Reflective paper on the hospitality initiative conference

1. HTMG2070 Food and Beverage Management
Brandy WANG Yuqi (1155031779)
MS CHEUNG PUI GENTIANA
March 13, 2015
Reflective Paper on the Hospitality Initiative Conference
I do appreciate the opportunity for me to have participated in the Hospitality
Initiative Conference which is held in SHTM, CUHK on March 7th and 8th. It was a
conference and case competition initiated, organized, promoted, served and
managed totally by our CUHK undergraduates, whose success is a milestone for
our SHTM as well as CUHK. I was lucky to witness the history by participating as
one of the case competition candidates and I gained a lot of insights and
understanding into the foodservice industry.
Thanks to the sponsors of Synergis, Hyatt, etc. I have had a fantastic dining
experience during the two-days conference served by my classmates. I have
completed a summer internship in F&B department in Hyatt Regency Sha Tin,
which enables me to observe my classmates’ performance with the standards
from Hyatt.
My classmates have really applied what we have learnt in class like greeting and
seating customers, serving with open palm and serving from the right hand side.
I can also tell that they have been trained before serving from the manner they
came up with coffee cups and milk and sugar. Upon my observation, however,
most of them held the tray in a wrong way. I fully understand that starters can
have a lot of troubles getting used to it just as I did one year ago, but holding a
tray in front of the body is actually dangerous to the customers as well as the
waiters/waitresses themselves. With little space to adjust the movement of
hands, one would easily pour the coffee on tray onto the head of guests in front!
Instead of holding the tray in front, the right way is to hold it at the SIDE, which
enables a maximum flexibility of hand movement. Even when a strong force is
on, the dishes or drinks on tray would fall onto the floor instead of onto the
guests.
Some more improvement that my classmates can make lies on the occasions they
are providing offers. Sometimes when I am enjoying a pleasant conversation
with a guest speaker, a waiter suddenly came up, blocked our eye contact and
interrupted us by asking “Miss, would you like coffee or tea?“, which is very
disappointing from a customer’s perspective. Chances can also be that the whole
table of us are from Mainland and we are all talking in Mandarin but the waitress
ask us one by one in Cantonese. Not until my reminder did she change to serve
us by Mandarin. And five minutes later another waitress came to us speaking
Cantonese again!
If I were them, it would be more appropriate to observe first what language are
my customer are speaking. In the above situation when the whole table were
from mainland and they are talking in Mandarin, an experienced waiter/waitress
should speak Mandarin accordingly, which shows the spirit of hospitality that we

2. care for people, we appear to customer needs, we serve with both heart and
brain. In the occasion mentioned above, even if the waiter/waitress can’t speak
Mandarin or it is hard to tell if the whole table speaks Mandarin, it would be
always appropriate to speak English in a business conference like Hospitality
Initiative Conference where English is the dominant language. If a
waiter/waitress suddenly speak to us in Cantonese, we would feel like we are
“forced” to change the language that we are using and we are appealing to
waiter/waitress’s need, which is just another way around.
Also, teamwork is essential in foodservice industry. With a TEAM Together
Everyone Achieves More. Cooperation among team members helps everybody to
work more efficiently and effectively, fulfilling our customers’ needs, wants and
demands at a higher level. Same as in the occasion above, the practice would be
preferred if the waitress reminded by me (it is not so common to be reminded by
a guest I ‘d say) have a better mindset of teamwork and tell everyone in the
serving team that our table speaks Mandarin so that whoever comes serving us
would know our language preference and serve us in a more considerate and
warm way.
Certainly practice makes perfect and I believe my classmates would become
much better upon more practice in the future. But much more important than
the skills and experience of serving is their spirit of hospitality. We all have
chosen this major and industry to devote to because we share some common
values. To us, serving people is not just a skill to earn a living but ART to move
hearts. It s about the way we love people. We make beds, cook dinner and do
laundry for our partners, parents and children in the same way we serve our
customers. It is the caring for people that drives us to do more and better on
everyday basis. That s the reason I love hotel people so much because we share
the attributes that we LOVE people and KNOW HOW to. I do appreciate the
valuable experience with my fellow classmates in the Hospitality Initiative
Conference which is held in SHTM, CUHK on March 7th and 8th. And I hope the
conference would continue to providing excellent opportunities for our HTMG
students in the coming years.
Brandy WANG Yuqi
March 13, 2015