Hotel Chains Research Articles

Ethical Marketing Model for Luxury Hotel Chains: Development and Validation of a Performance Evaluation Tool

The aim of this study is to develop a new performance evaluation tool that is stringently applied to the hotel chains, considering the associated ethical marketing dimensions to measure its proper strategic, tactical, and operational role and impact within hospitality marketing management plans, campaigns, and strategies implemented. A Delphi technique was conducted as the selected research qualitative method, comprising three rounds. A total of 23 panel participants, such as directors and managers of marketing, e-commerce, sales, and branding, completed all three rounds. Two major areas of ethical marketing, internal and external, both divided into five dimensions, each with underlying items, were found to comprise the ethical marketing model for luxury hotel chains: (1) internal area of marketing (with five dimensions: integration, training, equal opportunities, performance evaluation, and smart policies) and (2) external area of marketing (with five dimensions: stakeholders, booking platforms and CRM, marketing plan, digital marketing campaigns, and social media platforms). The study concludes with useful insights and remarks. The generalisability of the results may be limited owning to the partial or not full applicability across all luxury hotel chains. The model still needs to be empirically applied in luxury hotel chains to enrich its robustness, covering a wider spread of four- and five-star luxury hotels. There is a growing potential for researchers, hotel decision makers, and marketing and sales managers and directors to achieve many advantages and benefits from the proposed model, supporting the efforts for ethical marketing theory and practice, such as hotel brand positioning strategies and formulation of more targeted and finely tuned ethical marketing strategies, tactics, and plans. This is the first study to develop and validate a performance evaluation tool of ethical marketing for luxury hotel chains. This pioneering approach extends the scope into ethical marketing because this model has never been used in this area.

The Expansion of Turkey’s Medical Tourism Industry

The Expansion of Turkey’s Medical Tourism Industry

Information system application for hotel department integration: A case study of Melia Purosani Hotel Yogyakarta

Tourism industry is a large field including hotel business. Hotel business is classified by its stars from non-star hotel to five-star hotel that has their own regulation to grow their own business. Hotel is divided by a lot of departments such as front office, food and beverage, housekeeping, accounting, sales and marketing, human resources, kitchen, and engineering. To integrate each department, the business needs information system to build connection one and another department. According to case study in Melia Purosani Hotel Yogyakarta, the business is using application and form business intelligence. Melia Purosani Hotel Yogyakarta is one of five-star international chain hotel in Yogyakarta that use system named Oracle Hospitality: Opera which is integrating one and another department. Opera creates convenience and ease the teamwork of each department, therefore the hotel could make guest satisfaction. Business performance management, data governance, business intelligence program, data architecture, data warehouse and lacking, also data integration is provided by Opera, therefore Melia Purosani Hotel Yogyakarta is belong to business intelligence. Business intelligence is required for big and professional business. Hence, a lot of data is protected and integrated one another.

Choosing contracts to support ALFO strategy: Insights from comparing franchised and managed hotels

Although franchise and management contracts constitute the dominant way of organizing business-to-business relationships within hotel chains, no study has compared their relative performance. This paper aims to explain their differences and assess their impact on online scores, currently a key performance indicator in the hotel industry. We argue that franchises are less effective than management contracts for operating upscale hotels due to the relative advantages that the latter have in transferring and enforcing tacit knowledge, typically embedded in skilled staff and very relevant in such quality-tier hotels. Conversely, franchising is better for large hotels because, first, its incentive structure better addresses managerial shirking (typically more severe as hotel size increases) and, second, it offers advantages when the standardization of business procedures is key to success (as is true for large establishments). Our empirical findings broadly support these arguments in a dataset of 467 Spanish hotels, also providing evidence that no single organizational solution fits all situations.

How emotional regulation and conscientiousness break the reciprocal circle between customer mistreatment and surface acting: an experience sampling study

PurposeDrawing on the conservation of resource theory and emotional contagion perspective, this study aims to propose that customer mistreatment has an indirect effect on subsequent customer mistreatment by triggering high levels of surface acting. In other words, there is a vicious circle formed as a result of customer mistreatment and surface acting. This paper further argues that emotional regulation and conscientiousness are effective in breaking this vicious circle.Design/methodology/approachAn experience sampling study was conducted on 97 frontline service employees in a hotel chain’s restaurants in China, with two daily surveys for ten consecutive days. Multilevel path analyses were used to test the hypotheses.FindingsThe results indicate that employees experiencing customer mistreatment in the morning would adopt the surface acting strategy more frequently in the afternoon, which in turn induces more customer mistreatment in the afternoon. Further, this indirect effect can be mitigated by high (versus low) levels of emotional regulation and conscientiousness.Originality/valueRecently, there has been growing recognition of the vital links between customer mistreatment and negative employee outcomes. However, these studies have failed to consider the carryover effect of customer mistreatment. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first pioneer study on whether and how customer mistreatment can affect subsequent instances of customer mistreatment, thereby offering a more comprehensive understanding of the consequences of customer mistreatment.

Innovation features in the hotel industry: Croatian hotel websites

Abstract The hotel industry undeniably holds strong market power. Its economic impact can affect the infrastructural, economic, and digital development of a particular region. In addition to numerous advantages, digital development has also posed certain challenges for the hotel industry, such as fierce competition and a struggle for market power, which in turn lead to constant searching for new beneficial solutions. Hotel websites need to be of good quality to have a positive impact on profitability. Quality websites are functional and useful, and innovation is a common factor observed when testing quality. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the innovation activity of Croatian hotel websites. Two methods were used for research purposes: the e-MICA framework and content analysis. Descriptive statistics and the significance of Chi-squared tests were used to analyse the results. Research findings suggest that Croatian hotels have adopted innovative features on their websites modestly: mostly, 5-star hotels, hotel chains, and foreign-owned hotels as well as hotels focused strategically on direct sales channels. The obtained results are important for future research which should analyse the issue in more depth. Furthermore, hoteliers could also benefit from these results, and use them to their advantage in order to revise and improve their existing strategies.

Challenges of Implementing Sustainable Practices in Purchasing Process Management: A Case Study on One of The Five-Star Hotel Chain in Cairo

Challenges of Implementing Sustainable Practices in Purchasing Process Management: A Case Study on One of The Five-Star Hotel Chain in Cairo

The Effect of Corporate Anorexia in the Hospitality Industry on Student Enrollment in Hospitality Programs

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a substantial impact on operations in the hospitality industry in general and particularly in the hotel industry. The lockdown restrictions as well as the fear of contracting COVID-19 caused major layoffs, furloughs, and the termination of many hotel employees at both the managerial and staff levels. This work looks at the decline or stagnation in the number of U.S. hotel industry employees in hotel revenues before and during the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on employment in the hotel industry and its subsequent impact on enrollment in hospitality programs in higher education. As such, the two impacts presented here are: (1) the decrease in employment in the hospitality/hotel industry and (2) the decrease in student enrollment in hospitality programs at colleges and universities in the United States from 2015 through 2021. For this work, the author consciously decided to maintain anonymized data on the decline of enrollment at U.S. colleges and universities during the study periods to avoid further negative impacts on their student enrollment status. In addition, the employment data sources used in this work are primarily from the hotel industry with an emphasis on large hotel chain operations whose operations are more transparent and accessible than smaller operations.

Problems of staff motivation at the enterprises of the hotel industry

This article presents a number of studies by specialists in the field of employee motivation, reveals the concept of motivation, identifies the main factors of employee motivation from a managerial point of view, presents types of remuneration, and reveals the problems of implementing motivational programs. An example is the employee loyalty program in the Hyatt Hotels Corporation hotel chain. Also proposed solutions to motivational problems in small accommodation facilities.

Integrated case for COVID-19: hospitality management, finance, marketing, strategy, and sustainability – “Good ‘Ol Camp Teddy amidst the COVID pandemic”

Theoretical basis Later in the discussion, the options for long run strategy in dealing with a possible takeover offer and other strategic options can be discussed by the class. Lack of familiarity by students with the role of the outside potential acquirer of the camp (in this case, a hotel chain) and the lack of familiarity with the role of an investor who is a family investor, who may wish to sell stock and use the proceeds for another purpose, or a small investor who invests because he or she uses the camp and takes advantage of the stockholder’s discount will probably preclude role playing, except in executive MBA classes where students have sufficient experience in possible takeover situations or in investment management, Emphasis should probably be placed on discussing the major issues, such as social and cultural issues and on marketing and public relations issues and on financial issues, including the options available in the event of a possible takeover effort. All of these issues are impacted fully by the COVID-19 pandemic. Research methodology Instructors will need to play an active role in teaching this case. It is recommended that the instructor give a short lecture or discussion at the beginning as to how a camp such as Camp Teddy functions. The authors recommend that the instructor then begin the case discussion by asking students questions about such issues as social and cultural issues and marketing and public relations issues. Case overview/synopsis Camp Teddy is a seasonal camp for families in rural Connecticut adjacent to New York City and suburbs in New York and Connecticut. It is technically a for-profit organization but operates more like a nonprofit organization because many of the campers own shares and have used the camp sometimes for several generations. The camp has traditions that are liked by many of the shareholders and campers. Although net income has increased in the past year, there does not seem to be enough funds to support necessary capital expenditures to improve facilities for the future. The largest stockholder has recently died. His immediate heirs’ control 300 of the 1,000 shares and other family members control 400 shares with the remaining 300 shares in the hands of small shareholders, many of whom use the camp each summer. A large hotel chain is interested in possibly acquiring the camp through a buyout or perhaps a hostile takeover, with a potential large gain to shareholders. The board of directors must consider a number of issues to insure good occupancy of the camp in the future and must decide what to do about a potential takeover attempt. Complexity academic level This case can be used in several courses, including investment management, hospitality management, corporate finance and business strategy. There are ethical and societal issues in the case, so that the case might also be used in courses looking at business, environment or business ethics. The case is best used at the graduate level, but it might be suitable for some advanced undergraduate courses.

Contribution of hotels’ revenue management for supply chain sustainability

Revenue management (RM) on chain hotels versus independent hotels intends to create value for the activity, manage revenue, and control costs for profit efficiency. The article presents a simplified analysis of its management that intends to benefit suppliers, hotels, and hotels' level of service and how it is being seen nowadays. There was drawn a research question in this study: to understand how it is perceived the impacts of RM on supply chain management (SCM)? This essay aims to bring a two-ways input (from and to), hotel managers, hotel professional revenue managers, and supply chain managers. Due to the pandemic, all data for forecasting and analysis have been reconsidered because they cannot be related to further implications caused by the market changes and guests' behaviors, making this research relevant at this period.

Firm responsiveness to consumers' reviews: The effect on online reputation

AbstractThis paper investigates whether firms' responsiveness to customer reviews affects firms' online reputation. Responsiveness is measured by the intensity (fraction) of reviews that are responded to whereas online reputation is measured using TripAdvisor's average customer review rating (1–5 scale). Our analysis is applied to the hotel market in Manhattan (New York). To deal with the endogeneity of a hotel's responsiveness, we instrument it with the responsiveness level displayed by nearby competitors. This identification strategy is motivated by the fact that hotels have a greater tendency to respond to reviews not only because a particular review demands attention, but also because they seek to comply (catch up) with their competitors' level of responsiveness. The results show that one standard deviation increase in a hotel's responsiveness level would result in an improvement of 0.055 stars in TripAdvisor's average online rating (equivalently, an increase of 0.09 SD). Importantly, not accounting for endogeneity would lead to an erroneous conclusion that such effect is nonexistent. In addition, our results show that the effect is heterogeneous. Specifically, the effect is particularly strong for: (a) hotels responding more intensely to negative reviews, (b) independent hotels (vis‐à‐vis chain hotels), (c) hotels with a less established online reputation, (d) hotels with more volatile online ratings, and (e) hotels with more experience responding to negative reviews. We discuss the possible mechanism between firms' responsiveness and online reputation.

Big Data, Social Media and Employer Branding: An exploratory study from the hospitality industry

Abstract: Purpose: “Data Production” and its analysis are becoming increasingly important for the hospitality industry due to wide mobile technology and social media use. “Big Data” has become an important concept for businesses and requires significant management competences in its usage. Within this scope the purpose of this exploratory study is to exemplify best practices from the concept of Big Data and its relation with social media in understanding how employer branding issues are perceived by hospitality operations.
 Design/methodology: Both quantitative and qualitative methods have been used in the study. The study consisted of two parts and data were obtained from lodging operations in Ankara, Turkey. The first stage consisted of analyzing content of social media sharings from ten 5-star hotels in Ankara, Turkey. For the second stage, a survey was conducted among 149 employees from the same lodging operations to determine employee’s employer branding perception levels.
 Findings: The first part of the study indicated that both international chains and local hotels mostly shared promotional message for employer brand enhancement. Sharings related to motivational messages, social responsibility activities, and events for customers and employees are mostly done by internationals chain hotels. Findings from the second part of the study revealed that international chain hotel employees’ perception of the employer brand is at a higher rate. The study showed that social media usage level of the operations and employees’ perceptions of employer brand concept are consistent. 
 Originality: This is an innovative research project. The study integrates the concept of Big Data and social media relations with employer branding issues in hospitality operations. With its quantitative and qualitative nature, the current study shed light to further studies. The sample size and the fact that the study was carried out in 5-star hotels in Ankara are the main limitations of this study.

Centers of data appropriation: evidence from a Nordic hotel chain

PurposeResearch suggests that centers of calculation, empowered by accounting inscriptions, are similar to maps: they provide a useful, albeit simplified, version of reality. The purposes of this paper are to examine whether and how digital platforms change the nature of centers of calculation, and to improve the understanding of the relationship between digital platforms and accounting.Design/methodology/approachAn in-depth, single case-study design is used to empirically investigate how a Nordic hotel chain competed with global online travel agencies (OTAs) in the quest for the “new oil”—customer data.FindingsThe paper demonstrates how the case organization created a local alternative to global digital platforms with the aim of acquiring customer data, thereby moving from a center of calculation (CoC) to what authors label a “center of data appropriation” (CDA). While CoCs are guided by accounting inscriptions that enable “mapping”, CDAs are constructed around accounting inscriptions with other properties that enable digital “mirrors” of the economic domain. The authors find that this has two governing effects. First, multiple centers emerge that compete for access to the periphery. Second, future forms of competition can follow dynamic trajectories, where mutual dependence between CDAs may lead to coopetition.Originality/valueScholars have suggested that surveillance capitalism creates market-power imbalances. This study indicates that the transformation of local organizations into CDAs enables them to challenge global digital-platform organizations. Therefore, authors argue that local organizations may retain some market power by establishing local CDAs.

Effects of revenue management on perceived value, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty

Revenue management aims to maximize financial performance by setting different prices for the same offerings. However, such practices may deteriorate the nonfinancial performance of customer relationship management such as perceived value, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty. Furthermore, revenue management tends to set higher prices during periods of peak demand or congestion. Congestion may negatively affect service quality and result in lower perceived value, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty. Thus, revenue management may have dual negative effects on customer relationship: objective price and occupancy rate simultaneously and negatively affect the nonfinancial performance of customer relationship. Using the panel data of 18 hotels from a Japanese hotel chain company within 16 months, this study reveals the dual negative effects, which, to the best of my knowledge, have never been shown by literature. Hotel companies, when employing revenue management, should consider the tradeoff between short-term profitability and long-term customer relationship.

Strategic Responses to Digital Disruption in Incumbent Firms– A Strategy-as-Practice Perspective

ABSTRACT Hardly any organization remains unaffected by the digitalization of society and the whole global economy is shaken by disruptive digital innovations (DDI). This calls for strategic responses from incumbent firms to remain relevant in a changing environment. This study explores the phenomenon of digital transformation and the development of digital business strategy in the context of incumbent firms, in this case, the hotel industry. We address the following research questions: 1) How are hotel organizations disrupted by digital innovations? and 2) How do they respond strategically to these disruptions? The research approach consists of multiple longitudinal case studies of two international hotel chains, offering a rich dataset. “Strategy-as-practice” is used as a theoretical lens. The results show three overall organizational responses due to DDI including: 1) relating to a new digital business environment; 2) translating strategy to practices 3) renegotiating value. Contributions include extending the existing literature on digital strategies and responses to digital disruptions in incumbent firms as well as providing implications to practice.

Dancing with service robots: The impacts of employee-robot collaboration on hotel employees’ job crafting

The increasing use of service robots, which serve as close working “partners” for hotel employees, accelerates the need to understand employees’ reactions in employee-robot collaboration. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impacts of employees’ perceptions (i.e., perceived risk, perceived playfulness, performance expectancy, and effort expectancy) on job crafting toward employee-robot collaboration in hospitality. Drawing on the Sense-Think-Act framework, this study uses a structural equation model to analyze the multiple paths. By using paper- and pencil- surveys at three-time points, data were collected from 407 frontline employees working in 16 hotel chains in China and analyzed via AMOS and SPSS. The findings suggest that perceived risk and perceived playfulness are the key drivers of employees’ effort expectancy and performance expectancy, and perceived risk has the strongest positive impact on effort expectancy. Furthermore, performance expectancy and effort expectancy have a staged impact on job crafting. The findings are valuable to researchers and managers for future research and implementation of service robots in the hotel industry.

Developing a star rating system for guesthouses to promote budget tourism in the Maldives: An exploratory study

The Maldives is a Small-Island Developing State (SIDS) in the Indian Ocean and is a destination synonymous with luxury tropical tourism. Due to its strong competitive advantage in terms of its natural attractions (sun, sea, and sand), Maldives has become one of the most expensive tropical island tourism destination in the world.
 However, the majority of the benefactors of the Maldivian tourism industry are the large, international hotel chains and franchises while the average Maldivian is not getting a fair share of the tourism receipts. To ensure that tourism revenue are more evenly distributed, the Maldivian government encouraged the setting up of guesthouses as a small-medium enterprise initiative that would help the local economy. However, statistics show that while there are more guesthouses than resorts in Maldives, the average occupancy in guesthouses is much lower than the luxury resorts.
 This study aims to explore the feasibility of introducing a star-rating system for the burgeoning guesthouse industry in the Maldives to improve the quality and image of their product offerings so that the business potential of this tourist accommodation sector can be realized. 
 Results from semi-structured interviews with guesthouses’ owners, visitors, industry professionals and government officials shows that most stakeholders are favor of a quality control system for the guesthouses and it is recommended that a star-rating system based on the SERVQUAL model be introduced as a suitable method for evaluating their service quality.
 
 

Development strategy of the Russian university in the field of “hospitality” training

Russian universities that have bachelors' and masters' programs of “Hotel business” are facing some problems. Firstly, the number of enrollees in “Hotel business” began to decline due to the closure of hotels and the reduction of staff. Secondly, the hotel chains have developed and are successfully using their own training system both for line employees and heads of departments, and on a continuous basis, which will allow them in the future to abandon the universities' education completely. And thirdly, the level of preparedness of university teachers and the laboratories for training does not currently meet the expectations of the hotel industry. As a result, the universities need a development strategy in “Hotel business” education, including contemporary requirements, to remain part remain relevant in the hotel services market. The article proposes not just a strategy, but specific actions broken down into stages for successfully achieving the goals of the strategy.

Hospitality Strategic Management Planning Post COVID-19 Pandemic

Purpose of the study: This study aims to analyze management planning and strategies implemented by local chain hotels post-COVID-19 pandemic. Design/methodology: This study uses a descriptive qualitative case study method, with two research instruments in data collection: documentation and interviews. Data reduction, data presentation, and data verification, as well as SWOT analysis, were used to analyze data. Regarding testing validity data, the technique used by researchers is a triangulation technique source. Findings: The Local chain hotel has implemented a competitive strategy well, proven with properties that can last for more than 28 years in the hospitality industry, and is still relevant in the competition between hotels today. Management can also maintain hotel operations during the COVID-19 pandemic without closing all their properties. Research limitations/Implications: This study only focuses on using a SWOT analysis tool to analyze the Hotel's internal and external environment, where many tools could be used in data analysis to produce more reliable output. Novelty/Originality of the study: This study discussed formulation local chain hotels strategy formulation post-COVID-19 pandemic. The formulation covering four pillars of the hospitality industry, including operational, marketing, finance, and human resources. This research can be a reference for local hotels in implementing competitive strategies.