Apply scientific cost management to hotels, improve the existing cost management system, improve the overall economic benefits of hotels, and make hotels invincible in the increasingly fierce market competition. At present, there are still some problems in hotel cost management concept and management system. Based on the analysis of the problems existing in hotel cost management, this paper puts forward specific methods and suggestions to improve hotel cost management.

A. overview of hotel cost management. This is the theoretical basis of this paper. Hotel cost mainly refers to the operating cost of the hotel, that is, the related expenses incurred in the daily business activities of the hotel, excluding the hotel construction cost in the early stage and the hotel termination cost in the later stage. It includes not only the internal costs of hotel entities, but also the upstream and downstream costs.

B, the main problems of hotel cost management. At present, there are three phenomena in hotel cost management: weakening of cost consciousness, weakening of cost management and softening of cost behavior, which lead to increasingly serious cost out of control and high cost level, which seriously restricts the improvement of hotel efficiency and affects the development of hotels. First, the management responsibility is not clear, and the establishment of the main body of hotel internal cost management is wrong; Second, the object and content of cost management are not clear; Third, the management model to meet the requirements of market economy has not yet been established; Fourth, cost accounting needs to be improved.

C. Analyze the causes of problems in hotel cost management, and analyze the reasons that lead to these problems. First, the quality of hotel managers is low and they can't adapt to the new situation of market economy; Second, the hotel skill level has affected the cost reduction; Third, the lack of cost constraints and incentive mechanisms; Fourth, the low status of financial personnel directly affects the effectiveness of cost management.

D. methods and suggestions for improving hotel cost management. This is the focus of my discussion. To improve hotel management level and strengthen cost management, we must start with grasping the external operating environment of the hotel and strengthening internal management. Through multi-pronged, constantly straighten out the hotel operating environment and improve the management level.

First, adopt advanced technology to reduce hotel operating costs;

Second, pay equal attention to labor cost management and mobilize the enthusiasm of employees;

Third, strengthen procurement management and reduce hotel procurement costs;

The fourth is to introduce the cost management system in an all-round way to enhance the hotel's core competitiveness.

Keywords: hotel; Cost management; Methods; suggestion

With the deepening of reform and opening up, private hotels are entering the market on a large scale, and even transnational operation and international standard management will fully participate in the market competition of the hotel industry, and the hotel industry is facing unprecedented crises and challenges. It will also have a far-reaching impact on the hotel industry, and even promote the improvement of service quality and management level of the hotel industry, and move closer to international standardization. In the face of more intense competition, only by forming their own competitive advantages, reducing costs and rapidly achieving low-cost expansion is the fundamental way out for the development of the hotel industry.

I. Overview of Hotel Cost Management

(1) Hotel cost mainly refers to the operating cost of the hotel, that is, the related expenses incurred in the daily operation of the hotel, excluding the early hotel construction cost and the late hotel termination cost. It includes not only the internal costs of hotel entities, but also the upstream and downstream costs. Hotel is a special enterprise, and its cost composition is more complicated. The internal cost of a hotel is the cost incurred in the process of directly providing services to guests, including accommodation, catering, entertainment, leisure and so on. From the perspective of hotel value chain, that is, the cost of basic activities in value activities. Upstream and downstream costs include procurement costs, technology development costs, human resource management costs, information costs and so on.

(2) Hotel cost management is the management of hotel cost. It should be emphasized here that cost management is not the same as simply reducing costs. The goal of cost reduction is to minimize the cost, reduce it continuously, and reduce it again. Cost management focuses on the overall benefit and long-term development of the hotel. In essence, cost management is not concerned with the cost itself, but should pay attention to identifying the key factors of hotel success. Cost management has the following three important characteristics: First, it is overall. Cost management not only pays attention to departmental costs, but also pays attention to the long-term benefits of the hotel as a whole. It is actually a kind of value management, involving any aspect of hotel value activities, not just managing product costs. Defining cost management as the management of product cost narrows the scope of cost management and limits its function, which is also a one-sided understanding of the object of cost management. The second is comprehensiveness. Cost management not only pays attention to financial information, but also needs to use non-financial indicators to provide services for management decisions; The third is management. Cost management is not only a control work, but also a management work, which needs to be operated at the level of hotel strategic management.

(III) General Principles of Cost Management Hotels should follow the following basic principles when building cost management systems and methods: timeliness principle, economy principle, combination of responsibilities and rights principle and mutual coordination principle. Principle of timeliness. It means that the cost management system can reflect the deviation between the actual cost management process and the management standards in time, so as to eliminate the deviation in time and return to normal. When the deviation in the cost management system is not found in time and no measures are taken to correct it, the longer the interval, the greater the economic losses suffered by the hotel. Therefore, in the process of cost management, the deviation should be corrected in time to reduce the loss during the out-of-control period. Economic principles. In the implementation of cost management, there are generally some expenses, such as staff salaries, office expenses, etc., which are generally called management expenses. The purpose of implementing cost management is to bring more benefits to the hotel through effective management activities while spending a certain amount of money. If the management cost exceeds the management income, the management activity is not feasible. The implementation of cost management must conform to the principle of economy. The principle of combining responsibility with rights. In order to arouse the enthusiasm of all departments in the hotel, the hotel implemented the responsibility accounting system. When implementing cost management, we should make a concrete analysis of the results of cost management in combination with the responsibility accounting system implemented by hotels, implement reward and punishment measures, promote the strengthening of cost management and responsibility accounting system, and mobilize the enthusiasm of all departments. The principle of mutual coordination. Cost management is a systematic project, since it is a systematic project, it will involve all departments and employees of the hotel. It is not enough to do a good job of cost management only by the efforts of the cost management department. When implementing cost management, the cost management department should strengthen communication and cooperation with other departments to ensure that the cost management can achieve its goals.

Second, the main problems in hotel cost management

At present, there are three phenomena in hotel cost management: weakening of cost consciousness, weakening of cost management and softening of cost behavior. As a result, the cost is out of control and the cost level remains high, which seriously restricts the improvement of hotel benefits and affects the development of the hotel. The problems existing in hotel cost management are reflected in the following aspects:

(1) The management responsibility is not clear, and the internal cost management subject of the hotel is wrongly established. For a long time, hotels have always regarded cost management as the patent of a few people, thinking that the cost and income should be the responsibility of hotel leaders and financial departments, while the employees of various departments and teams are only regarded as producers. Employees are unwilling and unable to ask questions about cost management, and their cost awareness is indifferent. Employees think that doing well is the same as not doing well, they can't feel the pressure of the market, and the enthusiasm for managing costs can't be mobilized, which is a serious waste. Hotel cost management has lost the management group that can really control the cost, and the effect will certainly not be obvious. Without full participation, achieving the goal of cost management is just empty talk. Our hotel is a typical state-owned hotel, and its management mechanism is basically maintained in the past. In the post setting, the need of scientific management is not fully considered. Even the posts are set for different people, and no competition mechanism is introduced in the use of personnel. See if you have any connections, see if you have any background. The whole hotel has complex personnel relations, each with its own hills and backers, forming many factions. In order to take care of the relationship between leaders at all levels, a large number of relevant personnel have been arranged here, but many people have to appoint positions or even improve their treatment because of their lack of ability and inaction. Many people have connections in the background and can resign or work less, but the treatment is better than that of those who are on the job. It is natural for people with connections to support and support them, but ordinary employees who have no connections can't be dismissed, because they are all regular workers and no one will obey them, otherwise they will make a fuss and cheat. The hotel demoted an incompetent deputy manager and transferred him from his original post. As a result, this man made a scene in the general manager's office, wrote letters and petitioned the higher authorities, which caused a storm in the whole city and affected the normal operation of the hotel.

(B) the object and content of cost management is not clear. In the process of cost management, cost management is still limited to the traditional simple and narrow mode of "saving electricity and a piece of paper", ignoring potential losses and not implementing comprehensive cost management. At present, hotels do not pay much attention to the consumption of human resources, and there are a large number of redundant staff and unreasonable staffing. First-line production posts with relatively poor working conditions, such as room attendants and restaurant service personnel, are relatively insufficient, with high labor intensity and the lowest salary; There are a large number of idle people in the second-line personnel, such as managers, with high salary standards. As a labor-intensive service industry, hotel's service quality depends on the quality and service consciousness of front-line service personnel, but the allocation of human resources in general hotels conflicts with this. At the same time, hotels ignore the training of human resources, such as the relevant vocational training for employees, which leads to unfamiliar business and low work efficiency, resulting in relatively high labor costs. Or let the loss of human resources be wasted, such as improper use of personnel arrangement and insufficient attention to brain drain, which leads to the intangible but very important cost of human resources.

(C) The management model to meet the requirements of market economy development has not been established. First, the basic work of cost management is weak and there is no perfect cost management system. The original records of the hotel are not perfect, the regular asset inventory system is not strictly implemented, the basic management systems such as quota management and measurement acceptance are not perfect, and even the system is a mere formality, which completely loses the role of supervision and inspection. The hotel has become a three-no hotel with no revenue and expenditure plan, no normal approval procedures and no filing system. The result of this conspicuous management is naturally invalid.

Secondly, relying too much on the existing cost accounting system can not meet the needs of hotels to implement total cost management. The existing cost management system does not adopt flexible and diverse cost methods, which leads to the purpose of cost management becoming to reduce costs simply for the sake of reducing costs, unable to provide correct information needed for decision-making, unable to deeply reflect business processes, unable to provide cost information of each operation link and unable to reflect the consequences of each link, thus misleading the formulation of hotel management strategies. In addition, the existing cost management object is limited to the financial information of hotel products, and it can't provide non-financial information such as resources, operations, products, raw materials, customers and sales markets that managers need, and can't provide sufficient information for the strategic management of hotels.

Moreover, the assessment system is not perfect and the intensity is not great. The specific performance is as follows: the assessment is only an internal assessment of the hotel, which is not well connected with the market; The assessment is only at the departmental level, not at the personal level, and the assessment results still have the phenomenon of eating the same pot of rice and egalitarianism; Reward and punishment measures are not strong enough to arouse the enthusiasm of employees. The assessment of the hotel's internal performance is only roughly based on departments. However, due to the lack of scientific basis for the formulation of assessment indicators, they are basically floating a certain proportion on the basis of the actual situation of the previous year to become the indicators of the next year, and will not be adjusted accordingly with the actual situation of the market, such as quarterly or semi-annual, and the assessment indicators are often seriously deviated from the actual situation and cannot play a real assessment role.

(iv) Cost accounting needs to be improved. At present, great progress has been made in the measurement and accounting of hotel cost, but these measurements and accounting do not run through all hotel cost management. In cost management theory, cost is regarded as a kind of cost that can be expressed in money. If reputation loss and social loss are also included in the cost, then the cost surface is not the cost that can be expressed by a single monetary measurement form. Other measurement forms should also be used to reflect the inherent attributes of hotel costs from all social and economic perspectives. Even if the traditional cost category is used for statistical accounting, it is only a rough data. Because the cost accounting methods of hotels are different, there is no fixed model, and its data sources are multi-level and multi-faceted, especially some costs are hidden and have nothing to do with financial accounting. For example, hotels purchase a large number of meat products, most of which are transported by refrigerated trucks. If the transporter sprinkles water on the meat, the weight of the frozen meat can be increased, and the transporter can keep the extra goods for himself. This situation is very common in practice. Inspection personnel must strictly control the quality, find out the reason of freezing on the meat as soon as possible, and report to the management personnel in time.

Third, the reasons for the problems in hotel cost management

(A) the quality of hotel managers is low, which can not adapt to the development of today's market economy. In the hotel industry, state-owned or state-controlled hotels account for as much as 90% of the total number of hotels. These hotels have changed from the planned economy system to the market economy system in a short time, and the managers of these hotels have not been able to completely transform themselves and establish the concept of market competition in the market economy. Some state-owned hotel managers are even appointed by cronyism instead of meritocracy. After these people took the leadership positions in hotels in various abnormal ways, their personal qualities could not meet the needs of hotel management, which made cost management unable to play its due role. These people's business decisions are not scientific and strictly feasible, but can be blindly finalized by "patting the forehead and patting the chest". The consequences of hasty decision-making for hotel management are self-evident Even some hotel leaders use authority as a means to seek personal gain and embezzle state-owned assets by any means, which leads to the distraction of hotel employees and the inability to strengthen cost management.

(B) hotel skills affect the cost reduction. The level of hotel skills has a great influence on reducing costs. There is a limit to reducing costs by strengthening management. In order to increase costs, hotel managers should constantly improve their skills. The application of scientific and technological information has become one of the important signs of hotel competitiveness, and the combination with hotel management can form new productivity. Due to the strong mobility of managers of state-owned enterprises, they are not enthusiastic about investing in scientific and technological information with large short-term investment and long payback period. They only pay attention to the level of hotel profits during their term of office, not to long-term investment, which affects the application of scientific and technological information in hotels. As a result, the equipment is out of date, which can not improve the operating efficiency of the hotel and is not conducive to the improvement of the hotel cost management level.

(3) Without cost constraint and incentive mechanism, hotels generally cannot effectively implement the cost management system, and also lack the internal control mechanism of cost management. Managers can easily adjust the cost information for improper purposes, which makes the cost management of hotels unable to obtain accurate information and the evaluation of similar hotels untrue. At the same time, effective cost management and hotel incentive mechanism with remarkable economic benefits are not in place, which can not fully mobilize the enthusiasm of managers and employees.

(D) The low status of financial personnel directly affects the effectiveness of cost management. As the core personnel of hotel cost management, financial personnel play a vital role in the effectiveness of cost management. In the hotel, the financial personnel have a low status, so they can't participate in the hotel's business decision-making, and they can only serve as logistics personnel. The work of financial personnel generally only reflects the hotel operation afterwards, and the hotel cost control before and during the event is just empty talk. Many managers only think about the importance of "open source" in hotel business activities, but don't realize that "throttling" is also essential for the benign development of a hotel. Because financial personnel face the above difficulties, their work enthusiasm is also greatly affected. Many high-quality financial personnel are unwilling to engage in menial jobs in this industry, and they change careers one after another, which leads to the low overall quality of hotel financial practitioners and directly affects the effectiveness of hotel cost management.

Fourth, suggestions to improve hotel cost management

In order to improve the hotel management level and strengthen the cost management, we must grasp the external operating environment and strengthen the internal management of the hotel. Through multi-pronged, constantly straighten out the hotel operating environment and improve the management level, so that the hotel's cost management level is expected to be greatly improved.

(1) Using advanced technology to reduce hotel operating costs The advent of the new economic era is quietly changing people's values, working environment and lifestyle. Hotel is the most sensitive industry. First of all, we should observe the changes of customer demand and consumption concept, keep pace with the times, use scientific and technological information to improve the innovation ability of hotels, strengthen the information construction and management of hotels, improve operational efficiency, and accurately grasp the changes of market demand, that is, meet customer demand in time, strengthen hotel cost management and improve ourselves. Take the hotel escalator as an example. Generally speaking, the hotel escalators will keep running during normal business hours. No matter whether there are guests or not, it will waste some energy and accelerate the wear and tear of the elevator. After adopting advanced computer automatic monitoring facilities, when there are no guests to use, the elevator will automatically stop until there are guests to use, which can not only save electricity, reduce elevator wear and tear, but also reduce the noise in the hall, killing two birds with one stone.

1. Pay attention to using information technology to improve the competition level of hotels. Nowadays, information technology has been widely used in front desk reception, cashier, inquiry, reservation, sales, catering, security, statements, door locks and other aspects. With the wide application and continuous updating of information technology, hotel management should also develop to a broader and deeper level. By using modern information technology, an efficient, interactive and real-time internal information management system can be established on the original hotel management system, which can make the original organizational structure break the departmental boundaries and use inter-departmental teams to delegate decision-making power to the grassroots. Therefore, the whole service process of the hotel can design the workflow with the customer as the center. In this process, employees can understand the whole service process and how their decisions affect the performance of the whole hotel.

2. Pay attention to the application of new technologies and reduce energy costs. Because hotel energy is consumable, imperceptible and dispersed, it is more difficult to manage than other costs. However, by introducing advanced central energy management system, the energy cost of hotels can be greatly reduced. The system has high technology content. Through the central computer controller and each room sub-controller, it can automatically detect whether there are guests in the room and automatically turn off the power switch. After adopting this system, the hotel housekeeping department only needs to be equipped with one operator, and the engineering department does not need to send someone on duty to monitor, which can reduce the labor cost and make the energy cost management effect good. Take the hotel escalator as an example. Generally speaking, the hotel escalators will keep running during normal business hours. No matter whether there are guests or not, it will waste some energy and accelerate the wear and tear of the elevator. After adopting advanced computer automatic monitoring facilities, when there are no guests to use, the elevator will automatically stop until there are guests to use, which can not only save electricity, reduce elevator wear and tear, but also reduce the noise in the hall, killing two birds with one stone.

(2) Human cost management and mobilizing employees' enthusiasm focus on the characteristics of the hotel as a service hotel, stabilize the staff, reduce the cost of human resources, and mobilize the enthusiasm of employees to participate in cost management. Hotel cost management needs the active participation of all staff. The experience of many service-oriented hotels shows that the satisfaction and loyalty of employees will affect the consumption value of services, and then affect the satisfaction and loyalty of customers, and ultimately affect the economic benefits of hotels. Excellent employees are the most valuable assets of service-oriented hotels. In order to improve the service quality and the economic benefits of the hotel, service hotel managers should attach great importance to the role of employees, give full play to their enthusiasm and subjective initiative in management, care about their career development prospects, strengthen the construction of service culture, do a good job in human resource management and development, enhance their job satisfaction and professionalism, and encourage employees to provide quality services to customers. This can not only improve customer loyalty, but also reduce marketing costs; It can also reduce the job-hopping rate of employees, reduce the training expenses of employees and improve the economic benefits of the hotel. (3) Strengthen procurement management and reduce hotel procurement cost. Although the cost of procurement itself only accounts for a small part of the whole production and operation cost of the hotel, the price and quality of the purchased items determined in the procurement process will have a far-reaching impact on the future operation cost and performance of the hotel. Therefore, doing a good job in hotel procurement management is an important link to strengthen cost management.

1. With the cooperation of relevant departments, it is determined that the purchase cost is negatively correlated with the purchase batch, but the purchase batch is positively correlated with the storage cost. In order to minimize the sum of hotel purchasing cost and storage cost, it is necessary to determine the optimal economic order quantity between purchasing department and storage department. Although this economic order quantity can neither minimize the purchase cost nor the storage cost, it can minimize the sum of the two. The economic order quantity model should be established according to the inventory cost, storage cost and out-of-stock cost. The optimal order quantity is the order quantity that makes the sum of order cost, storage cost and out-of-stock cost reach the lowest. After calculating the economic order quantity through the model, it is easy to find out the most suitable purchasing time. The economic order batch mode is suitable for different stages, the quantity is relatively stable, it can be preserved for a long time, and the basic quantity of products can be predicted in advance, such as tableware, house supplies, drinks and so on.

2. Establish a sound procurement system In order to ensure the smooth progress of procurement activities, standardize the behavior of procurement personnel in the procurement process and minimize costs, it is necessary to establish a sound procurement system, supervise the whole procurement process, establish a reward and punishment system, and encourage procurement personnel to conduct procurement legally and efficiently. This is the premise of effective procurement cost management. A perfect cost management system should include: a reasonable division of responsibilities within the procurement department, so that the responsibility can be implemented to each purchaser; Methods for approving and issuing purchase orders; Division of procurement scope; Inquiry, supplier determination, signing of purchase contract, supervision of arrival, quality inspection and warehousing, and provision of purchase statistics. In the procurement system, it is an important content to establish the price files and price evaluation system of all procurement projects. If the price exceeds the standard, it should be carefully analyzed. Of course, because some restaurants are seasonal, price fluctuations are normal. Therefore, the price file established by the hotel should take this volatility into account. In order to strengthen the management of purchasing personnel, a performance appraisal system for purchasing personnel should be established. Encourage procurement personnel to exert their subjective initiative and strive to buy products that meet the requirements of quality, quantity and time at the lowest price. At the same time, if there is no special reason, the purchaser who cannot complete the procurement task according to the standard purchase price or higher than the record price shall be punished until it is replaced. 3. Use the Internet to improve the level of hotel informatization and reduce the procurement cost. The rapid development of Internet and information technology provides technical support for the establishment of modern procurement system. Using internet technology can better implement cost management and reduce procurement costs. You can use the internet to integrate and process information and order from suppliers in a unified way, so as to get the maximum batch discount. Using Internet technology, production information, inventory information and purchase information can be connected together to realize real-time purchase. Hotels can purchase on demand and minimize inventory, which is recommended by Guilin Hotel, so as to reduce capital occupation and storage costs. This is of great significance to the hotel, because the fragility of the products purchased by the hotel determines that the hotel cannot have too much overstock inventory, and the hotel should implement real-time procurement according to business needs. Therefore, improving the level of hotel informatization and giving full play to the role of the Internet are effective ways for hotels to reduce procurement costs. At present, few hotels can really use Internet technology to realize real-time purchasing, which shows that hotels still need to pay attention to and speed up the pace of informatization.

(4) Introduce the strategic cost management system in an all-round way to enhance the hotel's core competitiveness. Strategic cost management is the inevitable requirement and trend of strengthening hotel cost management, which will enrich the content of hotel cost management system, broaden the horizon of cost management and improve the level of hotel cost management. Under the strategic cost management mode, the hotel will build a brand-new hotel cost management system, and comprehensively use strategic cost management tools such as value chain analysis, cost driver analysis and strategic positioning analysis to conduct comprehensive cost analysis and management of hotel logistics, capital flow, information flow and value flow. Ensure the improvement of hotel cost management benefit and promote the all-round development of the whole hotel.

Hotel cost management is the all-staff, all-process, all-link and all-round management of hotel cost. It is a combination of hotel material flow and product (service) value flow, and a combination of management technology and information technology. In hotel cost management, strategic cost management should occupy a very important position, that is, it should break through the current situation that traditional cost management is limited to the micro level and shift its focus to a broader overall hotel strategy field. Through the cost analysis of internal logistics, external procurement mode, service product positioning, financial operation mode, competitors and market environment, it is helpful for hotels to correctly predict and make decisions, so as to correctly choose hotel management strategies and correctly handle the relationship between hotel development and strengthening cost management.

Hotels are facing severe challenges, so we must activate the internal motivation of hotels to strengthen cost management and enhance competitiveness, and mobilize the enthusiasm of hotels to strengthen cost management. By mobilizing the enthusiasm of employees to participate in management; Reduce the procurement cost by strengthening the management measures of purchased materials; By introducing new technology, we can improve the efficiency of hotel operation and reduce costs. Through the above measures, hotel cost management will definitely go to a new level.

Nanjing White House Hotel:

Zhang Xiumei

20 10 July 12