Maintenance Cost Index for Egyptian Hotels: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

In the hotel industry maintenance is important despite of its complex processes as its effectiveness will directly affect the quality of hotel service and have direct effect on guests' impression of the hotel. in the same time, the costs of operating and maintaining the hotel engineering systems must be properly monitored and controlled in particular the in-house manpower, out-source contracts, energy consumption and equipment deterioration. There are limited literatures available regarding the hotel maintenance cost analysis, This is what urged the researcher to conduct this study which aims to develop a hotel maintenance cost index, to compare hotel maintenance costs and the distribution of this cost over the different maintenance approaches and in-house and out-sourced strategies among the three, four, and five-star hotels. The quantitative research methodology of the interview was conducted with hotel's chief engineer or maintenance supervisor in three, four, and five-star hotels in Egypt (via-phone interview). The study revealed an index benchmark number that could be used to compare maintenance operations cost in three, four, and five-star hotels which also could be used in planning hotels maintenance expenditures if we know the value of this expenditure in other hotel categories.