Essay: Center Parcs

Strategy
A company has to stand for something in order to have success. You need to know where it is at this certain point and where you want the company to be in the future. To reach those goals in the future you have to have a strategy and so does Center Parcs.
The mission of Center Parcs is to let the guests experience a moment of happiness in a save and stimulating place. This is being created with the help of caring employees.
Their vision is that people need a place to connect with their friends and family. Therefore Center Parcs tries to offer a place where they can enjoy the simpel but yet special things in life and give the oppurtunity to just be yourself.
In the near future Center Parcs will be building new parcs. In 2015 they hope to open Center Parcs Vienne and in 2016 Village Nature (nearby Disneyland Paris). Center Parcs is innovative in the designs of their cottages. Some new cottages for example are tree houses, eden cottages and boats.
In the longer term they want to further develop their innovative desings and renovate the already existing parcs. In this way they want to distinguish themselves from the competition, offering short holidays which can not be found anywhere else. With this they want to be an inspiration towards their guests and be an recognizable ‘brand’.
Center Parcs’ most important visitors are families with children 0-11, this group accounts for 49% of the visitors, followed by families with children 12-18 and adults 18-54 with both 21%. Given the 49% of the families with children 0-11 it is presumable that this is the target group of Center Parcs. Center Parc is with 3.1 million visitors per year the European market leader. 1.3 million visitor have a Dutch nationality, this makes them the best represented nationality. Followed by the German with 806.000 visitors. The French account for 589.000 visitor and 372.000 are Belgian. the last 12.400 visitors have other nationalities.
The three biggest competitors of Center Parcs are Landal Greenparks, Dinseyland Paris and Roompot.
Landal Greenparks advertises the nature in their parks as well as Center Parcs. Landal Greenparks also focuses on young families and they offer many activities, outdoor and indoor. The parks are located in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium and therefore they aim for the same group geographically speaking.
Disneyland Paris has several hotels in and surrounding the attractionpark. Each hotel has his own theme and atmosphere. They offer a attractionpark with mutiple activities and focusses on extended families, with this families with smaller childern.
Roompot also has parks in the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and France. They also offer facilities for business people. Roompot’s parks are also located in nature enviroments and they advertise with the possibilty to cycling and hiking.
They are competitors of Center Parcs because they share the same target group. They focus on young families and are geographically all located in the same locations. They offer the same facilities and Landal and Roompot are cheaper than Center Parcs. This makes them competitors of Center Parcs.
3. Structure
Every organisation needs some sort of organisational structure in order to function. An orginasational chart shows how tasks are divided between departments and individuals. At Center Parcs they work according to the line and staff organsation. The most traditional organisational structure is a line organisation. Authority and accountibilty travel downwards from the top to the bottom. There is a strong hierarchy between the department managers and the department employees. One of the function at the top of the charts is the function of General Manager, the departments at Center Parcs all have to report back to the General Manager. Center Parcs has the following departments: Safety & Pool department, Leisure department, Technical department and the Houskeeping department.
In a line-and-staff organisation there are staff departments which support the line departments. In the staff departments there are experts in specific areas who advice and inform the line management in that specific area. The overall responsibilty belongs to the line manager and the staff departments are responsible for qaulitative advice. Center Parcs has two staff departments: Human Resource department and Finance department.
As you can see in de organogram up top the top manager is the General Manager, after that follows the manager of the department, after that the floor manager of the department and at the end of the chain comes de rest of the staff in that department.
If an employee of the Kids Club faces a problem he goes to the the Floor manager of the Kids Club. If the Floor manager cannot solve this problem alone he turns to the manager of the Leisure department. The Leisure manager reports the problem to the General Manager. If the Leisure mananger needs financial advice, he can contact the Finance department. If he has a question for the Human Resource department, he can also contact them.
As a Finance Manager you fulfil a management position as well as a executive position and carrie the responsibility for business analysis and reports of the park. He manages the budget of the park and pro-actively assist the other staff of the Management Team to meet set targets and budgets. Besides the responsibilty for an appropiate administrative organisation and internal control, the Finance Manager is also the financial oracle for the entire park organisation. Moreover the Finance Manager is partly responsible for the business implementation of the park, excluding the Horece & Retail Food activities.
5. Staff
Center Parcs has 11.600 employees of which 7.000 full-time and 4.600 are in part-time or other employement. Of all those employees, 66% is female and 34% is male.
19 % of the employees is under the age of 25. Most of the employees are between the ages of 25 and 45, in fact a large 51% is. Followed by the second biggest group of people over 45 with a 21%. Which leaves 9% left for the employees over 55.
The nationality that is most represented at Center Parcs are the French with 4960 employees. Followed by the Dutch with 2965 employees. Belgium accounts for 2511 employees, Germany for 926 employees and Spain accounts for another 238 employees.
The management functions are almost equally divided with 55% male managers and 45% female manangers. The techinal part is mostly in hand of the male employees and female employees overrule the housekeeping and reception departments.
Most of the employees of Center Parcs are native speakers. Especially in the higher positions, as for example the management positions. In those positions it is also expected that you speak more different languages, such as English, German, French or Dutch. All the positions in which you have contact with the customers it is important that you are a native speaker and in some cases it might even be necessary that you speak a little of the other lanuages. In the jobs such as housekeeping and maintenance it is not necessary to be a native speaker. Those jobs can also be performed by expats, since contact with the customer is exceptional.
7. Skills
A good hospitality performance will make your guests feel welcomed in your company, in this case in the park. As a company you should do everything within your power to let your guests have the most comfortable experience. This is important in all sorts of companies but even more so for companies within the hospitality industry such as Center Parcs. They can dustinguish themselve from the other competitors by offering quality service. Guests come to enjoy their holiday and with this comes a good experience of the park. For a stay at a bungalow park a big part of this experience is created by the behavior of the staff. Therefore ‘customer service’ skills is a requirement for the staff.
A good way to accomplish this is by offering good working conditions and rewarding them to the employees to keep them motivated. The employees will emit this positivity to the customers, which hopefully results in happier customers. Another way is by offer employees a training to learn about ‘customer service’ skills and how to put them into practice.
Another important point is that if problems occur the staff needs to respond professionally, the problems needs to be solved according the situation and immediately.
Waiting times are need to be kept as short as possible and the staff needs to be on time for an appointment or meeting.
Enviromentally speaking there should always be enough and nearby parking space. The guests have to easily find their way around the property. In smaller businesses like a restaurant or caf?? this is not essential, but at Center Parcs the guests have to be able to find their way around the park, to the reception, their bungalow, the pool etc.
The company has to have a corperate identity. The guests have to recognise the staff by the cloting and so on. The uniforms need to be appropiate and clean. The hospitality performance can also be improved by greeting the guests at the welcome and the receptionist or spokesperson for the park needs to be a native speaker and preferably be fluent in English, even better would be if they speak several languages.
And at last the facilities should be in working order and clean.
Center Parcs askes you to respond immediately in case of a complain, you can file a complain in the park so the management gets the chanche to solve it right away. If you feel like your complain is not handled accordingly you can send an e-mail to ‘guestrelations@groupepvcp.com’ or send a letter by mail, this can be done untill a month after leaving the park. Still not sattisfied? Then you can file a complain to the ‘Geschillencommissie Recreatie’ and they will look at it, this can be done untill three months after leaving the park.
This shows that Center Parcs always tries to solves problems immediately and if that cannot be done, the guests are given mutiple oppurtunities to complain. That they try to solve it immediately and the chanches the guests get to file a complain are according to the hospitality performance.
This picture shows that Center Parcs has clear indication signs to lead the guests around the park. the numbers of the cottages are reffered to as well as all the other facilities in the park.
Center Parcs got elected top employer 2014. They have be scored on 5 different critertia: primary conditions, secundary conditions, training & development, career perspectives and cultural management. The fact that they received this quality mark shows that employees have good working conditions. Happy employees results, most of the time, in happy customers.
This picture show the corporate identity. Most of the employees wear a blue shirt with a Center Parcs logo on the sleeve, this is very recognizable for the guests and in this way they will know who to approach. The logo can be found around the park, on the internetsite etc. which also cnotributes to the corporate identity.
If you would like to become a receptionist at Center Parcs in the Netherlands, there are a few job requirements you need to meet. One of them is that you have sufficient oral and written knowledge of the English and German language. This is to make sure you can help guests from different nationalities and that contributes to the hospitality performance.