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The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which environmental management (EM) has been used as a facilities management (FM) tool amongst hotels in Macao, China. It also seeks to assess the relative priorities of hotel facilities managers in relation to the environment.

The empirical data was collected via structured questionnaires distributed to facilities/general managers of hotels in Macao.

The research findings reveal that although low customer demand, poor environmental knowledge and the lack of governmental regulations enforcing environmental practices are the reasons hindering hoteliers in Macao from practicing green, the major barrier is that hotel managers do not recognize the importance of environmental management to hotel effectiveness and competitiveness. Consequently, hotels are only interested in improving areas where there are direct financial gains and where there is a fiscal/legislative requirement. A fragmented approach to managing their environmental performance is also resulted.

This paper provides a comprehensive discussion of the roles played by environmental management in improving a hotel's productivity and competitiveness and recommends ways to increase hoteliers' understanding of those roles.

There is a scarcity of literature linking hotel FM and environmental management within the Asian context, especially within Macao. This study sheds light on the extent to which environmental management has been used as a FM tool amongst hotels in Macao. It also contributes to our understanding of the importance of improving a hotel's environmental performance for organizational effectiveness and competitiveness. This paper provides a good background and framework for future studies.

This paper explores the implementation of yield management using different reservation modes at a global hotel network (referred to as the “Group”).

The Group operates close to half‐a‐million rooms in about 4,000 hotels world‐wide. Following an overview of yield management in hotel industry, the two reservation modes used in the Group are presented. The performance of Group's online and off‐line reservation modes globally over a two‐year period is then discussed in terms of three yield management performance measures, namely: average price (AP), occupancy rate, and average revenue per available room.

The findings indicate that the online mode outperforms the off‐line mode with respect to performance measures of AP and average revenue. Further to a global‐based comparison, a localized evaluation of these two modes is also presented for two sub‐groups of hotels clustered in a given region. Statistical analysis of findings is provided, pointing to a substantial revenue increase for the hotel sub‐group that switched from the off‐line to the online reservation mode, compared with the hotel sub‐group that continued to operate off‐line. The paper concludes with a brief discussion on the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats associated with the online reservation mode.

Future research could look into the impact of specific macro and micro economic conditions on the three yield management performance measures defined.

The research reported is of value to hotel executives who want to pursue online reservations.

The main purpose of this paper is to analyse the management challenges faced by international hotel operators when applying universally accepted management principles to the Cuban hospitality market.

The authors use both secondary and primary research sources based on fieldwork carried out in Cuba during the first semester of 2003 and a later visit during the months of December 2003 and January 2004. Eight in‐depth interviews were conducted with senior executives of Cuban, Spanish and French hotel corporations.

The paper presents a scenario where the state's role in the protection of the socialist revolutionary principles, combined with the need to adopt some market‐based management practices, constitutes a singular case in the world of hotel management. In the current Cuban institutional context, the implementation of some western best management practices can produce significant results, while others produce negative outcomes, and therefore, should be held back until the institutional context is changed.

The paper has implications for managers in suggesting that from a hotel perspective, the application of universally accepted best management practices must be carried out practice by practice and country by country.

This paper contributes to increased knowledge about the dilemmas of managing hotels in a still highly centralised socialist country but with an increasingly market‐based economy.

This paper aims to understand employees’ perceptions of human resources management functions and how these affect brand performance, and the indirect influence of human resources management functions when mediated by job satisfaction in branded hotels in China. Hotel human resources functions, specifically organizational career management, and internal branding in hotels in mainland China were examined. The mediating effect of job satisfaction on the relationship between organizational career management and internal branding on brand performance was also examined.

A survey of hotel supervisors and middle managers in mainland China yielded 510 valid questionnaires for data analysis. Structural equation modeling was used to empirically test the relationships between human resources management functions (organizational career management, internal branding and job satisfaction) and brand performance in four- and five-star hotels in China.

The structural equation modeling results showed strong support for the mediating effect of job satisfaction on the relationships between organizational career management, internal branding and brand performance. Interestingly, although internal branding significantly affected brand performance, organizational career management alone did not.

The main limitation was the use of a convenience sampling method, which means respondents may not represent a sufficiently broad sample of hotel employees. Future studies are encouraged to explore internal branding and hotel career management using a probability sampling method.

The findings offer new insights and directions for hotel human resources managers to improve brand performance, either through promoting internal branding itself, or by enhancing organizational career management, internal branding and employees’ job satisfaction to achieve brand performance.

This is the first empirical study to analyze hotel management employees’ perceptions of the relationships between hotel human resources management, employees’ job satisfaction and hotel brand performance in China. The findings demonstrate the usefulness of applying human resources management functions to hotel branding.

This paper aims to study the determinants of hotel performance, especially the role of location, in the Spanish hotel market.

The sample is composed of 1,034 hotels located in 97 tourist destinations in Spain during the period 2005-2011. The estimations were made by generalised least squares using panel data.

Overall, the results show that hotel attributes are the main determinant of performance. In particular, there is a minimum efficient scale in the hotel business. Location is the second most important determinant. This paper confirms that geographical location models, agglomeration models and competition models are relevant in the study of the effect of location on hotel performance. Regarding management practices, the performance is positively affected by good asset management.

Hotel managers can improve the total net revenue per available room by individually making decisions regarding its characteristics and management practices, especially size and asset efficiency. Moreover, they can collaborate with others (managers and policymakers) to manage tourist destination factors, particularly, demand level, accessibility, negative externalities and market concentration.

This research includes hotel characteristics, management practices and location as determinants of performance, by providing a broader framework of analysis than in previous studies. Regarding location, the empirical analysis considers simultaneously geographical location models, agglomeration models and competition models. The paper studies the Spanish hotel market, which is very important worldwide and which has heterogeneous tourist destinations, thereby making it a good context to analyse the relationship between location and performance.

This study examines how firms’ use of competitor-focused accounting information, specifically competitor monitoring information, impacts their pricing, demand, and overall revenue performance. The monitoring activities examined are the scope of monitoring, monitoring above and below one’s own hotel class (i.e., market segment), and the extent of reciprocity of monitoring. Competitor analysis is a central element in strategic management accounting (SMA), yet little empirical research has been done since companies do not disclose competitor monitoring activities. Proving the value of competitive monitoring provides strong support for SMA. Archival, proprietary monitoring information regarding pricing, demand, and revenue were obtained from one of the largest hotel markets in the United States. Using regression, we modeled the relationships between performance measures (pricing, demand, and revenue) and monitoring behaviors, while controlling for quality (hotel characteristics and management skill), competitive intensity, hotel class, geographic location, and ownership type. Our results indicate that two aspects of competitor monitoring impact hotel pricing that, in turn, impacts hotel demand and revenue performance. Specifically, a hotel monitoring more competitors (what we refer to as Scope) achieves higher prices with unchanged demand, resulting in higher revenue performance. Most hotels monitor within their class. However, deviating from one’s class has profound outcomes: looking at lower (higher) quality hotels results in a hotel setting lower (higher) prices, resulting in higher (unchanged) demand and lower (higher) revenue performance. Surprisingly, we did not find support for the reciprocity of monitoring. That is, whether the competitors monitored by a hotel, in turn follow the target, has no impact on hotel revenue performance outcomes. While the SMA literature notes the importance of competitor monitoring, this study fills a gap in an important, under-researched area by documenting the link between competitor monitoring behaviors and organizational revenue performance. This may help promote greater diffusion of SMA practices.

The purpose and current research objective is to determine sustainable hotel performance through hotel environmental management initiatives (HEMI) with the mediating influence of employee’s’ eco-friendly behaviour (EEB), and to determine the moderating role of environmental strategies (ES) in the relationship between HEMI and EEB.

A total of 95 five-star hotels were contacted, with data collected from only 30 of them. The study used only 433 questionnaires for the final analysis with SPSS 25.0 and SmartPLS 3.2.8.

The results revealed that HEMI is positively associated with sustainable hotel performance and with EEB. EEB is positively associated with sustainable hotel performance. ES significantly influence EEB, and significantly strengthen the relationship between HMEI and EEB. EEB significantly mediates the relationship between HEMI and sustainable hotel performance.

The current research highlights a significant issue: how the management of the hotel industry uses HEMI, ES and EEB to improve sustainable performance. The study fills the gap in the literature and enables hotel management to concentrate on studying exogenous variables to increase sustainable performance.

The current research contributes to the body of knowledge by concentrating on factors that influence sustainable hotel performance. It examines HEMI influence on sustainable performance with moderating (ES) and mediating (EEB) effects, from the leans of natural resource-based view (RBV) theory.

This paper identifies the critical success factors (CSFs) of virtual hotel operator (VHO) in using hotel management system partnerships with small- and medium-sized hotels (SMSHs).

This study uses a qualitative approach, with 25 semi-structured interviews with hotel owners and VHO management. Thematic analysis is used to determine themes to evaluate hotel owners and operators' perceptions.

CSFs for VHO partnership with SMSHs include marketing and promotion strategies, client relationships, training and human resources development, hotel operation management, innovation strategies, capital expenditures and property management systems (PMSs). VHOs also have a symbolic impact on the mutualistic relationship with SMSHs by increasing service and enhancing product competitiveness and profitability.

Findings are beneficial for VHO in determining the most significant CSFs, thereby establishing additional metrics in business performance and increasing resilience in the accommodation sector. Further studies can measure the digital technology factors from VHO, including PMSs and mobile applications.

This study first identifies CSFs for VHO companies from the perspectives of hotel owners and management. This contribution adds to the literature on CSFs in the context of digital technology implementation in SMSHs. Moreover, implications are beneficial for VHO management in determining the most significant CSFs for companies to measure the business performance of the companies and increase resilience in the accommodation sector.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the construction of social and environmental strategies and the related implementation of management control by a key organisation located in a pivotal Asian location in the global hospitality industry. In doing so, it sets out to elucidate the forms and processes of strategic social and environmental control as well their relationship to the traditional financial control system.

The study employs field-based case study of a single case operating in both regional and global context. Drawing upon documentary, survey and interview sources, the study employs structuration theory to inform its design and analysis.

The findings reveal the interaction of top-down global corporate framing and bottom-up local-level staff initiatives that combine to develop a locally focussed and differentiated social and environmental programme and expedite an associated management control and accountability system. The study also reveals the dominance of the traditional financial control system over the social and environmental management control system and the simultaneously enabling and constraining nature of that relationship.

Signification and legitimation structures can be employed in building social and environmental values and programmes which then lay the foundations for related discourse and action at multiple levels of the organisation. This also has the potential to facilitate modes of staff commitment expressed through bottom-up initiatives and control, subject to but also facilitated by the dominating influence of the organisation’s financial control system.

This study reveals the importance of national and regional governmental, cultural and social context as both potential enablers and beneficiaries of organisational, social and environmental strategy and control innovation and implementation.

The paper offers an intra-organisational perspective on social and environmental strategising and control processes and motivations that elucidates forms of action, control and accountability and the relationship between social/environmental control and financial control agendas. It further reveals the interaction between globally developed strategic and control frameworks and locally initiated bottom-up strategic initiatives and control.