Disaster management of hotels: empirical results from the lodging industry

ABSTRACT

Among other business types, hotels serving as temporary accommodation for visitors with solid ties to local conditions present unique hazard-prone characteristics, and show vulnerabilities based on their location. Departing from the significance of the topic for the Turkish case, this paper focuses on the risk perception and responsiveness of the lodging industry. In doing so, an empirical study was carried out in Ankara city. Data from 75 hotels were gathered via a questionnaire designed to identify their locational attributes and operationalized by multiple logistic regression analysis. Although hotels in the sample accepted that safety is a significant issue for both the continuity of their operationality and guests, hotels were reluctant in developing systematic and effective tools for disaster management..

KEYWORDS:

• Hotel management
• business continuity
• disaster planning
• responsiveness
• disaster preparedness

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey under the Grant No. 118K437. The ideas expressed here do not reflect the views of the Council.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK).

Notes on contributors

Ezgi Orhan

Ezgi Orhan graduated from the city and regional planning department of Middle East Technical University in 2007, and took her PhD from the discipline in 2012. Her doctorate thesis was funded by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey. Her research interests include community resilience, business geography, and urban planning. She has published articles in various journals about disaster management, location choices of public and private entities, and planning history. She is currently working as an associate professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the Cankaya University. She is also affiliated as a resilience fellow to the 4TU Centre for Resilience Engineering, the Netherlands.