Business Communications of Hospitality Industry Enterprises in Conditions of Political Instability

Abstract

Topicality. Ukraine is going through a complex period of its societal and economic transformation. The hotel and restaurant business of our country faced significant challenges during the Russian aggression. The aim of the article is to develop a roadmap for business communications in the hospitality industry under political instability. Research methods. When conducting this research, general scientific methods were used, such as: induction and deduction, for synthesising ideas on business communication in the hotel and restaurant business; abstraction, theoretical analysis, and synthesis, for defining the business communication strategy in the hotel and restaurant industry; comparison, for assessing the dynamics of the number of establishments in the hotel and restaurant business of Ukraine; generalisation, for determining the share of Sole Trader in the hotel and restaurant business; inference, for constructing the roadmap for business communication in the hotel and restaurant business; survey, for evaluating the state of business communication in the hotel and restaurant industry; graphical method, for interpreting survey data from 30 respondents in Volyn region. Results. It is established that the majority of hotel and restaurant business establishments are Sole Trader subjects. They quickly adapt to changes, still, they are the most vulnerable ones. The study of 30 respondents in Volyn region showed the absence of an effective business communication strategy in the hotel and restaurant industry. The business communication strategy should be grounded as a road map in which relevant goals, tasks, analysis of the target audience, verification of the messages relevance, tools and tone of voice, risks, implementation terms and evaluation of results are defined. Conclusions and discussion. It is found ou that business communication is an important process in the activity of hotel and restaurant business enterprises. It is established that 86–91 % of small enterprises function in the form of small business entities in the hotel and restaurant business. It is noted that the war and instability in the country in total provoked new paradigms for conducting the hotel and restaurant business. Most of the establishments have been repurposed in accordance with customers’ requests. It is mentioned that business communications play an important role in the vast majority of the surveyed respondents. The main elements of the business communication strategy in the hotel and restaurant business are goals, tasks, target audience, results, risks, implementation terms, results evaluation. On the basis of this study, it is concluded that most hospitality industry establishments in Volyn region do not evaluate the business communication strategy according to a number of qualitative and quantitative indicators, which makes it impossible to identify their problematic issues.