Large Hotel Chains Research Articles

Does investment in employee development encourage proactive behaviors among hospitality staff? A self-determination theory perspective

To date, perception of investment in employee development (PIED) has consistently been linked to numerous pro-organizational behaviors. However, its link to proactive behavior remains limited, especially of those in the hospitality industry. Drawing on self-determination theory (SDT) and broaden and build theory (BBT), this study proposes that PIED is directly linked to taking charge (TC) and innovative work behaviors (IWB), and indirectly through harmonious passion (HP). Based on data from 351 employee-supervisor dyads within a large hotel chain in Malaysia, the findings show that PIED can enhance proactive behaviors by fostering HP as a mediator. It is suggested that both employee development and its perceived value enhance positive work outcomes.

Hospitality and pet well-being in friendly hotels as a competitive advantage

The contemporary world has increasingly valued well-being, physical and mental health and how certain experiences can contribute to this. In this sense, hotel chains have invested in the pet friendly experience to create a competitive advantage in the face of new customer profiles, who value hospitality and personalization of service. Despite this being an expanding market, hospitality as a competitive differentiator through pet friendliness must be connected to providing customers with experiences that exceed their expectations. It is in this sense that this research aims to analyze whether hotel chains that support pet friendly operate, in this service segment, based on the principles of hospitality. This is a descriptive, qualitative research, carried out by reviewing the literature. The theoretical support was developed based on Guidara (2023), in addition to consulting studies published in the digital repositories Scientific Electronic Library Online – Scielo, Google Scholar and PubVet that bring the perspective of pet-friendly hospitality and its impacts on the hotel sector. With the research it was possible to understand that the concept of irrational hospitality is related to transcending traditional customer service, providing more than expected. It is considered that for the hotel industry, pet-friendly hospitality, following Guidara's (2023) theoretical approach, becomes a competitive advantage, generating a sense of belonging through memorable experiences. However, it was noted that large hotel chains, when offering pet friendly experiences, do not pay attention to the principles of hospitality, missing the opportunity for customer loyalty and competitive advantage.

Using “Super Apps” in Online Retailing Operations: Evidence From a Large Hotel Chain

The introduction of super app, a mobile application with comprehensive e-commerce and social media functions, creates a new retailing platform that enables customers to pay to businesses directly. The convenience of mobile payment, the richness of product information, and the easiness of online customer service may induce more demand. This study aims to quantify the effect of adopting a super app as a new platform on the sales revenue of multiple existing platforms. Using transaction data from a large hotel chain, we track the timing that customers started following the company's business account on the super app and identify the effect of adopting the super app as a retailing platform on hotel room reservations. Our results show that the adoption will cause customers to make significantly more reservations. However, a significant proportion of the increase attributes to more transactions through the existing platforms, as customers do not switch from existing platforms to the new super app platform. Interestingly, spillover primarily occurs both on the pre-existing offline platforms and digital payment enabled online platforms. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to examine the economic implications of using a super app as a new retailing platform.

Heritage hotels: An exploration of staff experiences in these unique hospitality environments

Heritage hotels play a significant role in the hotel sector, preserving cultural heritage and delivering authentic and unique guest experiences and economic value to destinations. As such, they are an important but under-researched hotel operation. They range in size and star rating and can be boutique and/or upscale luxury hotels, independently owned and operated or managed by one of the large international hotel chains. There are three types of heritage hotels: original, simulated, and converted. The first are hotels whose purpose has remained unchanged since their inception and, despite modernization, retain their originality. The second are simulated heritage hotels, which are associated with symbolic heritage elements. The third are historic structures (castles, cathedrals, palaces, etc.) that have been repurposed and converted into hotels, imbuing them with new symbolic and economic meanings. This research note investigates the third type of heritage hotels. These are buildings rich in history, a sense of place and hold cultural meanings for their localities and communities. The note employs an exploratory, qualitative research strategy and reports data from semi-structured in-depth interviews with 16 customer-facing employees and managers in three independently owned and operated United Kingdom (UK) rural boutique heritage hotels. This qualitative approach provided an opportunity to attain depth in revealing the participants’ service experiences and encounters. The research note advances extant scholarship, which has examined employee interactions in small heritage accommodations as emotional and individualised guest experiences. It suggests that historic sites repurposed as heritage hotels have distinctive qualities, setting them apart from other hotels as hospitality environments. As such, their staff regard themselves as stewards and storytellers of local culture as much as receptionists, servers, etc. It concludes by advancing possibilities for further research on this conceptualization of heritage hotel employees.

Servant leadership, ideology-based culture and job outcomes: A multi-level investigation among hospitality workers

Although previous research has linked leadership, culture and work behaviors, scholars and practitioners lack an understanding of how servant leadership affects employees’ work meaningfulness, diversity-valuing behavior and community citizenship behavior by fostering an ideology-based culture within the hospitality sector. This study addressed these gaps by conducting a multi-level time-lagged field study among full-time employees and their supervisors (310 employees nested in 70 supervisors) working in a large hotel chain in Pakistan. The study examined the direct and indirect effects of supervisory-level servant leadership on individual-level meaningfulness, individual-level community citizenship behavior, and group-level diversity-valuing behavior through group-level ideology-based culture. The findings revealed that supervisors’ servant leadership style was positively related to ideology-based culture within each group. In addition, ideology-based culture was positively related to group’s diversity-valuing behavior as well as each member’s meaningfulness and community citizenship behavior. Finally, servant leadership had a positive indirect effect on all outcomes through ideology-based culture.

A Take-Home Message: Workplace Food Waste Interventions Influence Household Pro-environmental Behaviors

Previous research on food waste interventions has mostly focused on micro-level factors related to the individuals, and largely neglected macro-level contextual factors such as work-to-home spillovers. Inspired by the multi-level framework, we present a case study of how macro-level workplace campaigns could decrease food waste in staff cafeterias, compete with micro-level factors like environmental identity, and further stimulate some employees’ food saving efforts at home. The workplace interventions combined smart bins with fortnightly informational feedback trialed in three staff cafeterias of a large hotel chain in Macau, China. Actual food waste data and self-reported behavior consistently show that the staff cafeteria receiving environmental framing with anthropomorphic cues had more reductions in food waste behaviors. A key determinant of self-reported food saving efforts at home was efforts to reduce food waste at work, which predicted beyond and above environmental identity and provided evidence for positive contextual spillover effects.

Volunteering [MicroBusiness

I was the general chair of the 2009 IEEE International Microwave Symposium (IMS) in Boston. At the time, the largest hotel chain in Boston was Starwood Hotels and Resorts. The Boston Sheraton, two Westins, and the Boston Park Plaza were all Starwood hotels. It was important for us to include these hotels in our housing block. Similarly, Starwood wanted us to include its hotels in our block since we would be the dominant event in Boston for an entire week.

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.

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.

Does corporate social responsibility affect the institutional ownership of firms in the hospitality and tourism industry?

As hospitality and tourism (H&T) businesses mature, they often seek institutional equity financing to support their growth. Capital intensive H&T firms, such as cruise operators, casinos and large restaurant and hotel chains, continuously rely on institutional capital to fund their operations. This study examines which corporate social responsibility dimensions affect H&T firms’ ability to attract institutional equity capital providers. We document that firms with better social and governance performance have higher institutional ownership, particularly by investors focused on long-term growth and value creation, such as dedicated institutional investors, domestic investors and blockholders. Community and environmental performance do not increase institutional holdings.

Persuasive Communications, Online Reviews and Service Performances – A Study on the Hotel Industry of New Zealand

This study examines the relationship between external service quality and hotel performance in New Zealand. Utilising samples consisting of 719 customer reviews from 53 hotels operating under five large hotel chains in major New Zealand tourist cities, it explores how persuasive communication can be linked with the credibility and trustworthiness of online customer feedback and affect the performance of the hotel industry. The SERVQUAL model along with the persuasive communication theory ethos (credibility), logos (reason), and pathos (emotion) are used to measure customer perceptions of the service they receive from top hotel chains, assess the linkage between service performance and profitability, and make suggestions for future research. Customer feedback and ratings from the Trivago website were analysed using a content analysis approach to identify key factors important to customers. This study identifies eleven attributes that are essential to customers as well as to the industry in the service sector, namely, location, rooms, service, cleanliness, value for money, comfort, facilities, buildings, food, WIFI, and parking. The study suggests that there is a significant mediator effect of customer service quality on the interconnected relationship between customer loyalty and hotel performance. The finding provides important information for hotel retail chains that need to promote customer service quality as a vital practice for attracting new customers, as well as for retaining existing customers.

THE COVID-19 IMPACTS ON THE HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY HIGHLIGHTS FROM EXPERTS IN PORTUGAL

Purpose - To better understand the impact of COVID -19 on the tourism sector, with a focus on the hospitality industry, and how these changes will affect the sector and business responsiveness. Design - This is research focusing on the COVID-19 impacts on the hospitality sector in Portugal. The study reports in detail how a group of experts perceived this critical situation caused by the pandemic. Methodology - For data collection, a focus group was conducted with six experts in the field. A thematic analysis was conducted to interpret the data and NVivo software was used to organise and define the themes. Findings - Experts emphasised the massive collective dismissals in large hotel chains, the possible loss of 50 million jobs in the tourism sector, and the negative impact on the entire value chain. The low occupancy rate had a negative financial impact, as total revenues in the sector plummeted by more than 70% compared to the previous year. This pandemic required significant adjustments from operations to ensure safe operations. Participants not only stressed the importance of motivating and bringing teams together, but also described strategies to increase employee engagement. Another area of growth during the pandemic was food delivery platforms. Originality of the research - This is the first time research describing economic, financial, organizational, operational, and technological impact of COVID -19 on the hospitality industry. Hopefully these study results will help hotel and restaurant managers better plan their strategy following this pandemic.

УПРАВЛІННЯ ГОТЕЛЬНИМ ГОСПОДАРСТВОМ У КРИЗОВИХ УМОВАХ: РЕАЛІЇ СЬОГОДЕННЯ ТА СВІТОВИЙ ДОСВІД

The article deals with the scientific and applied positions concerning the management of the hotel industry in the conditions of economic crisis. The theoretical evaluations of the concept of hotel business are considered one of the main components of the tourism industry which is dynamically developing and includes a complex of services for tourists and is a key factor in the development of tourism as well as the importance of hotel services in the field of tourism today. The analyzed situation of the development of the hotel industry for the years 1995-2019 shows a decrease in the number of domestic tourists and fluctuations in the number of foreign tourists. It is the hotel companies that perform one of the most important functions in the sphere of tourist services: they provide them with modern accommodation and essential services, since the quality of accommodation and appropriate services significantly affect the level of tourist service. It has been researched that in international tourism the processes of globalization are traced on the example of the tourist accommodation sector where the expansion and development of hotel chains is rapidly increasing. The main problems that hinder the further development of the tourism sector are identified: the lack of a proper regulatory framework and a legitimate strategy for the development of the industry; economic and political instability in the country; limited investment resources; the lack of transparency of the land allocation procedures for the construction of the facility; complexity of the project coordination process (in our country, this procedure takes from one and a half to two years, whereas in Europe no more than two months); imperfection of advertising of Ukrainian tourist centers and correspondingly hotels abroad, etc. Based on statistical surveys the largest concentration of hotel businesses in Europe and the highest occupancy rate of hotels have been considered. The modern tendencies of development of the world hotel industry are determined. In the world the process of mastering new concepts of hotel business and modernization of the old ones is constantly taking place. Globalization and concentration of the hotel business are manifested in the creation of large corporations and hotel chains. This approach allows hotel companies to regroup and attract additional resources for developing their businesses. Using the global experience of hotel management and the quality of service delivery as well as the introduction of innovative trends in the hotel business the tendencies of development of functioning of the hotel industry market in crisis conditions are highlighted. The factors of negative influence on the state of the hotel industry in Ukraine have been formed.

Effects of Organizational Culture on Employer Attractiveness of Hotel Firms: Topic Modeling Approach

As the acquisition and retention of motivated and skilled employees are key to the high performance of hotel firms, employer attractiveness of hotel firms is a critical factor in achieving competitive advantage. Focusing on organizational culture, this study analyzes how different cultural attributes affect hotel firms’ attractiveness as employers. For the empirical analysis, this study collected 54,040 reviews of 157 large hotel chains and firms from Glassdoor in the United States. This study combines an unsupervised machine learning tool for topic modeling (latent Dirichlet allocation) with the coding process of researchers to measure the different cultural attributes of hotel firms. The research results show the positive and significant impact of four cultural attributes—collaborative, employee development, fair compensation, and customer focus—on employer attractiveness measured by both users’ employer satisfaction and recommendations to friends. In contrast, an innovation culture has no significant effect on attractiveness.

The dynamic customer engagement behaviors in the customer satisfaction survey

Conducting customer satisfaction surveys (CSS) as a means of encouraging customers' engagement with a firm is a widely used managerial practice. In an effort to convert this customer-to-firm engagement into customer-to-customer engagement, many firms have recently started to ask customers who reach the final question of the CSS to write an online review that will be automatically posted on a review site (e.g., Google or TripAdvisor). Using a unique longitudinal data set provided by a large global hotel chain, we aim to understand the drivers behind CSS participation and, ultimately, behind online review posting in response to a prompt at the end of a survey. We employ the Hidden Markov model (HMM) to analyze how a customer's engagement state changes as a function of previous managerial responses, loyalty program membership, and satisfaction. The results reveal that customers have a greater tendency to transfer to higher engagement states if managers have responded to prior customer surveys. We have also found that the higher the customer's loyalty program membership status is, the more likely it is that they will participate in a survey. Lastly, we show that customers have a greater tendency to post negative versus positive reviews. We then discuss the implications of this study for researchers and managers.

From Conventional to Alternative Tourism: Rebalancing Tourism towards a Community-Based Tourism Approach in Hanoi, Vietnam

This article proposes an alternative tourism development approach that we have termed ‘rebalancing’, which is based on tourism development adopting Community-based Tourism (CBT) principles and characteristics whose hallmark is to give local control of the tourism sector to disadvantaged members of society. The article is based on extant literature and uses Hanoi as a case study to articulate the role of CBT against a backdrop of the growth and presence of large international hotel chains in Hanoi following the adoption of the Doi Moi policy. The increase in international hotel chains poses a high risk of an increase in leakages. The accommodation sub-sector and food sector are essential in tourism in Hanoi, as they are elsewhere. These provide small businesses the opportunity to participate in the name of inclusivity, empowerment, and poverty alleviation. For the authenticity of Hanoi and respecting its traditions and values, we propose a model of growth for Hanoi that includes food street vendors alongside large international hotel chains, large national (privately owned) hotels (nationally/locally owned), small independent national hotels (locally owned), bed and breakfast/guesthouse (locally owned), backpackers (locally owned), homestay (locally owned), ‘Albergo Diffuso’ (locally owned), LCBT accommodation (locally owned), CBT (Independently owned structures under an umbrella organization), and CBT (community-owned structures). It also suggests the retention of traditional architecture for the diversity and uniqueness of Hanoi. It recommends that the government should not promulgate legislation and policies that attempt to limit the scope of food street vending but rather empower food street vendors to grow and prosper. This should be done alongside specific legislation that sets minimum standards related to hygiene on the streets for inclusive growth and poverty alleviation.

Green Purchase and Logistics in the Hungarian Tourism and Hospitality

Green logistics has its origin in the mid-1980s and characterizes logistics systems and approaches that use advanced technology and equipment to minimize environmental damage during operations. The relationship between green logistics and tourism is a less researched topic. In our opinion, Hungary lags in green procurement in the tourism industry. The development plans of the Hungarian Tourism Agency include that by 2030 country will receive 50 million foreign guests, and the number of participants in domestic tourism will double. The tourism industry will account for 16% of GDP by the end of the decade, and 16% of the employed will also work in tourism hospitality. Hungary has also undertaken to make our economy carbon-neutral by 2030, but in the field of tourism and hospitality, only the larger hotel chains have started in this direction; the lag among small and medium-sized enterprises is still very large. Europe’s largest hotel chain, the Accor Group, is leading by example in the field of green transformation, but procurement logistics still seems unresolved. However, the 4.0 revolution in industry and logistics is also increasingly circulating in tourism, as evidenced by this study results. The authors tried to analyze the situation of green logistics in Hungary with the phasing questions. Data for analysis were collected through a questionnaire survey. The participants in this survey belong to the young age group, and their education is higher than average. It was found that the young age group has already grown up knowing the importance of environmental protection. More than 90% of young people are interested in environmental protection or are doing it in some form. Overall, thinking about carbon neutral operation is positive, but this doesn’t seem to impact the buying decision process.

Programi lojalnosti u hotelijerstvu na primeru hotela Holiday Inn Suschevsky

This paper will present one of the basic aspects of the formation of constant priorities of the company - customer loyalty, on the example o f the hotel market in the Russian Federation. The hotel market in the Russian Federation is a developing segment with noticeable growth potential. This fact is confirmed by the increased number of investments through the appearance on the market o f large international hotel chains such as The Rezidor Hotel Group, Inter Continental Hotels Group, Marriott International. Research, analysis and constant work on achieving consumer loyalty is an important topic among marketers. More specifically, the topic of loyalty programs that enable companies regular consumers, and thus the growth and development of their company, is very current. Accordingly, a topic was chosen that represents such analysis in a completely different, non-competitive market for us, which can bring interesting and important examples and conclusions that can be implemented.

МОНІТОРИНГ РИНКУ ТУРИСТИЧНИХ ПОСЛУГ НА ПРИКЛАДІ СПОЛУЧЕНИХ ШТАТІВ АМЕРИКИ

The article examines the theoretical issues of the travel services market in the United States. The United States has a huge domestic tourism market and a highly developed infrastructure with a large hotel chain and transportation industry. Today it is important to determine the current state of the market of tourist services in the country in order to further be able to analyze and identify effective ways to develop the tourism sector in the region. The current state of development of the tourism sector of the United States of America, where the main types of tourism are beach, sports, sightseeing, business tourism is quite developed. The results of the study showed that revenues from international tourism reach 10-20% of total export revenues. In terms of the level of development of international tourism, the United States lags far behind Europe. It is investigated that domestic tourism, a highly developed "hospitality industry", including car service, has received a very large development. Tourism in the United States has become a powerful industry that annually serves millions of foreign and domestic tourists, whose goal is to see the wonders of nature, cities, attractions, so-called tourist and recreational resources. The main problems and patterns of development of the market of tourist services are revealed. The analysis of functioning of the market of tourist services is carried out, the factors influencing its territorial organization, in particular demographic, social and economic, natural, historical and cultural and infrastructural are analyzed. The dynamics of tourist flows of the country is analyzed. The structure of hotel and restaurant business is investigated. The tourist market of the United States of America was monitored with the help of SWOT-analysis. The results of the study showed that the United States has prospects in the development of tourism with neighboring countries, in improving the development of ecological tourism on the basis of numerous national parks, in the development of event and business tourism by organizing sports competitions in international forums. The United States is considered an important center of educational tourism. Here are prestigious universities that attract many foreign students: Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton. The United States is the center of world sports. National hockey and basketball leagues, prestigious international tennis tournaments and ski slopes attract athletes and fans from many countries.

Natural Hazard Influence Model of Maintenance and Repair Cost for Sustainable Accommodation Facilities

To optimally maintain buildings and other built infrastructure, the costs of managing them during their entire existence—that is, lifecycle costs—must be taken into account. However, due to technological improvements, developers now build more high-rise and high-performance buildings, meaning that new approaches to estimating lifecycle costs are needed. Meanwhile, an accelerating process of industrialization around the world means that global warming is also accelerating, and the damage caused by natural disasters due to climate change is increasing. However, the costs of losses related to such hazards are rarely incorporated into lifecycle-cost estimation techniques. Accordingly, this study explored the relationship between, on the one hand, some known parameters of natural disasters, such as earthquakes, high winds, and/or flooding, and on the other hand, the data on exceptional maintenance costs, represented by gross loss costs, generated by a large international hotel chain from 2007 to 2017. The regression model used revealed a correlation between heavy rain and insurance-claim payouts. This and other results can usefully inform safety and design guidelines for policymakers, both in disaster management and real estate, as well as in insurance companies