Information System
After reading and analyzing the case, we understand that West Indies Yacht Club Resort (WIYCR) is facing an apparent tailspin arising from several areas of concern.
The first thing that we noticed is that, since few years, WIYCR is suffering from a high expatriate turnover resulting from different elements. Their high expatriate’s turnover is reflected by the fact that they failed to retain three expatriate waterfront directors and three expatriate food and beverage directors the past two years. The expatriates usually do not stay long enough on the British Virgin Islands (BVIs) which creates some issues [???]. Part of the reason why managers do not want to stay longer is that there is aconstant increase in their frustration, due to a lack of communication with headquarter based in Chicago (Singiser is suffering of this lack of understanding of the reality and the problem of communication of headquarter). The last relevant fact concerning this high turnover in WIYCR’s expatriates is highlighted by Lucas, the new food and beverage director, in the following sentence“there is no planning, no commitment, no enthusiasm” in the expatriates working in the resort. This lack of commitment and of enthusiasm may come from the fact that this experience is a challenging one, and expatriates must be motivated to achieve their goals.
The second main symptom WIYCR is facing is the constant increase of guests’ complaints, which became 3 times higher than two years ago (30 complaints per week). The guests usually criticize the deteriorating level of service, that makes them dissatisfied about the resort. One guest said that: “the staff just does not seem as motivated as it used to be”. This quote really emphasis on the declining level of service.
Investigation Summary
In British Virgin Islands (BVI), there are mainly five upscale hotels and WIYCR is one of them which is famous for its boat collection as well as its top of the line sailing instruction programs. The resort staff is composed of expatriate managers and local employees. This results in cultural communication problems and arises issues on cross-cultural management for the managers. After the investigation, there are mainly four problems including the high level of expatriate turnover, the remarkable rising of the number of