Economic Recession and Hotel Performance in Abia State, Nigeria (Published)
Because of the economic crisis almost all businesses are navigating difficult times with severe consequences for employment and the whole economy. The initial economic downturn, has affected almost all sectors of the economy. The economic crisis leaded the companies cut off investments, wages, and reduced personnel. Nevertheless, the high rate of unemployment reduced workers’ income resulting to a further reduction of consumption. The whole situation simply feeds a recession cycle that cannot break without radical economic reform for the whole country and its economic activities. The main purpose of this paper is to empirically explore the influence of economic recession on hotel performance in Abia state, Nigeria. To achieve the objective of the study, survey research design was adopted. The researcher adopted primary data in getting the required information through the use of structured questionnaire. 210 management staff from 15 selected hotels in Abia State, Nigeria constitute the sample size of the study. Data collected were analyzed using multiple regression analysis. The findings revealed that economic recession (income rate, cost of production, and unemployment rate) has significant influence on customer patronage of hotels in the study area. The study recommends that government of Nigeria should work towards reducing the rising rate of inflation and other economic crisis to encourage businesses including hotel business in Nigeria. Also, Hotel industry in the midst of recession should cut down their cost of operation such as reducing unnecessary expenses that are not very important to the business. That would help in improving their performance.
Keywords: Cost of production, Economic Recession, Hotel performance, income rate., unemployment rate
Staff Involvement in Decision Making and Hotel Performance in Abia State, Nigeria (Published)
The study examined the staff involvement in decision making and hotel performance in Abia State, Nigeria. To achieve the objective of the study, survey research design was adopted. The researcher adopted primary data in getting the required information through the use of structured questionnaire. Structured questionnaire was administered to 175 staff of the selected hotels. The data collected were analyzed using ordinary least square based simple regression analysis. The findings revealed that staff involvement in decision making has a significant influence on staff productivity in hotel establishments. The findings further revealed that staff involvement in decision making has a significant influence on hotel performance. The findings also revealed that staff involvement in decision making has a significant influence on sales growth in hotel establishment. The study concludes that staff involvement in decision making plays significant role in enhancing hotel performance. Based on the findings, the study recommends that hotels should provide an enlightenment program for workers on their rights to seize the opportunity of involvement in decision making. Also, hotels should liberalize management structure so as to allow for greater workers’ involvement.
Keywords: Hotel performance, and sales growth, staff involvement in decision making, staff job satisfaction, staff productivity