Introduction

The importance of cultural intelligence for hotel personnel will be analysed in this blog. Employees of a hotel have to face people from different countries of a range of cultures. Such cultures are very much different from one another. Therefore, employees of such hotels have to have a sound understanding of different cultures, customs and behaviour. This report has critically analyzed the key differences in cultural, customs and behavioural differences in UK and Bangladesh. The rationale for selecting these 2 countries is that their cultures are very much different from one another and the staff of the hotel will have a good understanding of the differences. The report has also critically evaluated the importance of having cultural intelligence among the hotel staff. Finally, a table of Do’s and Don’ts has been presented for Hotel staff.

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Key cultural, customs & behavioural differences between Bangladesh and United Kingdom:

Cultural differences between Bangladesh and United Kingdom

Every country has their own culture, and most of the cultures are different from one another. The UK and Bangladesh also have an enormous differences in their customs, culture and behaviour. For example, people in the UK do not bargain at markets, where Bangladeshi always bargain for price in the market (Parkes, Laungani, and Young, 2015). Key cultural and behavioural differences between Bangladesh and US have been demonstrated below:

Society: Society of the UK is meritocratic, where individuals can progress, and they love to enjoy themselves individually (The Spectator, 2019). They do not consider how their actions can affect others and focus on their own success. Whilst, Bangladeshi society is group-based, people love to live with their group (Reidel, and Draper, 2013). When one from the group gets success, the success is regarded as the success of their company, family or work team. Therefore, most UK visitors travel individually, and Bangladeshi people travel in groups. While attending a UK visitor, employees should provide all the facilities that will help them to enjoy their individuality. On the other hand, Bangladeshi people should be provided with all the group facilities because one member’s dissatisfaction will dissatisfy the rest of the group members.

Conversation style: British speak indirectly and do not like to get engaged in conflict. They behave well by considering everyone in the common ground (Narayan, 2013). On the other hand, Bangladeshi people consider age, income, social status and situation while having a conversation with someone but they get engaged in conflict on silly issues (Griswold, 2012). British people try to behave well with everyone in order to avoid problems. Employees of hotels should find out their demands and fulfil them because they will not share them directly. And employees have to communicate carefully when they will communicate with Bangladeshi visitors. Otherwise, they will make issues with silly things and complain to the manager and leave the hotel with dissatisfaction.

British have no interest in making strong friendships that Bangladeshi people do: Bangladeshi people like to build deeper friendships by knowing each other, on the other hand, The British do not have much interest in other people’s activities (Nayak, 2016). People of the UK are social, but it is very difficult to know them deeply because they do not give a chance and do not expose their inner feelings (Moïsi, 2010). On the other hand, Bangladeshi people are very social, and they like to build strong friendships by expressing their feeling. Employees should focus on behaving friendly and building good relations with Bangladeshi visitors. It will help employees to understand their demands and make them satisfied by providing better services. On the other hand, employees have to focus on delivering commercial service to UK visitors because the visitors will have no interest in building emotional attachment with them.

Morals: Bangladeshi people are strict when it comes to their morals and place a high value on their moralities of themselves (Parrish, 2012). They always try to protect their culture and morals from missing from other dominating cultures that can eliminate their culture. Whilst, UK culture is more flexible than Bangladesh (Ungar, and Liebenberg, 2011). For example, drinking alcohol at all ages is against the morals of Bangladesh, whereas it is legal in the UK for people above eighteen. Employees can provide bar facilities for UK visitors in order to make them satisfied. On the other hand, Bangladeshi people will not like visiting bars and the employees should not offer anything like this because it will make them feel that employees are trying to harm their morals. As a result, Bangladeshi visitors will be dissatisfied with the employees.

Time consideration: In the UK, people value time most and like to do all the work within its given time (Dekaney, and Cunningham, 2010). They are not ready to waste their time and utilize the time in a proficient way which is the opposite of Bangladeshi people (Lawson et al., 2012). Bangladeshi people are not serious about time like as UK’s people. Employees should be very careful while providing service to UK people because they will need all the services in time. If the employees fail to provide services in time, it will make the visitors dissatisfied. Whilst, Bangladeshi people are less serious about time, and the employees will be able to convince visitors easily if they fail to provide services on time.

Importance of cultural intelligence for hotel personnel:

Cultural Intelligence refers to the knowledge of a person by which the person understands how people of a different country, religion and race behave or lead life; furthermore, it refers to how the way influences their business (Jones, 2010). It is the ability to work within a multi-cultural environment. Hotel personnel should have cultural intelligence because they have to deal with visitors from different countries with different religions including different lifestyles (Barczak, Lassk, and Mulki, 2010). It will help the employees to deliver better services to the customers. The effectiveness of cultural intelligence for hotel personnel has been evaluated below:

Help to build the emotional attachment with customers: Cultural intelligence helps employees to build emotional attachment with visitors from a different area (Peterson, 2011). Employees understand customers’ culture and interact with them by considering the issues which may harm customers’ culture. Therefore, customers become emotional when their culture is respected outside of their country, and an emotional attachment takes place in customers’ minds. Employees can make customers feel comfortable in their hotels, and it increases customer satisfaction highly. As a result, customers visit the hotels again and suggest others also visit the hotels that make the hotel profitable.

Helps to communicate effectively: Employees are aware of the behavioural habit of different areas’ people when they have cultural intelligence (Thomas, 2015). They know the effective way of communicating with the customers after becoming aware of customers’ behavioural habits. It helps them to communicate with the customers effectively. Employees can learn the greetings in their customers’ language, such as: good morning, good evening, have a nice day, etcetera. It makes customers happy when they see the employees using their language for their satisfaction. For example, When Indian customers will visit an American hotel, employees of the hotel may welcome the customers with the greetings ‘Namaste’, which is an Indian greeting. It will create an outstanding image of the hotel’s service within customers’ minds.

Bring better outcomes from teamwork: Employees of hotels also belong to different countries and cultures. They work as a team and have to adjust with one another in order to maximize the outcome of their teamwork. Cultural intelligence helps employees to work with each other as a team and bring better outcomes (Goranzon, and Florin, 2012). Therefore, it becomes easy for employees to accept their team members’ different approaches to working and behaving. They can work better by helping one another and easily adjust to each other, which makes their teamwork successful. Diversity of culture is welcomed in a team with the cultural intelligence of employees’ which makes the work hotel environment flexible for all types of employees.

Welcomes creativity and innovation: Cultural intelligence encourages employees to adjust with each other in hotels, and it creates a supportive workplace for employees therefore, innovation and creativity are cultivated within the workplace (Chao, Takeuchi, and Farh, 2017). Employees get a supportive work environment, and they can use their own thinking capability for the problem-solving of customers and hotels. They work happily in the work environment and find out effective solutions to every problem. Therefore, creativity and innovations take place in employees’ work, and it helps their hotels to attain their own strategic goals by delivering the best services to their customers.

Helps to understand international colleagues: Hotels have their sections in other countries, and the hotels are executed by the people of the areas. Employees of the hotel from different countries have to work together in order to decide many things and make their business more effective. In that case, cultural intelligence helps employees to understand their international colleagues and their work approach also (Sung, 2010). As a result, employees of the origin country’s hotel and host country can communicate in a better way, and it helps them to make their hotel more successful by ensuring effective operations.

Improving brand image: Hotel personnel become able to work in a more efficient way when they have cultural intelligence, and it assists them in improving the brand image of the company (Roach, 2014.). Personnel become capable of understanding their customers and handling them with better services with convenient behaviour. Therefore, the reputation of the hotel increases, and it improves the brand image of the hotel. As a result, hotels can attract more customers and become able to generate higher revenue.

How hotel staff should behave:

The Do’s and Don’ts for hotel staff are given below:

Activities	Do’s	Don’ts
Collect feedback	Hotels’ staffs have to collect feedback from customers throughout the booking (O’Fallon, and Rutherford, 2010). If they collect feedback after leaving the hotel, it will not work because customers’ will leave with dissatisfaction. Therefore, employees will collect feedback from the customers and try to improve their work in order to make customers satisfied.
Follow vision	Staff should follow the vision that is outlined by their managers because a shared mission will keep them motivated (Chen, Cheung, and Law, 2012). They will be able to work hard to attain the mission.
Dissatisfy team members		Employees should not dissatisfy their team members because they have to work together in order to make their hotel profitable (Turner, and Guilding, 2010). If the team members stay dissatisfied, they will cooperate with one another and it will hamper the services of the hotel.
Being available	Employees should be available all the time for customers (Gannon, Roper, A. and Doherty, 2010). They should be ready to respond even if it is a holiday for them.
Talk much while providing service		Employees should not talk much and unnecessary while providing room service and other services because it makes customers annoyed (Henschel, Gruner, and Von Freyberg, 2018).
Dress up properly and speak nicely	Staff should dress up in a proper way in order to present themselves attractively and speak nicely to convince themselves (Goh, Nguyen, and Law, 2017). If staffs present themselves properly in front of customers, it will increase the hotel’s reputation.

Conclusion:

Cultural differences create barriers among people, which can be removed through cultural intelligence (Leone, 2012). Though hotel personnel have to work and deal with colleagues and customers of different cultures, they should gain cultural intelligence properly in order to do their work effectively. They can gain cultural intelligence with continuous learning and practising to interact with people from different cultures. Therefore, they will be able to make their hotels more comfortable for customers, and they will be encouraged to plan their trips again with the hotels. As a result, sales of the hotel will increase highly, and it will generate more revenue.

References:

Barczak, G., Lassk, F. and Mulki, J., 2010. Antecedents of team creativity: An examination of team emotional intelligence, team trust and collaborative culture. Creativity and innovation management.

Chen, R.X., Cheung, C. and Law, R., 2012. A review of the literature on culture in hotel management research: what is the future?. International Journal of Hospitality Management.

O’Fallon, M.J. and Rutherford, D.G., 2010. Hotel management and operations. John Wiley & Sons.

Reidel, M. and Draper, C., 2013. Preparing middle grades educators to teach about world cultures: An interdisciplinary approach. The Social Studies.

The Spectator, 2019. Britain is becoming more meritocracy not less. Retrieved from: https://beta.spectator.co.uk/article/britain-is-becoming-more-meritocratic-not-less. [Assessed on: 7 march 2019]