Manuscript Information Authors

[1]	Mariusz Cembruch-Nowakowski, Katowice School of Economics, Harcerzy-Wrzesnia, Katowice, Poland.

Abstract

Article presents the results of studies on factors effecting strategic planning and business performance of hotel enterprises in Malopolska region located in southern part of Poland with the capital in Cracow, very popular touristic destination visited yearly by around 5 million tourists. Based on literature analysis and using the educated-guess approach the set of factors potentially important for functioning and competitiveness of hotel enterprises have been selected. Six hypothesis assuming the existence of correlation between variables tested and tendency for development of strategy by their managerial staff were formulated. The hypothesis were tested based on the results of questionnaire studies involving the group of 60 (34 women and 26 man) randomly chosen managerial staff members of hotel enterprises. The group varied also in the type of managerial position and consisted owners (10), presidents (4), directors and managers (25). The group was divided into three subgroups differing in their approach to the strategy development; the group of hotel managers who developed strategy for their enterprises, the group of hotel managers who developed only functional strategy, and the group of hotel managers who have not developed strategy for their hotels. The responders differ in their age, but their population was dominated by the segment in the range 26-45 years; the largest group (52%) was in the age range 26-35 years, followed by the group in the age range 36-45 years (23%). The hotels studied have various types of business - organizational structure. Majority of them were limited liability companies (32) while 15 were private companies, 7 joint-stock companies, 5 partnerships and 1 unlimited company. Data obtained were analyzed using the integrated methods of qualitative and quantitative analysis. The qualitative analysis was based on deductive and inductive reasoning approaches. The quantitative analysis was performed using computer program – Statistica 9. All hypotheses formulated were proven. For all dependencies studied the positive value for Pearson correlation coefficients (r) were obtained. The strongest correlation (r = 0.92) between the organization structure of the hotel enterprises and their institutional ties with other entities of that sector and the tendency for development of strategy by their managerial staff was detected. Importantly, it was observed that strategy development has strong, positive effect on the financial performance of hotel enterprises (r = 0.55) and on the increase of their shares ion the local market (r = 0.53). These findings indicate that the managerial staff of hotel enterprises should be encourage to develop the strategy for functioning of their entities as it is beneficial for their position at the market and for their business performance. Current studies carried out by the author on the approach of managerial staff to the strategy development are expected to provide the inside into the effect of expansion and level of maturity of the hotel business in Malopolska region of Poland. These finding may be of importance for analysis of the development of that sector in other regions undergoing the socio-political changes.

Keywords

Hospitality, Hotel Enterprises, Strategy, Poland, Malopolska Region

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