Security Measures as a Factor in the Competitiveness of Accommodation Facilities

Rafał Nagaj,Brigita Žuromskaitė

doi:10.3390/jrfm13050099

Abstract

The main aim of this article was to assess whether the level of competitiveness of accommodation facilities results from the level of safety and security provided to consumers of these services, measured by the number of security measures applied in them. The authors’ task was to examine the level of concentration of security measures in the accommodation facilities and to assess whether the quality of services measured by the star-rating system provided a higher level of safety and security for customers of the accommodation facilities, measured by the number of security measures applied in them. It was decided to examine whether the level of concentration of security measures at the accommodation facilities was treated by these entities as a factor of their competitiveness. Two locations in Central and Eastern Europe, one in Poland and one in Lithuania, were analyzed. The article calculated the frequency of these measures at the accommodation facilities by type of facility (according to the star-rating system) and type of security measure (as a weighted average) and their concentration using the Herfindahl–Hirscham Index. The results showed that the higher the quality of services provided (more stars), the higher the level of safety and security is ensured. It was also found that a higher level of security was not reflected in the prices of accommodation services.

Highlights

Tourism is among the fastest growing economic sectors in the world, recording long-term growth in international tourist arrivals and receipts (World Tourism Organization 2019)
All of the security measures analyzed in this article were the so-called “soft measures”, i.e., those that the literature recommends as preferred by the owners not to create a sense of fear among tourists
The correlation coefficient was used for this purpose. It was examined which of the security measures were in the accommodation facilities of the analyzed resorts and what was the frequency of their occurrence by the type of facility

Summary

Introduction

Tourism is among the fastest growing economic sectors in the world, recording long-term growth in international tourist arrivals and receipts (World Tourism Organization 2019). As events in recent years have shown, the tourist industry is increasingly exposed to various types of threats and risks (e.g., political threats, natural disasters, diseases and many others) that can have a direct impact on the life and health of the traveler (Rittichainuwat and Chakraborty 2012; Ghazi 2015; Žuromskaiteand Nagaj 2018; Chauhan and Negi 2018). Every event in the world (e.g., terrorist attacks, new viruses, natural disasters, economic crises) that directly affects tourists has a negative impact on the income and tourist attendance of particular tourist destinations (Kubickova et al 2019; OECD 2020), as well as financial markets (Lee et al 2018), which indirectly increases the effect of this impact. Depending on the geographical location, state policy or economic situation in the country, threats may affect the development of tourism in different ways. It should be remembered that the same threats do not occur everywhere, as they may vary from region to region

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