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Background: It was always a challenge for hotel industry to find and retain skilled manpower and most of the hotels depend on in-house training programme to train and develop the employees as per their requirement. It is easy for hotels to retain staff if they are well-trained, they enjoy their work and are satisfied with workplace. COVID-19 pandemic presented one more challenge to hotel industry i.e., to embrace changes as per the expectations of market. Objectives: The main objectives of the study were to find out the impact of training towards employee satisfaction and change management. To establish the influence of employee satisfaction towards change management. Methodology: The factors shortlisted towards employee satisfaction were rewards, nature of work, supervision, benefits, work environment and co-workers. Factors identified for change management were strategic success, technological changes, effective systematic plan, communication, environment for change and change management. The research design for this paper was descriptive. The study was conducted for employee working in four major revenue producing operational departments. Total 16 hotels of city of Mumbai were approached for data collection. Due diligence was taken to collect data from different demographic profiles such as ownership pattern of hotels, department and experience of employees, their qualifications etc. Total 165 samples were collected. Data was corroborated using Cronbach's alpha and hypotheses were validated using correlation and compare means one-way ANOVA tests with the help of SPSS software. Result: Main findings of study were that nature of work and supervision had moderate effect on work environment. Benefits, rewards and co-workers showed strong correlation. Co-workers and work environment strongly impacted employee satisfaction. Strategic success, environment for change and communication significantly affected change management. Conclusion: Training was found to have significant relationship with employee satisfaction and change management. Employee satisfaction had significant association with change management. However technological change and effective systematic plan (factors of change management) were not significantly associated.
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Purpose: This study aims to explore the role General Managers (GMs) play in mitigating the effects of the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic. Design/methodology/approach: Qualitative structured interviews conducted online with 50 hospitality GMs from 45 countries are used to explore the impact of the pandemic on the industry's operational norms and the role of managers in both managing the crisis and planning contingencies for recovery. Findings: The findings enhance the conceptual capital in this emerging field and provide insights on how GMs behave during crises. Four related sub-themes emerged from the data analysis, namely, contingency planning and crisis management, resilience and impact on GM roles, the impact on hotels' key functional areas and some GMs' suggestions for the future of luxury hospitality. Research limitations/implications: This study generates empirical data that inform contemporary debates about crisis management and resilience in hospitality organizations at a micro-level operational perspective. Practical implications: Findings suggest that, in times of uncertainty and crisis, luxury hotel GMs are vital in coping with changes and leading their organizations to recovery. GMs' resilience and renewed role and abilities enable them to adapt rapidly to external changes on their business environment. Originality/value: This study is unique in terms of scale and depth, as it provides useful insights regarding the GM's role during an unprecedented crisis such as COVID-19. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought changes in the different requirements related to consumer experience. We conducted a sentiment analysis on many comments of tourists in two most popular online travel platforms in Mexico, TripAdvisor and Booking.com, from April 2020 to February 2021. Our analysis was aimed at understanding the effect of COVID-19 on the behaviour of tourism consumers who make trips using on-line platforms for booking luxury hotels. The results demonstrated that the personal characteristics of travellers are heterogeneous and respond to a specific context. The research concluded that luxury hotels need to create appropriate strategies for the tourists who make booking through digital platforms and the different requirements they have during their stays in the hotels. © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
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PurposeThis paper aims to specifically analyse the extent to which talent management practices in the post-COVID-19 era differ from those before the pandemic in the extreme work context of Egyptian hospitality sector. Design/methodology/approachThe study uses an exploratory qualitative research approach where semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 full-time employees working at hotels in Sharm El-Sheikh (Egypt). Moreover, thematic analysis was undertaken on the interview transcripts. FindingsThe findings revealed that in the post-COVID-19 era, the case hotels exclusively use the inclusive talent management approach, in which all staff are recognised by the management as talents with the same workplace privileges. This approach helped to mitigate the negative influences caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, the findings highlighted the criticality of competencies such as multitasking along with in hospitality sector employees in relation to extreme context necessitated by COVID-19. The findings further established that when facing extreme events, such as COVID-19, a shift in training activities towards activating positive mental health and effective shock management among employees is also needed. This study found that organisational support and continuous learning play a vital role in individual employees' resilience development, which also helped in retaining them. Originality/valueThis paper is one of the pioneering empirical studies on the relationship between talent management practices in extreme contexts and the influences of global disruptions resulting from COVID-19. Moreover, it is one of the few studies to specifically undertake a comparative assessment of the differences in talent management practices pre- and post-COVID-19 time period in the hospitality sector. The study findings contribute to multiple literature streams including extreme context, hospitality, human resource management and transaction stress model.
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COVID-19 outbreak has affected many sectors across the globe, and the lodging industry is among the hardest hits. Yet, empirical studies on the recovery strategies of accommodation establishments are limited. Drawing upon semi-structured interviews with 4 and 5-star hotels and ecolodges managers in Guilan province in Iran, this study aims to investigate the differences between recovery strategies of ecolodges and luxury hotels. The findings confirm the dramatic negative impacts of the pandemic on both the occupancy rate and revenue of the accommodation facilities in Guilan. Furthermore, using the frame analysis, the findings of this study illustrate that five recovery solutions have been adopted by the ecolodges and luxury hotels with different priorities and there are overall four key challenges in implementing these initiatives in Guilan's hospitality sector. According to the results obtained, in contrast to the findings of most previous studies and some advantages related to large-scale hotels, small-scale accommodation establishments such as ecolodges as local service businesses generally cope with this crisis more creatively and efficiently. Finally, the author draws some general conclusions, summarises the practical implications, and offers recommendations for further research.
ABSTRACT
Accommodation is one of the basic needs for travelers, tourists, students, and employees. Accommodations range from low-budget lodges to world-class luxury hotels, but finding the preferable accommodation is undoubtedly a tedious task. And due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become problematic state to visit each accommodation property to check whether it's suitable for the accommodation seeker, considering the location, environment, and to check if the property matches the user's preferences. There have been incidents reported where thousands of people have been victimized because of contract breaches in the accommodation and real estate sectors, recurring from contract alterations. Considering these problems, we have proposed a system to provide solutions using Natural Language Processing (NLP), Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), Augmented Reality (AR), Block-chain, and K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN). This system provides an efficient approach to viewing the exterior and interior of an accommodation using 360-degree views, providing recommendations to the user based on user preferences using KNN and cosine similarity, providing security in a digital agreement using blockchain technology, and a map navigation system using ASR. With the aid of the previously mentioned techniques, a mobile application prototype is created with the possibility of future testing and implementation. © 2021 IEEE.
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This research responds to calls for research on the devastating impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the hospitality industry by investigating how hotel managers are designing safe customer experiences. Specifically, this study examines the measures adopted in high-end and luxury hotels and identifies the effects of such measures on the intended (or planned) experience. Based on thematic analysis of interviews with hotel managers, this study identifies seven safety measures: hygiene and protection, internal work reorganization, servicescape reorganization, investments in technology and digital innovations, customer wait time reorganization, staff training, and updated communication. These measures are expected to affect the intended experience in terms of reassurance, quickness, intimacy, and proximity, as emerged from correspondence factor analysis. Based on these results, this research proposes a model for safe customer experience design and suggests practical implications to help hotel managers formulate strategies aimed at customer experience creation under safe conditions.