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The purpose of this paper is to empirically assess the impact of integrated lean and green practices on the sustainable (environmental, economic and social) performance of a hotel supply chain.

Literature review and previous exploratory studies were used to develop a hypothesized model that characterizes the integrated lean and green (LeGreen) impact on supply chain sustainability. A case study of a large sample of the UAE hotels is used to collect and analyze empirical data, validate the measurement model and test study hypotheses using structural equation modeling (SEM).

The results showed that three major lean techniques (Kaizen, quality and productive maintenance) and three green techniques (health and safety, waste disposal and green certifications) have substantial impact on the sustainable performance of hotel supply chains. Further results revealed that LeGreen impacts are complementary. Lean techniques have the highest impact on the economic performance of the hotel supply chain and the least impact on the environmental performance. Green practices, on the other hand, have opposite impacts.

Although the study findings may vary in different contexts, study methodology and measurement model can be adapted to assess the LeGreen impact on the sustainable performance of hotel supply chains, as well as other service industries such as banking and health care.

The proposed assessment model is expected to be of great value toward the effective implementation of LeGreen practices across hotel supply chains in the UAE and globally. The study findings also provide guidelines for practitioners within the hospitality sector to undertake the proposed model and to adapt it for assessing and enhancing sustainable performance in other sectors of the service industry.

There is a growing emphasis by practitioners and academics on measuring the impact of LeGreen on the sustainable performance of service supply chains. However, the assessment of LeGreen impacts within the context of a hotel supply chain remains unexplored with a scarcity of comprehensive assessment frameworks. This study aims to fulfill this gap in literature and provide directions for researchers to expand the proposed model and to further analyze the integrated lean-green impact on the sustainability of supply chains of hotels and the service industry.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework for identification, categorization and prioritization of lean techniques adopted in a hotel supply chain.

A survey tool is used for the identification of lean techniques that are relevant to a hotel supply chain. The targeted sample includes experts from 50 four- and five-star hotels in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that confirmed experience in implementing lean practices across hotels supply chain. A Supplier-Inputs-Process-Outputs-Customers (SIPOC) chart and experts’ opinion are used to allocate and categorize the identified lean techniques across the construct of the hotel supply chain. Finally, analytical hierarchy process (AHP) is used to prioritize the criteria and sub-criteria of adopted lean techniques.

Study results have identified six main categories of lean practices and 19 specific lean techniques as relevant to a hotel supply chain. The identified categories include JIT, Kaizen, Quality, Inventory, Maintenance and Standardization. The study found that JIT and Kaizen take the top priority among the identified categories of lean practices. In line with that, on-time service to customers, effective improvement system and on-time delivery from suppliers were found to be the three most relevant lean techniques to a hotel supply chain.

The study has targeted a representative sample of hotels with experience in implementing lean practices. Study findings have several implications to researchers and practitioners for effective adoption of lean techniques within a hotel supply chain. However, the accuracy and credibility of results obtained from this research including SIPOC allocation and lean categorization are highly dependent on the accuracy and credibility of collected empirical data from surveyed hotels within the study context. Results of AHP prioritization also depend on the credibility of judgements made by the hotels’ supply chain experts.

The study provides the hospitality industry with a structured approach that can help in a prioritized adoption of most relevant lean techniques across the hotel supply chain to reduce wastes, create value, increase efficiency and improve the service level. Study findings can be used by hotel management to direct and focus the effort of lean capacity building, resources allocation and implementation plans.

Limited research is available on lean management in the context of a hotel supply chain. Also, most of the previous research is focused on lean impacts, while academics and practitioners agree that the identification and prioritization of most relevant lean techniques is crucial to the successful implementation of lean management for waste reduction and value creation. This research addresses this important issue in hotel supply chains and proposes a structured approach for effective lean adoption.

The hotel and tourism industry forms a crucial economic sector for all the economies around the world. However, it suffered the worst hit during the COVID-19 outbreak. Considering the hotel and tourism sector's critical situation, this manuscript aims to emphasise the importance of resilience in the hotel and tourism supply chain (HTSC) and explores the crucial barriers that tend to disturb the inculcation of stability in the hotel and tourism sector. The present research analyses the factors influencing the hotel and tourism sector's resilience and also takes into consideration the various critical success factors (CSFs) needed to build a resilient HTSC.

A two-phase research approach has been proposed and used in this study. In the first phase, eight CSFs and sixteen factors influencing the hotel and tourism sector's resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic were identified. The basis of the identification of the CSFs and factors was literature and inputs received from experts. In the second phase, the grey-Entropy-EDAS, a qualitative and quantitative analysis, was used to analyse the identified CSFs and factors to determine the priority of concern.

In this research, the most imperative facet influencing the hotel and tourism sector's resilience has been identified, and the findings will assist hotel and tourism sector in managing and mitigating the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis of the results indicates that out of all the critical success factors, supply chain visibility is the most crucial aspect in building HTSC's resilience, whereas economic catastrophe is the most influential factor. Sensitivity analysis is also conducted to examine the priority ranking stability.

The results of this study can be used by the hotel supply chain managers and policymakers to plan for various challenges faced by them as they try to implement resilience-based strategies in their supply chain.

This research is unique as it analyses the general factors hindering the pathway of resilience in the hotel and tourism supply chain. This is also the first kind of study that has used grey-Entropy to analyse the critical success factors and grey-EDAS for analysing the impact of various factors influencing the hotel and tourism sector's resilience.

This paper aims to focus on supply chain quality (SCQ) in the hospitality industry in China, and to stress the importance of the synergy of quality management (QM) and supply chain management (SCM). The authors have investigated the relationship among QM practices, SCM practices, SCQ and hotel performance, and examined the effect of contextual variables.

This study mainly uses a questionnaire survey to collect data relating to the research hypotheses. Structural equation model technique is suited for our research purposes, and the LISREL software is implemented to test the conceptual model.

The results show that QM practices and SCM practices are significantly correlated. QM practices/SCM practices are positively related to SCQ, and consequently influence hotel performance. SCQ has the mediating effect between QM/SCM practices and hotel performance. Contextual variables truly play a moderator between QM/SCM practices and SCQ.

Hotel managers should look beyond their own hotels into supply chain to manage quality, highlight the importance of interdepartmental or external (i.e. customers or suppliers) connectedness, such as building close and long-term relationships with well-chosen suppliers, encouraging customer involvement and establishing an effective interface for accumulating information regarding customers’ needs and feedback. Hotel managers are also able to realize the influence of contextual variables (e.g. the new normal state of the Chinese economy), and further to gain chance of hotel’s survival.

This study focuses on SCQ and tries to fill a gap in the exiting literature on SCQ management in hospitality industry.

The purpose of this paper is to provide strategic recommendations for Indian hotel administrators for improving sustainability practices: environment, economic and social with respect to the supply chain members by analyzing performance dimensions and the importance attached to them.

Importance performance analysis is a tool to analyze the perception of top-level, middle-level and first-level managers in hotels. Questionnaire is developed to collect the hotel manager’s perceptions. The snowball sampling method is used for data collection.

The paper introduces specific sustainability practices, namely, environment, economic and social factors, at the interface of the tourism supply chain (TSC). This will allow the hotels to identify the importance and performance of various sustainability practices to achieve a long-term competitive advantage. The present work finds that the responding hotel managers have given highest importance to the sustainability practices within the organization and the hotel manager’s perception of sustainability practices in the TSC will vary with respect to the supply chain members.

The effort has been made to capture specific sustainability practices across the supply chain. The paper reinstates the fact that sustainability practices are not firm specific and should be practiced at the supply chain interface. The data for the study were taken from focal organizations perspective which is the hotels.

Results provide the hotel administrators to develop appropriate strategies to improve their practices and functions by analyzing their strengths and weakness regarding their tangible and intangible assets. The identified sustainability practice attributes can act as a benchmark and drive the hotel industry toward possible cost-saving conditions by prioritizing the allocation of the resources while taking care of overall performance.

Results will help the hotel administrators to identify the better sustainability practices which will reduce the negative effects and protect the Mother Nature.

The study included hotels/resorts from tourism locations: hill station, backwaters and coastal areas, specifically in the Indian context.

Supply chain management (SCM) has become important in the service sector nowadays, because customer satisfaction is dependent on the efficiency of supply chain activities. Hotels are operations where personal guest satisfaction is a major priority. A large and diverse range of supply factors are gathered according to the requirements of guests, and then service is provided. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship of SCM and information system (IS) in five‐star hotels.

Data were collected from senior management and relevant department authorities of five‐star hotels in Istanbul by asking them open‐ended questions. The findings were evaluated with descriptive analysis and different conditions of usage information systems in SCM were presented and then issues were determined.

The findings were evaluated in five groups; four of them being: First, purchasing, inventory management, warehousing, customer relationship and service production processes in these enterprises are mainly being carried out by conventional methods. Second, internet is being used instead of fax as a means of communication in the supply chain. Third, respondents say that the use of information systems is reflected in the speed, reliability, easy access, low cost applications and time saving within the supply chain process. Fourth, Netsis program is the most frequently used and the advantage of its ERP applications are also being used.

The findings were evaluated by descriptive analysis method. Because of the low number of participants, statistical analysis does not give meaningful results. Consistency of responses given by participants is tested by the investigation of cross relations between the questions.

In this paper, the supply chain structure in hotels, and supply chain information systems are being examined through the interactions of the members. To achieve this goal, the relationship between information systems and the supply chain structure has been established and the role of information systems in SCM is determined with the help of corporate information systems.

Channel coordination has become an essential part of researching hotel supply chain management practices. This paper develops an improved channel coordination approach to coordinate the profit distribution between hotels and online travel agencies (OTAs) achieved through an introduction of advertising fees. This direction further improves the decentralization of cooperation and achieves Pareto improvement to achieve mutual profitability.

The methodology used in this study involves Stackelberg game theory employed for the decision-making and analysis of both the hotel and OTA. The OTA, acting as the leader, offers a hotel a contract specifying the commission rate that the hotel will pay to the respective OTA. The hotel, acting as a follower, sets a self-interested room rate as a given response. A deterministic, price-sensitive linear demand function is utilized to derive possible analytical solutions once centralized, noncooperative decentralization and cooperative decentralized channel occurs.

Results show that a new channel coordination approach is possible, namely via advertising fees. Prior to channel coordination, the OTA tends to set a higher commission rate, and the hotel sets a higher room rate in response under noncooperative decentralization. As such, this results in a lower channel-wide profit for all. One way to reduce channel-wide profit loss is to use a method of cooperative decentralization, which can, and will result in optimal profit as centralization takes place. However, the lack of incentives makes cooperative decentralization unfeasible. Further improvement is possible by using advertising fees based on a cooperative decentralization agreement, which can reach Pareto improvement.

This paper helps the OTA industry and hotel owners cooperate by way of smoother coordination. This study provides practitioners with two important practical implications. The first one is that the coordination between the hotel industry and OTA through cooperative decentralization allows for the achievement of higher profitability than that of noncooperative decentralization. The second one is that this paper solves the outstanding problem of insufficient incentives characteristic of cooperative decentralization by means of an advertising fee as a new supply chain coordination approach.

This paper offers both the problem and solution regarding the lack of incentives that hamper cooperative decentralization without the use of advertising fees. This paper is unique in that it derives analytical solutions regarding commissions levied in a typical hotel supply chain under noncooperative decentralization.

Sustainable food practices have been recognised as a key issue in efforts to improve and report sustainable tourism practices, given the importance of the social, environmental and economic impacts of the food industry throughout its entire chain of production – from farm to fork. From this standpoint, the aim of the present paper is to propose a comprehensive framework for reporting or making decisions concerning sustainable food management in hotels, taking into account the various facets of the food supply chain.

Several dimensions are proposed for dealing with sustainable food management, involving all aspects of food supply chains that may be relevant for hotel decision-making. Furthermore, some key criteria for creating and using indicators of different types (qualitative and quantitative) to address these various dimensions of sustainable food management are suggested. Subsequently, the proposed framework is validated with the sustainability criteria and indicators provided by the top eight hotel groups, according to the 2019 SAM Annual Corporate Sustainability Assessment.

Hotels neglect a number of aspects of sustainable food management identified in the framework. The quality and the quantity of the information provided by hotels are limited.

There is a need to improve sustainability in food management in the hotels under analysis in several areas. A comprehensive framework such as that proposed in this paper may be of great value in seeking to remedy this situation. It may also assist users of hotel services and communities in making more informed decisions.

The proposed framework may be beneficial in advancing academic debate towards a more embracing and relevant understanding of sustainable food management in hotels and on the indicators required in this regard.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate customer responsiveness in the hotel industry, and the role of market orientation including both internal and external information sharing.

Based on a review of the supply chain management and marketing literature, a conceptual model was constructed and tested based on a survey of European hotel managers using PLS path modeling.

Market orientation seems to be an important basis for cross‐functional and inter‐organizational information sharing. Information exchange, both internal and external, can explain over 50 percent of customer responsiveness, as perceived by hotel managers.

The study mainly focused on European four‐ and five‐star hotels. The final sample is considered representative, but relatively small (50 respondents). The observed importance of information sharing warrants further investigation.

While many hotel managers may focus on cleanliness, comfort of rooms, quality of food and friendliness, it seems that both internal and external information sharing are important antecedents of customer responsiveness, and hence satisfaction and loyalty.

This paper, by combining marketing and supply chain management concepts into one model, offers new insights into the hotel business. Customer responsiveness can be improved through market orientation and information sharing.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors affecting supplier selection in food and beverage divisions in the Greek hotel industry. This research aimed to (1) examine the factors affecting supplier selection in food and beverage divisions of the Greek hotel industry, as these were perceived by the Greek purchasing managers themselves; (2) investigate the underlying factors when changing a supplier.

A survey was conducted using a closed-ended type questionnaire. Data collection met the following three criteria: hotels with a fully operational food and beverage division could participate in the research, the research population comprised all the hotels located in 13 regions of Greece, the sample represented over 10% of the total hotels in each region. Finally, 653 valid questionnaires were collected.

Exploratory factor analysis showed that six broad sets of factors affect supplier selection in the food and beverage divisions: those related to raw materials, financing, environment, services, origin-nutrients and people. Regarding the factors considered in changing a supplier, three factors were found: service and product quality, economic policy change, food quality and safety management systems.

Greek hotel managers could use the findings of the study to effectively create a supply chain management strategy that will lead to improved firm performance. Understanding the importance of the selection criteria for the supply chain performance and the need to build strong relationships with stakeholders, suppliers could also create a proper supply chain.

The study adds to the knowledge regarding the perspectives of the Greek purchasing managers in food and beverage divisions in hotel industry and the body of much-needed research. Using exploratory factor analysis, a sort of grouping of the variables seems beneficial for simplifying how to present and understand the factors affecting supplier selection in food and beverage divisions within the Greek context.