Housekeeping Competence In Tourism Studies

Housekeeping Competence

In Tourism Studies

by Vincentius Bagas Adi Pratama 

            Housekeeping is a department or division in the hotel which handle about cleanliness, fineness, neatness, completeness, and health in all rooms and public spaces, to make sure all the guest and employee feel safe and comfortable in the hotel.  Housekeeping department also has task to plan, and maintenance all the rooms, public space, and facilities in the hotel or accommodation service.    

        Being department in the hotel operation means housekeeping is important in the hospitality industry. Housekeeping department has responsibility to make sure that the guest feel safe and comfortable when stay at the hotel.  The responsibility can be seen from the assignment of the housekeeping to check every tools and facilities do not have problem or be harmful for the guest. With that responsibility, housekeeping department is being responsibility for the image of hotel service. It’s because the experience of the guest when they stay at the hotel and enjoy hotel services is determined by how is their condition and experience in the room they stayed.

            Hospitality industry is a service industry. Hospitality industry is a broad category of fields within the service industry that includes lodging, restaurants, event planning, theme parks, transportation, cruise line, and additional fields within the tourism industry. As it’s part of the tourism industry the development of this business has tight relationship with the tourism business.

            Nowadays, tourism industry is being rapidly developed all over the world. This means there are lot of the development in the industry. These development makes there is must be a competition between the suppliers in the tourism industry. Hospitality industry as part of the tourism also face this challenges, with this competition which gone tighter by the time, it’s clear for the industry to increase the level of service.

            In facing the development of the industry, there some needs of academics on the tourism sectors. The academics in the tourism business is refer to  person who doing academics activities  related to tourism. The activity is such as studies about tourism, doing research about tourism, make project according to tourism, etc. The academics is neede to support the development of the tourism industry.

            The development of the tourism industry also makes the emerged of the tourism as knowledge and later than be a study. Tourism can be defined as a study which studied about theories of tourism, tourist activities, service provides by the society and its implication. With this definition is strengthening the status of tourism as independent study.

            As study there are three aspects that must have by the tourism. There are; ontology, etymology, and axiology. Those aspects are the foundation to study about tourism and also can be approach to make this study different with others.

             Ontology aspect is the aspect that analyse the studied object on the study. There two kind of object in a study, material object and formal object. Formal object is part of the material object that determines the analyses of the study. In the tourism studies the formal object is society, it’s makes tourism positioned as part of the social science because the focus of interest is human society life.

            In the tourism studies there some element which focused on the phenomena of tourism. There are; the tourist mobility, the activities of society which provides facilities for tourist, and the effect of the tourist mobility and society activities.

            The second aspect of tourism as study is epistemology aspect. Epistemology aspect is referring to the way to reach the truth of the science. Epistemology aspect is referring how to approach and analyse the study. In tourism studies there some approach such as; system approach, institutional approach, product approach and multidisciplinary approach. From that approach there will get some method to analyse the tourism as study. In the tourism there are two kinds of methods that can be use which are comparative method and explorative method.

            The third aspect of the study is axiology aspect. Axiology aspect is focused how is the study can give contribution and benefit from the science. Tourism as studies surely has its benefit and contribution from the science. The first contribution is to make the welfare of the society.  It’s not only about the money but it’s about human activities to fulfill their needs, human also gains lot of benefit from the activities that they do related to tourism, so it’s clear that tourism has contribution for the human life.

           

            From those aspects above there is a question about the relation between the housekeeping competences with tourism as study. This question also implies is the housekeeping competence is important for the tourism academics or not .And if it’s important how the importance of the competence is.

            The relation of the housekeeping competence and tourism as studies is the relation of the housekeeping as part of the accommodation service. The accommodation service is includes in the actives of tourism. It’s mean the competence of housekeeping will implies the accommodation service product quality. In the tourism studies the competence of housekeeping will help to understand and analyses the activities on the housekeeping department and other departments in the accommodation service.

            In the tourism aspect we can find how housekeeping is one of the tourism activities and it’s competence is important for the studies of tourism.   In the ontology aspect, we can find the housekeeping competence in the part of service provide activities. The service is provided by the accommodation provider, in this housekeeping as part of the accommodation provider which provides the service for the guest.

            In epistemology aspect housekeeping competence is can be a competence to analyse the activities in the tourism studies. Housekeeping competence can be media to use the approach in the tourism studies. It can to be use the system approach, institutional approach, product approach, and multidisciplinary approach. The system approach can be seen as the system of tourism, but housekeeping also has its own system. The housekeeping competence can help to analyse the phenomena in the housekeeping department or other department in service industry business.  The institutional approach of the housekeeping is the accommodation provider in this case hotel, hostel, Or other accommodation product, with the housekeeping competence it can one of the tools to analyse the institutional on the tourism studies.  There is also product approach to analyses, in this case is the service product that made by the housekeeping department.

            Axiology aspect on the tourism as studies requires that the studies must have contribution for the science. In this case there is housekeeping competence which can contribute for the technology and process to make people healthy with good environment in the hotel.  This competence can be improved by the development of the science, so this will inspire people to do research to find the best methods and tools for its improvement.

From those three aspect we can see that housekeeping competence is part of the tourism as studies. It has close relationship because housekeeping one of the activity of the tourism activities. The activities of the housekeeping are included in the service providing activities.   Besides that housekeeping also ensure that the activity of tourism will bring good benefit for the science and for the society.

There is also some benefit from the learning of housekeeping competence for the tourism studies. The first is about the management, housekeeping need a good management to make sure the objective of the department is completed. So by learning the management of housekeeping, it may give some knowledge to manage another tourism service product. Housekeeping competence also will give some point of view for the tourism academics when tries to analyse the activity in accommodation service, by the housekeeping competence it’s can be additional knowledge for studied and analyse another department or service.

 With the benefit and relationship with the studies, we can conclude that housekeeping is important competence in the rapid development of the accommodation service. In the tourism studies housekeeping competence can be tools to analyse and understand the phenomena which happen in the department or in the hotel activities. The analyses of the housekeeping department can be media to find the good management way to manage the department. 

At the end housekeeping competence is not only for the people who work in the housekeeping department or in the hotel operation system. It’s also important for others which related with the service industry.