Today's marketing class was kinda different because we went for a company visit to Sheraton Hotel Surabaya. Finally!! We've been asking for a field trip and there were lots of obstacles but we finally made it. Yeaaa..
When we got there, we were welcomed by the Human Resources Manager, a cheerful and easy going, plump woman in a stunning batik top. Then we were divided into three smaller groups and had a tour of the hotel. The hotel has a total of 358 rooms with 8 different room types such as Deluxe, Premium, Deluxe Suite and Presidential Suite. We were not able to get a view of all the room types since the current hotel occupancy is 100%. We went to the meeting rooms, lounge, swimming pool, restaurants and health club.
Sheraton Surabaya is basically a business hotels. The events hold there are like business meetings, seminar, exhibition, conferences and wedding parties. Another property of the hotel is Pakuwon Golf and Family Club, just near my home, the place where my sister usually plays basketball. The hotel is under the Starwood hotels management, together with St. Regis (my favorite hotel in Bali), Westin and Le Meridien. All hotels under Starwood are focused differently with different customer segments, and therefore different brand positioning.
The last segment of our company visit was a lecture by the manager of Operational Excellence, a position that is uncommon in hospitality industry. His works are focused on ensuring operational excellence within the company by the use of Six Sigma theory. This theory is all about continuous efforts to achieve perfection (by defining the problem, measuring the current process, analyzing the data gathered, improving the current process and verifying the new design).
All in all, it's been a refreshing lecture and a new experience for us. I get to know that every hotel has its own personality. When I was sitting in the ballroom and listening to the speakers, I couldn't help but compare Sheraton and Grand Hyatt Bali (the hotel where I had my internship last year). Well, I will bear that in mind, that I have to establish my own hotel identity when I'm going to build my own hotel (hopefully someday).
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