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| By
: Heng Sopheap (National Institute of Management), Picture by
: Nathan Dexter. |
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HOSPITALITY
INDUSTRY
When we think of the hospitality industry, we almost
always think of hotels and restaurants. But the
term has a much broader meaning.
What is hospitality?
Ask fifty people to explain this and you are likely
to receive fifty different answers receiving guests
in a generous and cordial manner, creating a pleasant
or sustaining environment, satisfying a guest's
needs, anticipating a guest's desires, generating
a friendly and safe atmosphere-and the list goes
on. Each answer is correct.
Then what is the hospitality industry? Finding one
all-encompassing description of hospitality as an
industry is also difficult. The hospitality industry
comprises of numerous businesses that serve guests
who are away from home. |
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According to the
Oxford English Dictionary, hospitality means "the
reception and the entertainment of guests, visitors or
strangers with liberality and good will."
The word hospitality is derived from Latin noun hospice,
which in medieval times was the name of any "house
of rest" for travelers and pilgrims. A hospice was
also an early form of what we now call a nursing home,
and, of course, the word is clearly related to hospital.
Hospitality includes hotels and restaurants. But it also
refers to other kinds of institutions that offer shelter
or food or both to people away from their homes.
According to the Tourism Industry Department under the
Ministry of Tourism, by early 2001 the country had about
250 hotels and 300 guesthouses that could accommodate
and provide other services to more than 20,000 guests
a night, and the hotel occupancy rate rose in average
from 37 per cent in 1995 to 44 per cent in 2000.
Nearly 500 large and medium-sized restaurants offering
Khmer, European and Chinese foods to customers are available
in Phnom Penh, Siemreap, Sihanoukville and other provinces.
Tourists in Cambodia are catered to by some 150 registered
travel agencies and nearly 600 registered freelance guides.
Tourists can enjoy different types of leisure activities
such as fishing and bird watching in Tonle Sap area and
swimming at the coastal beaches of Sihanoukville, Koh
Kong or Kep, plus assorted sporting and recreational activities
in Phnom Penh.
Each business that provides services to visitors in these
areas is also a member of the hospitality industry.
Besides visiting sites of historical, cultural and natural
value, tourists may enjoy many other activities that constitute
entertainment, such as watching television or going to
the cinema.
Roads, airports, seaports and water and electricity supplies,
as well as telecommunication facilities are improving
year by year.
These institutions also grapple with the management problems
of providing food and shelter-erecting buildings, providing
heat, light, and power; cleaning and maintaining the premises
and preparing and serving food in a way that pleases the
guests.
Visitors expect all of these to be managed "with
liberality and good will" when they stay in a hotel
or dine in a restaurant, but they can also rightfully
expect the same standard of service from the catering
department in a healthcare facility or from a school lunch
program.
The hospitality professions all involve making a guest,
client, or resident welcome and comfortable and these
basic tenets of politeness and hospitality have been practiced
by civilizations the world over for thousands of years.
The hospitality industry is tied together as a clearly
recognizable unit by more than just a common heritage
and a commitment to "liberality and good will". |
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Suite
B8, Regency Square, InterContinental Hotel, 294 Mao Tse Toung
Boulevard,
Phnom Penh, Kingdom of Cambodia.
Tel: (855) 23 213 133 Fax: (855) 23 213 033
E-mail:
editor@leisurecambodia.com |
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