Learning Service Excellence in Hotel Business Program is a one of a kind learning experience that prioritizes on inwards journey of oneself to explore their own feelings before they try to help others with their feelings. The journey started on the first semester, initiated by the lecturer whom paid in- depth thinking on how to give warm surprise to all of the students before the class begun. This activity was created with the hope to inspire the students and trigger the excitement of the students. The first meeting of this subject, the students learnt on how to recognize their feelings and how to react upon the feelings. Started with a short meditation followed by a discussion with the students about their feelings after they receive the surprise from the lecturer.
The courage to express feelings openly and honestly is actually the key to develop the seeds of excellent service. Other than that recognizing energy and understanding on how energy influences feelings and human interaction are also given on this subject. Magic Fingers which introduced by Jin Shin Jyutsu was used as the reference during the teaching where students were taught about how worry, fear, anger, sadness and ambition which represented with 5 fingers affects the whole human body. Senses also introduced in this subject, not 5 but 12 senses, which used as reference in developing service capabilities (Stainer, 1920). The excitement of the class continued. Students were taught to be able to differentiate between desire and need, this followed by a project where the students were required to treat themselves in the proceeding week and share their feelings on Instagram, to inspire others.
The second session begun with the presentation of each student about their project in the previous week, surprisingly treating themselves intentionally wholeheartedly turned out to be an extraordinary pleasant memory. This session made students realize that treating themselves well was a simple thing but had a huge impact on their lives. The session continued with learning the theory of human needs by Maslow. The hierarchy of needs formed the basic for the second session of learning. Right after that the session followed up with the study about the character of service and concluded with a session covering the topic of guestology. The second task became more interesting. Each student was paired randomly then given the task to know 20 things about their partners. These 20 things would be the basis for the following week for each student to surprise their partners. The students were surprised and some of them even saw this task as an opportunity to prospect future girlfriends or boyfriends. It was interesting to learned on feelings of attraction and discomfort mixed with feelings of pleasure and fear. The ability to find out in detail, observe and desire to please others is the ability developed in the second week.
In the third meeting, all students were required to present the gift they have prepared for their friend. Students were called randomly, and they reveal the results of observations of their partners and surprise their friend. The surprise turned out to be both good and not good, tangible or intangible surprises. It is nice to see the class knowing about their friends only in the third week while trying to give the best for their partners. The ability to go extra miles and attention to details is very important in this task. Some students laughed, shouted in surprise, shy, even cried to see their partner’s efforts. The third session closed with an assignment where the students were asked to find a stranger then plan and give a surprise to that person.
Can’t wait for the fourth week and may all beings be happy.
Part of : Hotel Business
Writer : Dea Prasetyawati, S.ST.Par., M.M.
Editor : Marcomm
