Rethinking performance measures: assessing progress in UK hotels

Abstract

With the intention of successfully meeting the challenges of an increasingly complex competitive environment, organizations in many industries are rethinking their performance measurement systems. More effective performance measurement features identified include linking operations to strategic goals, and presenting a balance of indicators. Traditional performance measurement systems, meanwhile, typically stress the short term, focusing on past achievements while largely ignoring the drivers of future performance. Concern has been expressed that UK hotels are still focusing on these traditional performance measures – and so may be overlooking important issues, potentially leading to detrimental outcomes. This concern is supported by new empirical evidence obtained regarding the current range of performance measures used within UK hotels. This evidence suggests that although they appear to monitor performance in great detail, with few notable exceptions, UK hotels do appear to emphasize traditional measures and therefore still seem to have some considerable rethinking to do.