The Elusive Search for Talent: Skill Gaps in the Canadian Luxury Hotel Sector

The luxury segment of the hospitality sector has been growing worldwide. Luxury hospitality is about providing a unique experience for guests, and this type of experience requires having employees who understand the luxury culture and are trained at the highest level. Luxury hotels compete for the best talents, but the current pool of candidates for customer-facing and managerial positions within these establishments is limited. The purpose of this study was to identify skill gaps in Canada’s luxury hotels. Primary data were collected from in-depth semi-structured interviews with twenty luxury hotel managers and analyzed with NVivo 12. Respondents agreed about the skills required for brands to succeed in the luxury market, but they lamented the lack of qualified talents and the difficulty of training and retaining qualified collaborators. The results of the study point to the need to address the luxury skill gap in the hospitality sector, particularly in Canada. Recommendations to address this problem are proposed.

Management Response to Online Review: The Case of Hong Kong Luxury Hotels

Electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) is regarded as crucial in business development. Given the intangible nature of tourism and hospitality products, potential customers find it hard to assess them before making purchase. Accordingly, online customer reviews and management responses have influential roles in their decision-making process. While a plethora of previous research focused on customer reviews, scholarly attention on how luxury hotels respond to the reviews was scant. Using content analysis, this study examines the management response characteristics of 35 luxury hotels and response style of 7 luxury chain hotels in Hong Kong. Their response characteristics including response frequency, responder’s job position, and timeliness of response were generally similar. The response style and tone (professional and conversational tones) vary with hotels even they are in the same hotel group. Implications on practice of management responses are offered for luxury hotel operators.

Identifying value-creating aspects in luxury hotel services via third-party online reviews: a cross-cultural study

PurposeThe purpose of the study is to identify critical value-creating elements of luxury services expressed in ratings and reviews posted on third-party sites and examine cross-cultural differences. To this end, the research analyzed online ratings and reviews of luxury hotels posted on TripAdvisor from customers of four European regions (East, North, South and West).Design/methodology/approachEight hundred thirty-eight online user-generated ratings and reviews of luxury hotels were analyzed quantitatively using MANOVA and qualitatively using text analysis.FindingsThe study findings support (a) that product and physical evidence are the most critical experiential elements of luxury hotels' offerings and (b) cultural differences among tourists from various regions of Europe in their hotel ratings and reviews. Specifically, Eastern and Northern Europeans are more generous in their review ratings than western and southern Europeans. Moreover, eastern Europeans value the hotel's physical evidence/environment whereas western Europeans prioritize the core product (room and food) followed by the physical environment/servicescape. Southern Europeans and Northern Europeans value most the personnel, followed by the physical environment and the core product, respectively.Practical implicationsCultural differences provide several implications with regard to luxury services segmentation, social media management, service marketing mix development and hotel promotion.Originality/valueThe value of this study originates from studying post–purchase customer behavior in luxury services from a cross-cultural perspective. Moreover, identifying critical aspects of value-creating customer experience in a luxury context adds to the available literature.

Inclusion of Condominium Units in Luxury Hotels as a Diversification Strategy: Property Performance Perspective

There is a new wave of mixed development where luxury hotels come with condominium units, though this type of diversification has gained scant attention. Prior hospitality literature on diversification strategies has mostly taken the firm-level approach and documented its impact on performance from various angles such as brand diversification, segment diversification, and geographic diversification, therefore leaving a void. In this work, we use the multilevel mixed effect model to examine 15,340 property-level data points from 2010 to 2019 for U.S. luxury hotels with and without condominium units. Our objective is to compare, at a property level, the performances of luxury hotels with condominium units with the performances of those not having condominium units and to determine whether the difference varies by hotel location. Our findings suggest that the Average Daily Rate (ADR), Revenue per Available Room (RevPAR), and Total Revenue per Available Rooms (TRevPAR) of luxury hotels with condominium units were significantly higher than those of hotels without condominium units. Significant moderating effect of location was found for Occupancy, ADR, Food and Beverage Revenue per Available Rooms (F&B RevPAR), and TRevPAR while no such effect was found for RevPAR and GOPPAR.

Flagler’s Whitehall: Beaux-Arts Grandeur in the American Tropics

ABSTRACT In a second career begun in his retirement, Henry Morrison Flagler (1830–1913), the cofounder of Standard Oil and one of the wealthiest citizens in the United States, embarked on the development of the tropical wilderness of Florida. Starting in St Augustine, he built a network of luxury hotels and railroads that became the infrastructure for modern Florida. Creating a counterpart to the premier summer resort of Newport, Rhode Island, Flagler transformed Palm Beach, an undeveloped barrier island, into a winter playground for the new American aristocracy, starting with the Georgian-style Royal Poinciana Hotel. It was Whitehall, however, the mansion built for Flagler in 1900–02 as a wedding gift to his third wife, Mary Lily Kenan, that became the resort community’s monumental showplace. Designed by the New York firm of Carrère & Hastings in the Renaissance-derived classicism of the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, the stately white palace fronting Lake Worth embodied Flagler’s cultural aspirations as a patron of the arts. As the first major client of Carrère & Hastings, Flagler was critical in launching the career of one of the most prominent architectural firms of the Gilded Age. This article examines Whitehall in the context of Flagler’s business practices and personal goals, consistent with Andrew Carnegie’s ‘Gospel of Wealth’. Architectural opulence not only boosted Flagler’s mercantile purposes, but also reflected a belief, nurtured by his relationship with Carrère & Hastings and other close associates, about the importance of classical architecture and the arts in the development of society.

Psychosocial Impact of Joblessness Due to Covid-19 Pandemic: A Case of Hotel Workers from The Philippines

The hospitality industry faced extraordinary challenges as opposed to the pandemic that causes the decrease of occupancy rate until 4% for economy hotels and 15% for luxury hotels. This condition affects to joblessness of the hotel workers. The study focuses on the psychosocial impact of joblessness due to the covid-19 pandemic on the hotel workers. A qualitative research design was used in this study. Data gathered was from the point of view of the hotel workers of the industries done through interviews online. The implication of the study reveals the challenges brought by this pandemic are mostly loss of revenues leading to employee layoffs. The study reveals that despite the pandemic faced by the industries, the resiliency of Filipinos was evidently seen. Furthermore, the hospitality industry distinguished the impact of Covid-19 on the well-being of hotel workers. Thus, results from this study can be used by companies to develop a more efficient coping mechanism for unforeseen situations like pandemics and any other circumstances unpredicted by humankind.

Post-pandemic pressures to pivot: tech transformations in luxury hotels

PurposeThis study is an empirical exploration of the tech-based transformation strategies being adopted by luxury hotels in India to assuage the fear psychosis and restore guest confidence in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. It sheds light on the “new normal” and its overarching implications for hotel operations from the user experience perspective.Design/methodology/approachA mixed method strategy was adopted for data collection. Qualitative data was gathered from a video analysis of two webinars with high-profile panels of thought leaders about the challenges arising from the global health crisis and related post-pandemic recovery strategies. This data has been triangulated with desk research and data collected through an online survey which sought to map guest sentiments with respect to resuming the use of hospitality services and their attitude towards the proposed tech transformation initiatives in the Indian luxury hospitality industry.FindingsThe research data indicates that despite their pandemic-related trepidations, people still have a strong urge to be social and to travel. Technology can play a pivotal role in creating safe spaces for social distancing, facilitating a contactless guest interface to alleviate guest concerns for safe hygiene and rebuilding customer confidence to address the trust deficit.Practical implicationsHospitality organisations must be discerning in the investments they make in new technology and contactless experiences because hasty investments in extensive automation may be perceived as gimmicky by guests. Intelligent and astute use of technology tools can minimise human error, optimise service efficiency and enhance guest experience through elevated levels of personalised hospitality in luxury hotels by judiciously marrying high touch with high tech.Originality/valueThis study is the one of the first empirical explorations of the tech transformation strategies adopted by luxury hotels in the Indian context in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It explores their efforts for the continued co-creation of high value experiences based on consumer perspectives, with implications for both hospitality and tourism theory and practice.

Food Waste Drivers in Corporate Luxury Hotels: Competing Perceptions and Priorities across the Service Cycle

Drawing on data gathered through semi-structured interviews, participant observation and document analysis at five-star hotels in UK and Germany, this paper examines the competing pressures driving waste generation and prevention at different stages in the food production and service cycle. Primary data indicated that senior managers recognised the potential savings that could be achieved by preventing food waste. Despite this, many wasteful practices were normalised within routine operations. This was partly attributed to the corporatised business model and brand strategy in which premium pricing and luxury experiential propositions potentially transformed food waste reduction strategies into sources of risk. Past research generally categorised food as being edible or inedible. In contrast, the terms usable/unusable are proposed and this paper discusses how corporatised practices and value propositions rendered usable foods unusable. It considers how this type of corporate system frames waste problems and thus solutions, leading to various consequences. The discussion also explores how those systems shaped the organisational culture and the agency of staff who engaged with the service cycle at and across multiple points. The findings of this paper are based on primary data collected from a small number of corporately governed luxury hotels. Consequently, the closing parts of this paper outline how the insights generated here could be applied to the study of alternative organisational arrangements and operational types.