hat cater to business travelers; other properties use a discount approach to bring in one-night travelers. Some properties appeal to families, while others seek to attract singles or couples. Some hotels serve airport areas, while others are located near convention centers and market to groups almost exclusively.
Motels are usually one or two stories and offer limited food service. These facilities are designed for family travelers and not for extended stays. Hotels are multistory buildings that include a coffee shop, lounge, room service, convenience shops, and banquet facilities. Resorts generally offer a vacation atmosphere with extensive recreational facilities for special interests, such as golf or tennis (Buttle, 1986, p. 13).
More than transient hotels or motels, resorts depend on a high level of personal service to bring guests into the property for the first time, and to have them return to the property later. Computer systems are available which can offer strong yield management, reservation systems that can maximize profitability, and guest history systems that can track which guests used which amenities, how much they spent, and other demographic and sociographic information (Hemmerick, 1993, p. 97). The availability of this technology means that resorts are able to offer their staffs the best tools possible to better serve customers. Technology also offers increased amenities to guests, including in-room services that have not been offered in the past (Marinko, 1993, p. 19).
Resorts also appeal to travelers seeking an extended vacation and those traveling without children. For these reasons, resorts are forecast to outperform other types of hotels in the near future, and as the nation continues to age (as the baby boomers cycle through the economy), resorts which offer all-inclusive vacations, should increase in appeal (Watkins, 1993, p. 16).
The heart of any hotel is the product that it offers. Resort...