Improving performance measurement and benchmarking in the accommodation sector. Issue 5 (13th July 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Bernini, Cristina; Guizzardi, Andrea
• Is Part Of: International journal of contemporary hospitality management. Volume 27:Issue 5(2015)
• Page Start: 980
• Page End: 1002
• Publication Date: 2015-07-13
• Subjects: Environment -- Accommodation firms -- Efficiency bias -- Emilia-Romagna (Italy) -- Metafrontier -- Production heterogeneity; Hospitality industry -- Management -- Periodicals; 647.94068
• DOI: 10.1108/IJCHM-12-2013-0549
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0959-6119

Abstract

Abstract : Purpose: – The aims of the paper are to evaluate the relevance of environmental factors (seasonality, size and quality) on hotels' performance and benchmarks; to measure the bias in efficiency resulting from a failure to control for these sources of heterogeneity; and to propose some managerial policies to handle for environmental heterogeneity. Design/methodology/approach: – The sample is constituted by 2, 705 hotels operating in Emilia-Romagna (Italy). The metafrontier approach is used to identify the different production processes and measure technical efficiency scores. Findings: – Different production processes exist among accommodation firms due to environmental features; not considering heterogeneity in technological sets produces high levels of bias in the efficiency measurement, albeit the ranking of hotels tends to be fairly consistent; the star rating is the primary source of efficiency bias followed by seasonality, while size has a minor impact. Research limitations/implications: – Future research could be directed to analyse the relevance of environmental heterogeneity in other areas; study the dynamics; investigate agglomeration effects; and use other methodological tools. Practical implications: – The analysis proposes new managerial interventions: targeted strategies to different groups; creation of networks of enterprises, clustered mainly in respect to size for highly rated enterprises and seasonality for low-rated enterprises; and incentives to annual hotels and raise in the product quality. Originality/value: – This paper simultaneously considers several environmental factors affecting heterogeneity in hotel production processes; investigates the effect of heterogeneity on either the efficiency scores or the ranking of hotels; and focuses on micro, low-quality or seasonal hotels.