The document provides guidelines for a hospitality company project, including: - The objectives are to enhance student learning of strategic management and allow students to think critically about proposing strategic directions for hospitality companies. - The project involves writing a paper analyzing a hospitality company's strategies, external/internal environments, and recommendations. - Students must follow four steps: selecting a company, collecting information, outlining the project, and submitting the final paper.

1. 1
HTM 590 Hospitality Company Project Guidelines
Project Objectives
• To enhance student learning of strategic management in the
hospitality industry
• To broaden students’ perspectives of the strategic direction
and implementation in
major hospitality companies
• To train students to think critically and propose strategic
direction for hospitality
companies based on projected changes in the environment
• To allow students the opportunity to take greater
responsibility in their learning process
Project Overview
The project includes a written paper. The project accounts for
200 points in total). This document provides
details on the project.
Four Steps

2. You are required to follow the following steps in completing the
Project:
Step 1: Finding a hospitality company. The company can be
chosen through initial research based on
your interest, appropriateness of the topic, and information
availability. As soon as you make a
decision on a company you must provide the name of the
company to the iLearn Discussion
Board “Final Project Companies” If two students choose the
same company, the one that posts
to the “Final Project Companies” discussion board first will get
the company. It is strongly
recommended that you select a publicly traded company due to
the availability of information
pertaining to the firm. If you are choosing a private company, it
should be one you are
intimately familiar with as you will need detailed information
about the company to complete
the project.
Step 2: Information collection. You are required to search for
information from external sources:
Internet, trade magazines, academic journals, and other
literature in the libraries, and/or
interviews. You should put all the information together where
you can see it and analyze what is
going on. You should also document the complete citation for
every piece of information collected
from these sources.

3. Step 3: Project outline. Based on the requirements of the paper
below, you should develop a project
outline detailing the structure of the paper, related information,
and sources.
Step 4: Final paper. The final manuscript needs to be
professionally written and edited. Each student must
submit one copy of the completed final paper to iLearn.
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Strategic Analysis Report
A complete analysis of a hospitality company will be made
including the overall strategy, an evaluation of
the external and internal environment, and strategic
recommendations. Each student will choose one
company in the hospitality and tourism industry that is relevant
to local economy and/or students’
professional growth. Ideally the student has easy access to
contemporary information about this
company.
Assessment of Strategic Analysis Report
Introduction 20 points
Environmental Analysis 100 points
Overall Strategies and Challenges 30 points
Conclusions and Recommendations 30 points
Professional Writing 20 points
Total 200 points

4. Recommended Structure of the Paper
1. Cover page
This page should include the project title, course title, name of
the student, and submission
date.
2. Introduction (20 points)
Introduce briefly the defining characteristics of the firm, unique
background and philosophy of
the company, including brief history, some of its outstanding
qualities, past successes, failures,
and products or services. What business they are in, and what in
their environment (internal and
external) is creating a need for a new strategic plan. Also
briefly discuss your plans objectives.
3. Environmental analysis (100 points)
Conduct an external and internal analysis of the company. This
is essentially a SWOT analysis.
Remember, in SWOT, Strengths and Weaknesses are
INTERNAL, and Opportunities and
Threats are EXTERNAL. For the External analysis, include a
broad environment analysis, an
industry analysis and an examination of key external
stakeholders. Focus on current and future
influential trends and factors that will shape the company’s
future strategic direction. Please note
that this section should focus on analyzing significant external
factors that you believe will

5. determine the company’s future strategies. In- depth analysis of
each external factor is expected to
support your recommendations of strategic direction. This
section should NOT be a list of the
company’s current practices or accomplishments. And it should
NOT be a comprehensive list of all
possible external factors that has little to do with your future
strategic directions. For the Internal
analysis, include an analysis of resources and capabilities, such
as operations, marketing, and/or
finance. Please note that this section should focus on analyzing
significant internal factors that will
have impact on the company’s future strategies. In-depth
analysis of each significant internal
factor is expected. It is suggested you identify 4-5 of each
SWOT component, i.e. 4 Strengths, 4
Weaknesses, etc. This will aid you in your development of
strategies for component 4.
4. Overall strategy and challenges (30 points)
Explain what the company’s overall corporate, business, and
functional strategies (where
appropriate) are and explain the company’s current overall
strategic direction. Discuss and
evaluate the strategic problems and challenges that the company
currently face with these
strategies. Publicly traded companies list their strategies on
their websites and in their SEC
financial reports. It is recommended that you discuss at least 3
of the company’s’ current
strategies.

6. 3
5. Conclusions and Recommendations (30 points)
Some conclusions should emerge from your analysis. Based on
your conclusions, you should
provide specific tactical and strategic recommendations for the
company. You should provide
suggestions about potential challenges and barriers when
implementing such recommendations.
This should include at least 3 strategic recommendations for
your company based on the SWOT
analysis and current strategic direction of the company. These
should NOT be the same as current
strategies the firm is utilizing.
6. References
Please list here all the reports, articles, books, and other
materials used when preparing
this report. Please use APA style to format the references.
7. Appendices
If any, exhibits and appendices can be attached at the end of the
report.
Requirements
• The report excluding the cover page and references should be
about 1,750 to 3,000 words
• The report needs to follow APA style.
• The main body of the paper should be double-spaced
• Margins should be 1”

7. • Font should be Times 12
Suggestions
• Start working on your project as early as possible
• Be critical, creative, and precise
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Professional Writing Requirements
Writing professionally is an essential skill for today’s business
manager. At the senior level, you must
be able to write professionally. If you have trouble with
grammar, sentence structure, etc., you should
use the many resources available to help you. We will not take
the time to discuss grammar, sentence
structure, etc., in this class. However, I expect that the paper to
be written professionally, without
grammatical errors. To encourage you to pay attention to the
quality of your writing, written language
grammar and usage will account for 10% of your paper grade
(20 points).
If your submitted paper contains more than TEN fatal flaws, it
won’t be accepted. The “fatal flaws” are
as follows:

8. • Misspelled words
Example: "seperate," vs "separate" (wrong spelling), or "too"
instead of "to" (incorrect use of words that
sound alike but are differently spelled)
• Sentence fragments
Example: "Crucially important tasks to be done." (only a
predicate--no subject, no verb).
Better: This list consists of the crucially important tasks to be
done." ("This list consists" adds a subject
and a verb).
• Run-on sentences
Example: "The use of equity-based alliances is appropriate
under certain specific conditions, some
situations, however, are exceptional."
Better: "The use of equity-based alliances is appropriate under
certain specific conditions; some
situations, however, are exceptional." (use a semicolon (;) to
separate two complete sentences,
not a comma(,).
More detail: proper punctuation requires a period or semicolon
for any stand-alone clause (has at least a
subject and a verb), and not a comma (,). A comma is correct
only when followed by a conjunction
("and" or "or" or "but") to link the two clauses properly.
Example: “The budget was met, forecasts are
favorable” should be “The budget was met; forecasts are
favorable” Or “The budget was met, and
forecasts are favorable.”

9. • Erroneous capitalizations
Example: "Historically, entire Civilizations routinely traded
with Dutch Merchants operating out
of The netherlands." Better: "Historically, entire civilizations
routinely traded with Dutch
merchants operating out of the Netherlands."
• Incorrect punctuation
Example: “The members of the group included Joe, CEO of
XYZ Company, Mary, Executive
Director of ABC NGO, and Roger, from the BCD Regulatory
agency.
Better: “The members of the group included Joe, CEO of XYZ
Company; Mary, Executive
Director of ABC NGO; and Roger, from the BCD Regulatory
agency. “
If the terms within the series require commas themselves, as do
appositional insertions, then
separate the terms with a semicolon. The punctuation makes it
clear that three people are named.
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• Mistakes in verb tense
Example: "This was an important decision, and it will be the
best choice that matters."
Better: "This was an important decision, and it was the best
choice that mattered." (changed all
verbs to past tense from a sentence that originally had past,
future and present tenses."

10. • Mistakes in subject/verb agreement
Example: "The objective of his classes were to
teach us math."
Better: “The objective of his classes was to teach
us math."
• Improper citations
Example: "Heiman and Nickerson (2004) state "alliances are
never perfect in their execution."
Better: "Heiman and Nickerson (2004, p. 244) state "alliances
are never perfect in their
execution." (when using someone else's precise words, give the
author, year and the page number
of the words from the source).
More on citations (and references): Generally, use a common
format for references at the end of
an assignment (APA is used in this class). Every in-text citation
MUST have a corresponding
reference. The main goal of a reference is to allow the reader to
actually find the source
document--broadly speaking, focus on providing at least this
level information completeness.
• Incorrect word usage or awkward writing
Example: "The strategy doesn't make sensible."
Better: "The strategy does not make sense." (do not use
contractions, and choose proper forms of
words ("sense" instead of sensible").
• Lack of conformity with assignment format

11. Example: The essay assignment given requires the student to
disagree with one important aspect of the
reading, but the student does not find anything with which to
disagree, so he/she writes a short summary
praising the assigned reading.
Better: Your essay starts with the sentence, "I disagree with the
assertion in Chapter 7 that the discrete
organization approach to strategic thinking is inferior to the
network perspective."