Shirley Tan, the manager of The View, a 58-seat bar at The Grand, a well-known 5-star hotel in Sydney, stared out the window at the great view of the Harbour and sighed.
Her colleague, Sam Goh, walked in and said, “Shirley, bar getting you down?”
Shirley shook her head and replied, “The View is doing just fine, but sometimes I think we maybe should change the name! We get so many people in here who want to see ‘the view,’ but sometimes, it just gets so crazy.
Just last night, we had some guests come in at, say, 5:30, order some tea and then proceed to take off their shoes, lean back, and take a nap! Sam, it was horrible! They were snoring!”
Sam raised his eyebrows and said, “You’ve got to be kidding me. What did you do, wake them up?” Shirley shook her head, “No, we didn’t know what to do. It was just a mess. They finally woke up after a couple of hours and left. I don’t even think they were embarrassed! But really, that’s so bad, but it’s sure not the first time it’s happened.”
Sam asked, “What are you going to do about it?” Shirley sighed and shook her head, “That’s just it, I don’t know. And that’s not the worst thing. Franz Hendricks, my F&B director, is breathing down my neck about some revenue management thing that some university intern did and is telling me to take her analysis and use it to figure out how to make more money at The View. There are all sorts of graphs and things, and I’m not sure what to make of it. I’m much better at running the bar than looking at numbers.”

STUDY QUESTIONS
1. How is The View doing? How can you tell? Be sure to back up your answer with the data.
2. Consider the variation in server performance.
Based on this, what would you suggest that Shirley recommend?
3. It seems that people take longer when they’re seated by a window. What sorts of things could be done with this information?
4. What do you think about the discounts that are being offered? What recommendations would you give?