Increasing productivity in small hotels: are academic proposals realistic?

Abstract

Whilst service industries have become increasingly important in western economies during the past decade, their productivity has remained low compared to the manufacturing sector. Most models of productivity have their origins in the manufacturing sector and it may be argued that such models cannot be realistically applied to hotel operations. The authors have reviewed some of the previous studies on hotel productivity and found that they fail to relate to the issues which are important to small hotels. It would seem that there is a lack of communication between academic investigators and owners/managers of small hotels which needs to be addressed if research progress is to be made in this area.