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This paper aims to describe the detailed process of development of a reliable scale to measure customer perceptions of the upscale hotel servicescape that could then be used as a basis for intra- and inter-hotel comparisons and to examine relationships with other variables, such as emotions, satisfaction and loyalty.

A review of the existing service and hospitality literature provided a range of dimensions and attributes of the hotel servicescape, which were used as the basis for a Q-sort technique to determine the content adequacy of newly developed and existing items. Testing the emergent items was carried out through a questionnaire that was distributed at five luxury upscale hotels in London providing 612 fully valid responses, which, using a split sample, were subjected to both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses to explore the dimensionality and reliability of the instrument.

Although the Q-sort suggested four key dimensions, the outcome of the factor analyses revealed five dimensions with high reliability – aesthetic quality, functionality, atmosphere, spaciousness and physiological conditions. “Aesthetic quality” appeared to be the most important factor, followed by “functionality”, “atmosphere”, “spaciousness” and “physiological conditions”.

As this study was conducted with customers of upscale luxury hotels in London, the resulting scales need to be further tested in other hotel segments and in other locations.

This study provides upscale hotel managers with an effective measurement tool, which will enable them to benchmark their operation and make improvements that could lead to a better impression and evaluation of their hotel. The scale has a variety of potential applications and can serve as a framework for further research in the hotel industry.

In spite of the wide interest in and importance of the servicescape in hotels, there are only a few studies dealing with this subject in the hotel context. This study provides a new tool for measuring customers’ perceptions.

Achieving a balance between occupancy and average room rate is now well recognised as a prime determinant of good rooms department performance. Yield management techniques are increasingly used to help maximise rooms department sales revenue. However, it can be argued that the complexity of making available different product offerings to different market segments requires not only consideration of the sales side of the profit equation but of the cost side as well. The nature of the variable costs of accommodation operations is examined and a case study approach is used to describe the contribution derived from different room types. These data are then used to construct a value engineering matrix which can identify successful and not so successful areas of operation and suggest ways of improving overall profit performance.

Interest in flexible working methods is increasing in the hospitality industry but to date there is little research evidence of current practice or potential. The range of methods available to the hospitality manager is reviewed and the major benefits and problems arising from the adoption of particular approaches identified. The findings are reported of a survey into current practice in the hotel industry and the extent of functional flexibility, numerical flexibility, pay flexibility and distancing approaches. Issues affecting the implementation of flexible working are discussed with special reference to the housekeeping area. It is concluded that companies must clarify their objectives in adopting flexible working if they are to make appropriate decisions about the methods they wish to pursue.

This article discusses approaches to work flexibility and the use of core and peripheral workers in the hotel industry. It argues that hotel companies have traditionally neglected building a core workforce and resorted to using “peripheral” workers in key operative jobs. It distinguishes between three groups of core workers that can be found in hotels: company core staff, who make their careers across a range of units in a hotel group; unit core staff, who are limited to the single hotel unit; and operative core staff, who may develop their careers within one hotel or across a number of hotels. The problems of developing such an operative core are discussed, as are the consequences of not developing it.

Reconciles the traditional view of hospitality operations based on process analysis, with the more recent output‐based model, by identifying four levels of hospitality operations management. Process analysis is appropriate for understanding operating systems; and output analysis for operational management.

In situations where a volatile product market meets an unstable labour market, as is often found in customer contact service operations such as the hospitality industry, there is a need for the constant manipulation of labour supply to match labour demand. Functional workforce flexibility, where multiskilled staff are able to move from jobs in one department to jobs in another, presents an opportunity for solving part of the problem. Presents an approach to calculating the need for functional flexibility dependent on the identified discrepancies in labour demand and supply. Having identified the size of the need, a strategy needs to be developed for fulfilling that need. In implementing this strategy, two approaches are identified: planned whole job substitution and boundary loosening. While the planned approach offers the rational course for maintaining quality and productivity levels, there is evidence that an evolving approach may help to stabilize a highly volatile situation by breaking down barriers from within.

To be able to deliver consistent quality to hospitality customers, it is necessary to be able to identify those aspects of the service encounter that bring about satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Explores a simple technique for recording success and failure in service situations. This will allow organizations to identify areas for quality improvement and enable decisions to be made about the key priorities for action.

Despite a long involvement with quality in the manufacturing sector, and its more recent introduction to service industries in general, education has not been at the forefront of thinking on quality issues. Attempts to pull together some of the key theoretical perspectives on service quality and apply them to education with a particular emphasis on the hospitality field. Demonstrates that these concepts have good explanatory value for looking at educational provision, but suggests that some of the current approaches to quality that have been introduced to education are not founded on good quality management practice. Finally, proposes ways in which some of the issues could be better addressed.

Reviews the development of approaches to reservations management in the hotel industry alongside models of the stages of development in information technology (IT). Suggests that strategic success and operational implementation have been built on the prevailing IT “era”. Explores the future strategic potential of reservations management. Hotel operators need to understand how technology changes the “rules of the game” and identify alternative strategies for gaining competitive advantage. In reality, strategic implementation is either “service‐led” or “IT‐led”.

To provide insight into the barriers to the application of best practices in hospitality and tourism small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UK.

In‐depth interviews were conducted with owners, managers and staff in 89 award‐winning business in the hospitality and tourism industry. Eight areas of best practice that arose from an initial pilot study were investigated in the sample population of SME's. With a holistic and multiple‐cases analysis approach, the case studies are assembled to form a portrait of hospitality and tourism in the UK.

Results suggest a model identifying seven key capabilities that underlie the adoption of best practices and six barriers to their implementation. The seven key capabilities for hospitality and tourism SMEs are customer focused goals, planning and control, partnering and networking, internal and external communication, achieving consistent standards, strategic workforce management, cash flow and performance management. The six barriers to implementing best practices were identified as changing demand, limited resources, lack of skilled labour, lifestyle, lack of competitive benchmarking and location, all of which could create turbulence in the operational environment.

As hospitality and tourism SMEs appear to inherit characteristics derived both from the small and medium size of the operation and the nature of the industry sector, the implications of the model and the associated barriers may create obstacles to the benefits of competitive benchmarking and lead to a loss of the pride and passion and impede the growth of their business.

Considerable diversity is demonstrated amongst SMEs in relation to their use of strategies while confirming some of the difficulties and challenges inherent to the industry and endemic to smaller organisations.