Golden Sands Resort Penang by Shangri-la is Penang’s top family deluxe resort. It situated along the coastline of Batu Ferringhi, a tourist destination, famous for its beautiful beaches offering rice stretches of glittering sand and calm sea. In the year of 2009, Golden Sands Resort, Penang has achieved the “Best Family Holiday / Resort Excellence Award" from Expatriate Lifestyle and "The Best of Malaysia Awards”.
The resort has 387 luxuriously furnished rooms and suites from a range of six categories of rooms. Every single category of room has an additional family version of it. Two categories of the rooms are the Superior Hillview and Superior Hillview Family Combo, Deluxe Seafacing and Deluxe Seafacing Family Combo. The resort is also home to the biggest contemporary family-sized rooms for a resort of its class, the six 'Family Combo' consists of two interconnecting rooms which can simply accommodate up to six guests.
A large lush of greens occupies garden area, making this resort a tropical paradise for travelers and families. There are 2 restaurants and 2 lounges where guests can satisfy their gastronomical needs. The Garden Café is the resort’s open-air coffee house which serves international and local cuisine. Sigi’s Bar and Grill on the Beach is the resort’s family-style restaurant situated on the beach of Batu Ferringhi. It has a wood fire pizza oven and an open BBQ grill kitchen. The Cool Lounge, covered by floor to ceiling glass panels, serves light snacks while the Lobby Lounge allows guests to relax in a contemporary environment with a range of refreshing beverages and light snacks.
A wide range of facilities is available to both its young and adult guests. The resort provides enjoyable recreation facilities including 3 swimming pools, water sports, tennis courts and a Par 3 golf course. The fitness center allows guests to overlook the garden area and pool while carrying their work out sessions. The resort has a “Dive in Movie” night where guests will watch a movie while soaking themselves in the swimming pool. Team building activities can also be carried out in the resort. Dragon boat racing, beach volleyball tournaments and exciting water sport are a few of the many team building activities offered by the resort.
The Adventure Zone is a one of a kind family entertainment center for not only toddlers and children, but adults as well. The highlight of the center is the Drop Slides which are custom made and comply with the safety standards. Guests can also have fun in the arcade center and in the Game Zone with the Nintendo Wii Game Console. Adventure Zone also hosts birthday parties.
The resort is located approximately only 45 minutes away from the Penang International Airport and 20 minutes away from George Town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Guests who arrive by plane can easily hire a taxi or a private limousine which can be found at the arrival halls. To get to George Town, guests can choose to either take the free daily shuttle provided by the resort or hop on a bus from the bus stand located just outside of the resort. During the night, there will be a long stretch of small stalls selling an extensive of goods, from clothes to food to souvenirs.
The resort’s peak season is during the months of June, July and August. These are the months when most of the school students will have their school break. During these months, the resort is occupied with guests from not only Malaysia but from other countries like Australia and Middle East as well. During the year end school holidays which are in November-December, the locals come with their families and crowd this resort. However, the monsoon season in Malaysia, which is around the months of September until November, causes the occupancy rate of the resort decreases. The other low season is during the months of March, April and May.
A market is where a collection of populace including individuals or organizations, have needs for products or services and have the capability, willingness and authority to purchase the products or services. The term target market refers to the particular group of customers at which the resort aims its services and products. There are two types of markets, which are the consumer, where the objective is to consume or benefit but not to make profit, and the organization or business for resale or for direct usage.
The resort’s main target market is leisure travelers from not only from Malaysia but from around the world as well, particularly from Australia, Europe, the Middle East and Japan. Most of the travelers do not travel alone as they travel, either with spouse, family or friends.
There are also many tour groups who stay in this resort, some of which travel under the tour agent Kuoni, Gulliver’s Travels, Thomas Cook and many others. The resort also targets on corporate who want to have conferences in a resort. At times, corporate choose to stay in this resort for conferences and team building activities. Being located along the beach, this resort is an idyllic location for team building activities to be conducted, including dragon boat race, kayaking, and beach volleyball.
Nowadays, many people are looking towards experiencing something new in their lives, whether it is a modified menu in a restaurant, or even a newly built resort in the area of their planned vacation destination. Many individuals yearn for something to be done quickly and seem convenient for them. Most travellers, whether alone or in groups, favour a vacation which allows them to relax and not have to worry about anything. A resort provides a laidback environment for its guests who want to escape from the hustle and bustle of the city or unwind themselves from their hectic job lives or spend valuable entertaining time with their families. Resort guests are usually spending time out of their room for fun activities in the resort area or discovering places nearby. Some prefer to just relax in the resort’s garden or in one of the Food and Beverage outlets. For those who are always occupied with outdoor activities, they will have to find a safe place to keep their belongings and cash seems to be most valuable. At times, one of the individuals of a group will have to be left out from all the fun for taking care of the belongings. Room key cards work fine in numerous hotel environments since the key cards can be easily fit into a wallet. However, in Golden Sands Resort, Penang, the guests do not regularly carry a wallet. At times, large crowd can be seen at the reception area as guests are trying to obtain another replacement for their dysfunctional key card or requesting to exchange currency at the cashier. At the point-of-sales in the food and beverage outlets, guests make payments by cash, credit card, or bill-to-room. There have been incidents whereby wrong postings were made to the wrong room number or the wrong amount has been charged to the guests’ room. To eradicate these issues, a wristband which contains a RFID tag will be implemented. This report will assist in discovering how this implementation will benefit both the resort and its guests. The capability and success of Golden Sands Resort, Penang to retain its market place as a family friendly resort in the very competitive hospitality industry generates my interest to make advancement in serving the guests better and creating a positive unique experience and memories in which the guests will remember for a lifetime.
Upon checking into the resort, each guest will be given a resort key card which will allow them to unlock their room door. The resort key card has replaced metal keys for increased security. This is because, metal keys could be duplicated easily and most of the metal keys had the room number stamped on it making it easy for someone who has found the lost key to enter the room. Resort key cards have no indication of the room number on it. Because of this, anyone who has found the lost card will not be able to know which door the key card will be able to open.
The resort uses the Vingcard lock system. The key card is made of plastic and has a magnetic bar. The magnetic stripe on the resort key card, which is located 0.223 inches (5.56 mm) from the edge of the card, and has a width of 0.375 inches (9.52 mm), can be programmed to store certain information. The difference between a resort key card and any other debit, credit or ATM card is that the information is stored directly and maintained directly on the stripe and is not recovered from a remote database. This magnetic bar is programmed tp store information about the room number, check-in and check-out dates. The main function of the resort key card is that it acts as a key to the door. The key card will need to be inserted in the lock of the door in order to unlock it. The magnetic stripe is read by physical contact and swiping past a magnetic reading head.
Every resort door lock has a precise identity that can only be altered with a special piece of equipment which is directly connected to the door. The card is only valid as a resort key during the time period that it is valid for which is the period from the time when the guest checks in until the standard check-out time which is at 12pm, on the date that the guest checks out. The key card will not work after its expiration date and will not be able to open the room door. It is almost impossible to amend the settings of the key card using a regular reader or writer as the settings are secured with cryptographic method like encryption. The door reader works by reading the code from the card and can only be unlocked if it retrievers the right code. If a guest losses the card, an entire new key, with an altered code than the one encoded on the lost key, is formed for each room with every change of guest. The codes programmed from the previous use are deleted by the computer and restored with a new pattern which is also transmitted electronically to the room lock.
The plastic resort key cards that are found today at resorts and resorts have developed from the old and plain conventional white plastic format. These key cards now come in an extensive assortment of unique colours and designs.
When a guest decides to leave the resort compound to spend their day in the surrounding area, guests can choose to keep the key card with them or leave the key card in the reception. If a guest chooses to leave the card in the reception, the guests do not have to worry about misplacing the key card outside the resort.
In food and beverage outlets, payments are made by cash, credit card or bill to room. Payments by cash or credit card are settled right on the spot. For bill-to-room method, guests are required to provide their room number to the cashier and sign on the bill. The system used in the food and beverage outlets is the MICROS RES point-of-sale system.
Resort key cards are more secure than the previously key system which is the metal key system. When a guest losses the key card, the guest do not have to worry about the fact that someone might enter their room. The room number of the key card cannot be identified, making them anonymous, as key cards do not have any visible identification on it whereas the old metal key had the room number stamped on it. It is also more lightweight and can be easily kept in the wallet or pocket.
The change of code on the key card can be easily done. Hence, once a key card is lost, it will no longer be valid when its loss is reported and a new key card is made. Once a guest checks out from the resort, the key card will not be able to function anymore. This is because whenever the card expires, which is the date that the guest checks out, the code on the card will not be valid anymore.
When there is an incident of either a break-in or a security issue, the resort is able to perform a lock examination. The activity of the opening of the room door monitored and can be traced. A report will be generated according to that specific lock and the resort will be able to indentify the exact keys which have been in that lock and the time of usage. The maintenance and housekeeping staff who own master keys, will also appear in the report.
When a guest reports that the belongings in the room have been stolen after having their room cleaned, the case might be solved by tracing whose key has been used to open up the door and the time of entry and exit.
A resort key card is coloured and has its own design, which makes every resort key card to be different from one resort to another. The resort can include its logo, and have its own identity associated with the key card. The resort key card is also user friendly. This is because; the back of the key card is imprinted with simple instructions on proper usage and it is so easy to use. There’s also images which informs guests on the way to insert the key card into the lock on the door to have it unlocked. Guests will only need to swipe the key card by inserting the card into the small opening on the door lock and turn the door knob when the small light blinks as green.
Whereas, for the payment system in the food and beverage outlets of the resort, the cash, credit card or bill-to-room method, the cashier will have a familiarity with the current system as it has been used for a long period.
Resort guests are always on the move and spending enjoyable time out of their rooms. Guests are seen spending most of their time around laying under the sun in the garden area, taking a dip in the swimming pool, satisfying their taste buds in the restaurants or having fun undergoing recreational activities around the beach area. Guests have the hassle to find a safe place to keep their belongings when they are doing some activities. In this case, the two most important possessions are resort key card and most importantly, cash. It will be an inconvenience for them to have something stored in their pockets while having fun as they will need to constantly check if their belongings are still present in their pockets. At times, guests are seen holding their key cards in their hands or placing them on the seating area around the garden when swimming. This result in key cards being forgotten after the guests’ recreational activities, lost or dysfunctional due to being exposed to harsh conditions like sun or beach sand. Since the magnetic stripe of the key card is magnetically charged, the key card will be deactivated due to the disruption of magnetic field if the card is placed near mobile phones or magnets.
The issue of wrong postings of food and beverage charges to room often arises in the resort. Guests occasionally protest that the amount of food and beverage expenses which are charged in their room statement do not telly with the actual amount that they have spent. Another incident which occurs is that wrong postings have been made to the wrong room number.
Room key cards are made from plastic which makes them the least environmentally friendly. The room key cards are being frequently disposed when they are physically damaged or lost its functionality. The key cards are also often being misplaced and lost. Plastic requires hundreds of years to biodegrade (dissolve effortlessly in the environment without destroying nature)
The room key card is used in almost every single hotel or resort in the market. Therefore, false rumours from any part of the world about the type of information which is stored in the key card cause doubts from guests on the security of the room key cards. There have been claims that the room key card is encoded with guests’ personal information, including the credit card number. Rumours claim that details such as the guest’s name, address, room number and credit card number and expiration date of credit card are programmed into the key card. Some believe that the resort employee are able to access the information by taking a few key cards home and obtain the information using a scanning device or a card reader. It is said that the hotel or resort do not remove these information on the key card until the card is encoded for the usage of the next guest who checks into the resort.
Customer experience is the total of each and every experience that a client goes through with a merchant of goods or services, during the period of the customer’s relationship with that particular supplier. As we have progressed into the 21st century, consumers are not looking back to the decade of 2000 but are now always on the look-out for something new and dynamic. People want to be adventurous and would travel hundreds or thousands of miles just to get to somewhere to experience something new and different. During the first Formula One Grand Prix Race which was held in Singapore for the first time, there were approximately 40 000 tourists who visited Singapore just to experience the Formula One Grand Prix race because it is the one Formula One race which is held during the night.
A recent study by the Cornell University in America exposed that consumers have a preference of experiences rather than products. This shows that resort guests are not paying only for the products (room, amenities, food and beverages) but also for the experiences that they will be able to gain during their entire stay in the resort. Based on the study, experiences are so successful at making people happy because a person truthfully owns the experiences which will be incorporated into a person’s character. Material items can only be possessed and are infrequently become a part of the user in any momentous way.
Consumers are constantly keeping up with the trend and latest technologies. Every now and then, every establishment tries to discover methods to satisfy their customers in every single way possible. An establishment's capability to provide an experience that makes it unique in through judgment of its clientele will be able to profit from the increase of expenses of the client with that particular establishment. This will then encourage loyalty to its brand name.
A superior customer experience is achieved by understanding the customer's point of view. In this today’s modern world and the era of stiff competition between industries, convenience is what encourages clients to carry out business with a particular establishment. Individuals determine or measure the quality of merchandise and services through a company’s willingness to extend convenience to its clients. A company will be able to gain more profit if shopping is made easier for its customers.
RFID was invented in the year of 1969 has given us the ability to cater to our guests in a completely new way, while also allowing us to improve their safety, privacy, and convenience at every turn.
Many resorts are located along the coastline of Batu Ferringhi and each of the resorts are catered to a specific target market.
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