West Indies Yacht Club Resort
...thwestern shore near the other side of the island. They are WIYCR’s strongest local competitor because of their many amenities. 4) Peter Island Yacht Club was operated by JVA Enterprises and was located on Peter Island. SUPPLIERS The suppliers for WIYCR would basically be the same for all the resorts on the island. REGULATIONS The BVI government constrained the size of new hotels and resorts on the islands. The limited access provided by small Beef Island Airport kept developers and mass tourism out of the islands. As a result, only smaller mid-scale to up-scale hotels and resorts were developed in the BVI. The biggest challenge faced by all the hotels was dealing with the local labor market laws and regulations. The supply of qualified service employees severely lagged demand. There also were four general government restrictions and policies that increased the challenge of hiring and managing staff. 1) Organizations were granted only a limited number of work permits to attract more experienced service employees from foreign countries, also known as expatriates. These permits were granted on the basis of the total number of employees working at the resort and the availability of locals who possessed these skills requisite for the position. 2) Organizations were not permitted to lay off staff during slow seasons. This creates significant challenges when faced with 95-100% occupancy during peak season and only 40% during the slow season. 3) Policies restricting the conditions under which an employee could be fired severely limited an organizations ability to retain only the best workers. 4) Organizations were under pressure to promote BVI locals into management positions whenever possible. As a result, managers often found themselves overstaffed with under qualified workers. Management tried to overcome these regulations in a number of ways. Sometimes they paid expatriates through offshore headquarters and limited the amount of time they spent at the property. They offered attractive vacation components to employment contracts. This allowed the organization to pay lower wages and decrease excess labor during off seasons. ECONOMIC SITUATION This reflects back to occupancy rates. Marketing must be conveyed to the public in order to stimulate the growth of vacationers during off seasons. Another reason is the difficulty to manage labor costs. Due to the regulations imposed regarding no lay offs, the occupancy rates need to be increased to offset these constant costs. SWOT ANALYSIS STRENGTHS The biggest strength is the preservation of the natural beauty of the island. They generated their own electricity and distilled their own water. This helps to keep some of the fixed costs down. Their partnership with nearby Sandy Point Resort gave the resort additional facilities with which to attract more customers. Their new marketing campaign established in 1990 helped to increase their occupancy rates in slower seasons WEAKNESSES The strict government regulations of the workforce for the resort are the biggest weakness. This limits the number of qualified workers at the resort. It has translated into the difficulties the management is having with their employees’ willingness to be motivated into better positions and more money. The employees know that they have their jobs whether they work or not. OPPORTUNITIES At this point, there are not a lot of opportunities to be had. They can increase marketing to try to attract more customers, but they do not have the backup of their employees to keep the guests coming back. THREATS The other resorts in the BVI have increased availability of water sports and threatened WIYCRs market position. Guests experiencing the declining level of service at WIYCR are moving to these other resorts. QUESTIONS 1) The major problems that Dowd encountered were poor management relations with the local staff, poor work by the local staff, and poor management by expatriates. These translate to weaknesses in the fact that they are all interrelated. If the management had more leeway from the government with local employees, they could weed out the workers who did not want to work. They also all, staff and management need to know the status of how their uncaring attitudes translate to the customers and affects the business as a whole. If this type of customer service continues, they will not have enough customers to sustain the continuance of the resort. Then they all will be without employment. The resorts competitive strategy has been differentiation in regards to water sports. Their competitors are closing the gap on the differences quickly. They need to change their competitive strategy to differentiation with respect to customer service. But, they need their employees’ contribution and cooperation to make it work. 2) I would classify the corporate culture of WIYCR as being weak. The top management does not express to the local workers the need for them to be motivated in their current positions and how the resort and the employees would benefit from this motivation. The corporate headquarters are located too far from the main business. The employees who work at corporate do not know the ins and outs of the daily business...