conditions of the Second World War dictated the need to relocate a significant number of people, which led to almost 100% occupancy of hotels.

After the war, people's lifestyles changed, the number of travelers increased sharply, family travel became popular, and a demand arose for accommodations convenient for family vacations without the need to pay for the full range of services offered by the hotel.

Accommodation services:

— provision of a room with appropriate amenities, furnishings and equipment;

- public utilities;

Main service

G

V

+

Food services (subject to availability):

breakfast only;

half board;

boarding house;

"all inclusive"; "extra all inclusive"

Additional services:

— room reservations; — porter services;

— room service; — laundry and dry cleaning services;

- porter services; — other accommodation facility services.

+

Accompanying services:

— services of gyms and swimming pools;

- medical service;

— trade;

— information and consulting

services;

— ordering tickets, taxis, etc.;

rental services;

— services of conference rooms and meeting rooms;

beauty salon services;

— Internet access, etc.

Comprehensive accommodation service for tourists and travelers

These trends necessitated the creation of new types of accommodation enterprises; motels appeared that offered limited service at low prices. In the early 80s, apartment-class hotels and condotels became popular, combining the convenience of a separate apartment and hotel services, which was due to the emergence of the “condominium” - a new form of real estate ownership.

Thus, the development of new types of accommodation facilities has led to the saturation of the market with hotel services. As a result, there was a need for detailed segmentation of hotel services in order to successfully sell to certain consumer groups. More specialized accommodation facilities have become popular: resort, congress, golf hotels, etc. The initial focus of hotels only on accommodation and food is expanding today. The initial service package is complemented by many additional services. The old trend of building hotels near transport hubs has now received a new manifestation associated with the development of air transport. Hotel companies began to develop construction near airports and on their territory.

Experts call the following modern main trends in the development of the hotel business:

• expansion of the sphere of interests of the hotel business to products and services previously provided by enterprises in other industries (for example, catering, leisure, entertainment, exhibition activities, etc.);

• development of democratization of the hotel industry, helping to increase the availability of hotel services for the mass consumer;

• strengthening the specialization of the hotel business, making it possible to more clearly target certain consumer segments, taking into account various characteristics;

• globalization and concentration of the hotel business;

• personalized service and full concentration on customer requests and needs;

• widespread introduction of new means of communication and information technologies, allowing for in-depth and systematic economic diagnostics;

• introduction of new technologies into the business strategy of hotel enterprises, in particular, the widespread use of the Internet to promote hotel products and services.

All of the above leads to differentiation of accommodation services, the emergence of new forms and conditions of service. These processes directly affect the quality of services and services and affect the safety of tourists and travelers. Therefore, issues of classification, standardization, certification and licensing of accommodation services become extremely important for the development of the hospitality industry and are subject to either regulation by the state and/or its authorized bodies, or self-regulation.

Thus, these services are highlighted in a number of classifiers. OKUN presented the following groupings:

- services of communal hotels and other communal places of residence include services of hotels, motels, hostels and other places of residence;

- services of accommodation facilities for temporary residence of tourists include the services of hotels and similar accommodation facilities, except for communal ones - hotels, incl. apartment type, motels, live-in clubs, furnished rooms, dormitories,

- services of specialized accommodation facilities include the services of sanatoriums, dispensaries, holiday homes, labor and recreation camps, tourist shelters, parking lots and others, tourist, sports centers, recreation centers, hunters' (fisherman's) houses, congress centers, public means of transport (tourist trains , cruise ships, yachts), land and water transport, converted into accommodation facilities for overnight stays, camping sites (camping sites, caravans);

— services of individual accommodation facilities - apartments, rooms in apartments, houses, cottages for rent;

— sanatorium and health services include accommodation in sanatoriums, dispensaries, recreation centers, boarding houses, specialized year-round sanatorium children's recreation centers, summer (seasonal) children's recreation centers.

The activities of hotels, motels, campsites and other places of short-term accommodation include activities related to the provision of services and work on organizing, for a fee, short-term accommodation in hotels, campsites or buildings on the campsite, open to the public without restrictions or limited to members of a specific organization. This also includes the services of restaurants operating in connection with the provision of accommodation, and also includes the services of sleeping cars if they are provided by individual companies. The types of services included in this group include those typically provided by motels, school and student dormitories, waiting rooms, guest houses and lodgings, youth hostels, rooming houses, etc.

A feature of this classification group, in our opinion, is the combination of accommodation and food services. On the other hand, it remains unclear how to separate, for example, a hotel that provides food services and a hotel where this is not possible.

— activities of hotels with restaurants - provision of services by hotels with various types of public catering establishments (restaurants, cafes, snack bars, bars, etc.);

— activities of hotels without restaurants;

— activities of other places for temporary residence;

— activities of youth tourist camps and mountain tourist centers;

- activities of campsites - provision of places for temporary accommodation in buildings on the campsite, on camping sites, provision of parking for residential motorhomes and trailers;

— activities of other places of residence;

— activities of children's camps during the holidays;

— activities of boarding houses, holiday homes, etc.;

— rental of furnished rooms for temporary residence;

— provision of places for temporary accommodation in railway stations

sleeping cars and other vehicles;

- activities of other places for temporary residence, not included in other groups - provision of places for temporary residence in apartments, rural houses, houses for visitors, etc., in dormitories for students, workers, etc.

Note that here for the first time the time horizon is defined as a factor in classifying services as accommodation services within the tourism industry or as services for real estate transactions. An accommodation facility can provide its services to tourists - citizens visiting the country (place) of temporary stay for recreational, educational, professional, business, sports, religious and other purposes without engaging in paid activities for a period from 24 hours to 6 months in a row or carrying out at least one night stay. If the services of accommodation facilities are used by citizens who are not tourists, for example, a student, arriving in another city/country for the purpose of studying for up to 5 years and staying in a hostel, then these services are recorded according to a different classification group.

The evolution of classification approaches to accommodation services shows that with the development of tourism and travel, the growing influence on the economy of the country/region, the expansion of individual markets and the emergence of new ones, service in this sector becomes more complex and requires more precise structuring.

The variety of accommodation facilities requires careful classification in order to streamline their activities, study the features of their functioning, monitor the tourism services market, etc. Attempts to develop typologies of accommodation facilities have been made by many organizations at various levels, as well as by individual specialists.