Measuring Hotel Performance Using the Game Cross-Efficiency Approach

Abstract

This study evaluates the comparative operating efficiencies of 23 international tourist hotels in Taipei by means of data envelopment analysis (DEA). A game cross-efficiency extension of the original DEA method is applied to provide reliable and comprehensive evaluation results. The main advantage of this approach is that it not only assesses hotel efficiency effectively based on self- and peer evaluation but also takes the competition among decision-making units (DMUs) into account. A star-rating system is also proposed to rate the performance of the international hotels under study based on their DEA efficiency scores over different periods. The results reveal that the mode of hotel operation significantly affects efficiency, in that hotels operated by international chains are more efficient than independent hotels. However, the level achieved in the traditional Taiwanese plum-rating system by hotels had no significant impact on hotel operational efficiency.

本文的目的，是利用数据包络分析（DEA）评估并比较23家台北国际观光酒店的经营效率。为了获取可靠和全面的评价结果，本文采用的方法是从原来的DEA延伸出来的博弈交叉效率评价方法。这个方法除了能够在自我及同侪评估的基础上有效地测量酒店效率外，其最主要的优点，是把决策单位（DMUs）之间的竞争作为评估的考虑因素。 此外，基于酒店于不同时期取得的DEA效率值，本文提出了一套星级评定机制以鉴定酒店绩效的等级。研究结果显示，酒店的经营模式对其经营效率影响深远，其原因为国际连锁式经营的酒店比非集团经营的酒店的效率为高。不过，台湾的传统梅花评鉴制度对酒店的经营效率没有重大的影响。

Keywords:

• International hotels of Taipei
• data envelopment analysis
• game cross-efficiency evaluation
• star-rating

Keywords:

• 台北国际酒店
• 数据包络分析
• 博弈交叉效率评价方法
• 星级评定

Acknowledgments

The financial support of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (1-BB61) is kindly acknowledged. The third author would also like to acknowledge the financial support of the National Natural Science Funds of China (No. 70821001 and 70901069), special fund for the Gainers of Excellent PhD Dissertations and Dean's Scholarships of Chinese Academy of Sciences, research fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China for New Teachers (No. 20093402120013), research fund for the Excellent Youth Scholars of Higher School of Anhui Province of China (No. 2010SQRW001ZD), Social Science research fund for Higher School of Anhui Province of China (No. 2010SK004), and Philosophy and Social Science research fund of Anhui Province of China (No. AHSKF09-10D116).

Notes

1. Normal distribution is usually used to describe, at least approximately, any variable that tends to cluster around the mean. By the central limit theorem, any variable that is the sum of a large number of independent factors is likely to be normally distributed. The operation of a hotel may be affected by various factors, such as location and economic and political environment. We thus assume that the efficiencies of Taipei hotels follow a normal distribution as in Figure 1. The results in Table 5 provide the proof of this assumption.

2. All three models were implemented in MATLAB (Math Works, Natick, MA, USA).