Industry-specific and general environmental factors impacting on hotel employment

Abstract

The demand for manpower resource by a hotel is derived from the public's demand for travel goods and services. In filling job vacancies, hotel managers are confronted with an array of internal constraints, industry-specific drivers as well as external economy-wide factors which influence the availability and cost of the labor input required. In this study a model incorporating relevant task and general environmental factors is used to measure their impact on hotel managers' decisions to raise or lower the level of employment in hotels. Industry-specific factors which were found to be statistically significant in influencing the demand for hotel staff included the number of hotel rooms, total revenue earned from room rentals and food and beverage sales, and revenue obtained from the sale of these items. More broadly, general environmental factors of importance were the production index and the gross domestic product in impacting on the number of hotel employees hired by hotel management.

Keywords:

• industry-specific drivers
• hotel employees
• hotel rooms
• task and general environment

Acknowledgement

This study was funded by a Hong Kong Polytechnic University Research Grant.

Notes

Suppose y is related with x by the following model: log y = b₀ + b₁log x + b₂(log x)² where b₀, b₁ and b₂ are the estimated parameters. Differentiating the model with respect to x, we obtain the following relationship:

Define_ = (dy/y)(x/dx), which is the elasticity of y with respect to x. Therefore, _ = b₁ + 2b₂(log x). The elasticity _ will depend on the value of x. In this instance, the average income elasticity has been computed and is found to be equal to 2.89.