CURRENT TRENDS IN HOSPITALITY

 

TIPS

 

Tips are form of thank you for service rendered. A tip is a sign of appreciation in a form of small amount of money or anything (Lynn 2013).

There are theories and myths about history of tips. According to Azar (2010) tipping originated in 1950s at England where tourists to private homes developed the habit of tipping hosts servants in exchange for services. The word tip originated in London, where commercial establishments employees put small bowls on tables with `To Insure Prompt Service` message on them and then abbreviated it to TIPS ( Lynn 2013).

Tipping customs differs from country to country per establishments. In Japan and Russia tipping by tourists or guests is often considered an insult (Caneva 2013).

Lynn (2013) identified tips problems which are;

·         Tips create classes of clients and discrimination.

·         Waiters neglect other customers and focus on regular tippers.

·         Tips encourage selfishness rather than team work.

·         Cash tips encourage tax cheats because that is also income.

According to Bly (2008), restaurants in America replaced tipping practice and added an optional service charge on bills, which will be shared by all employees in establishments.  The trip advisor (2014) outlined advantages of service charge as follows;

·         Service fee reduces diners bias and discrimination.

·         Eliminates unreported cash tips.

·         Helps when crediting or appraising servers.

·         The tip will be shared by all employees in establishments.

The researcher criticizes service charge system because it is ripping money from customers after paying for meals to motivate servers to do their work. She recommended that servers should be paid to market level. Organizations should find ways that will force servers to declare all their tips for taxing and leave tips to be customers decisions.

 

REFERENCES

Azar O.H. (2010). The History of Tipping - From Sixteenth-Century England to United States in the1910s [Online] Available at: http://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwpeh/0309001.html. Accessed on the 05/03/2014.

Bly L. (2008). The tipping point: Will service charges replace voluntary gratuities? [Online].Available at: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/travel/news/2005-08-25-tipping_x.html. Accessed on the 11/03/2014.

Caneva A. (2013). Let’s talk about gratuities in tourism. [Online] Available at: http://www.jobintourism.it/job/articolo_print.php?id_articoli=23343.Accessed on the 09/03/2014.

Lynn W. M. (2013). Race differences in tipping: UK, Cornell University of hotel administration.[Online].Available:http://www.hotels.schools.cornell.etiquette/chr/pdf/showpdf/chr/research/tools/lyntippingtoo/find.pdf : Accessed date 11/03/2014.

Trip Advisor (2014) United States Tipping and Etiquettes [Online] Available at: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Travel-g191-s606/United-States:Tipping.And.Etiquette.html. Accessed date: 10/03/2014.