Hotels can benefit from a knowledge management system which will help with the transfer of knowledge between staff members with their service interactions. It will help with improving company-wide service quality. Thus, hotels can benefit from achieving knowledge about existing and ever-changing customer expectations
The most important task of hotels is to promote customer loyalty and satisfaction while gaining competitive advantage. One key factor of these matters is quality. The perception of the hotel quality is influenced by the service encounter that can range in time, by the type of hotel and the hotel guests with different experiences. Therefore, improving employees’ knowledge about customer’s preferences, needs and the corresponding service procedures are becoming more important in the hotel industry
Best Western International is the world’s largest hotel brand with more than 4000 hotels. This is a good example for knowledge management. Even though they have a franchise system with limited hierarchical power to the hotels, they do all follow the same vision and they are utilizing their employees’ knowledge. Best Western thinks that knowledge is the key to superior service quality which in its place leads to competitive advantage. They provide a range of infrastructure programs to all their partners and employees are therefore, able to retrieve, distribute and accumulate information in the internet-based intranet
Hotels can set specific goals concerning inter-hotel and intra-hotel knowledge management for example the implementation of an online information system. These knowledge goals can help enhance customer related knowledge. An example is guests’ cards which contain the data of frequent clients could be implemented. Front and back office could use this to organize guests’ preferences straight away. Moreover, guests’ satisfaction will be improved when the customer receives their preferences on rooms and services. Another goal could be better communication with tourist offices to gain knowledge on regional trends. Knowing about your clientele will give you that step ahead, and this will allow you to provide the best quality service. Implementing knowledge management systems will help creating this and these knowledge management goals might help with creating competitive advantage and great customer satisfaction hence, implementing a KM strategy is of paramount importance for the hotel industry
