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Unlike manufacturing firms where the production of goods can be adjusted according to the demand of customers, hospitality firms do not have the ability to alter the capacity of the changing demand of guests in a short period of time. Given the relatively fixed capacity or supply, maximizing revenue through inventory control is essential for hospitality operations. This chapter covers operations inventory control extracted from the field of revenue management. First, the concept of capacity management and planning is enclosed and various capacity management tactics and inventory control strategies are explored. Next, the management and principles of space inventory through inventory-based restrictions, strategic pricing, displacement analysis, and distribution channel management are addressed. Finally, the respective applications of these principles, strategies, and tactics in several hospitality sectors are discussed.

The accommodation of the Australian Tourism industry and contributes around $2.9 billion to the tourism gross value employs 18% of all tourism employees annually. Despite this important economic contribution, there is a general lack of information on the investment trends in this sector. This paper highlights the past investment trends and factors that have affected those investment decisions during the last three decades, and provides the estimates of the future investment. Forecast shows that over the next 10 years around 52,800 new rooms will be required to meet the expected tourism demand by 2013 and around $5.3 billion new investment will be required to construct those extra facilities. The historical patterns of investment in the sector suggest that this expected requirement for new investment is readily achievable.

This chapter discusses techniques for scheduling and organizing staff to meet guest demands and financial obligations. Key building blocks relevant to labor management are explained, such as productivity, fixed and variable labor hours, and the development of realistic performance standards to help organizations optimize productivity. As a next step, this chapter illuminates the importance of providing management labor standards and staffing models, which are key management tools. Lodging and food and beverage labor strategies are presented. Finally, effective planning of labor scheduling is also discussed.

A British Airways flight crew arrives after a long flight from London to Chicago to find their hotel rooms are not ready for check-in. The front-desk agents tell them that the hotel is overbooked. The flight crew is asked to wait in the hotel lobby for more than one and a half hours while housekeepers prepare their rooms. Upon returning to London, the pilot complains to British Airways. What should the hotel have done differently to avoid complaints?

On-site brewery tap rooms are becoming an increasingly common feature of craft beer businesses and are frequently seen as a vital element in their success. With their origins in the sampling room and brewery visitor centres, tap rooms have evolved into drinking destinations where craft beer aficionados can grow their knowledge and enjoy the prestige of having direct contact with brewers in the proximity of production. It is also a stage where an independent local business can perform its ethical superiority over corporate global brewing. More surprisingly, perhaps, brewery tap rooms are becoming a valuable and trusted community resource, as pubs and other gathering places are lost.

The purpose of this chapter is to present the key issues and main aspects of financial management, which also constitute the main concerns of a prospective entrepreneur.

This chapter takes a perspective of the small business/prospective entrepreneur and analyses how the methods, tools and techniques of financial management can be helpful in operating the business venture. Literature review was conducted on main issues and aspects of financial management.

This chapter builds on extant bibliography to discuss the key issues and main methods of financial management. For any business, irrespective of size, to carry on its operations and achieve its objectives, financial resources are required, and such resources must be managed efficiently and effectively.

This study is explorative in nature because the discussion is mostly based on a literature review. It takes more entrepreneurial/practical than academic approach.

To contribute to the successful and sustainable operation of a tourism venture, this chapter outlines the key financial issues and presents in a practical way the main methods and techniques used when making operational and investment decisions.

This chapter attempts to equip a prospective entrepreneur with the background knowledge (main competencies), as well as the principal methods and techniques (skills) for managing the financial resources of a venture.

This study focuses on tourists’ perceptions of a capsule hotel, a budget form of accommodation with a unique appearance and the small size of a sleeping pod. The data were obtained in Bangkok from 402 foreign travellers from over 30 countries. The results indicate that room size, sleep ambient control system and in-room television were the three main attributes that were positively correlated with decisions to stay in such hotels. Tourists with previous experience of staying in capsule hotels had more positive perceptions regarding room size and indicated higher intentions to stay than those without such experience. The researchers also found that budgetary considerations negatively moderated the relationship between room size and intention-to-stay. Additionally, the relationship between intention-to-stay and three other hotel attributes, including room size, the service scape and perceived security, was weaker for female travellers than for male travellers. Lastly, risk avoidance also positively moderated the relationship between intention-to-stay and location and security.

This exploratory study, a Ph.D. dissertation completed at the University of Western Ontario in 2013, examines the materially embedded relations of power between library users and staff in public libraries and how building design regulates spatial behavior according to organizational objectives. It considers three public library buildings as organization spaces (Dale & Burrell, 2008) and determines the extent to which their spatial organizations reproduce the relations of power between the library and its public that originated with the modern public library building type ca. 1900. Adopting a multicase study design, I conducted site visits to three, purposefully selected public library buildings of similar size but various ages. Site visits included: blueprint analysis; organizational document analysis; in-depth, semi-structured interviews with library users and library staff; cognitive mapping exercises; observations; and photography.

Despite newer approaches to designing public library buildings, the use of newer information technologies, and the emergence of newer paradigms of library service delivery (e.g., the user-centered model), findings strongly suggest that the library as an organization still relies on many of the same socio-spatial models of control as it did one century ago when public library design first became standardized. The three public libraries examined show spatial organizations that were designed primarily with the librarian, library materials, and library operations in mind far more than the library user or the user’s many needs. This not only calls into question the public library’s progressiveness over the last century but also hints at its ability to survive in the new century.