Elimination of Fixed Checkin/Check-Out Time as a Source of Entrepreneurial Edge in Hotel Business

Uzonna Joseph, Onyemeh (2013) Elimination of Fixed Checkin/Check-Out Time as a Source of Entrepreneurial Edge in Hotel Business. [Dissertation (University of Nottingham only)]

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Abstract

This research uses the travails of a young engineer, Nigel, during his

international travels and challenges he encountered with erratic check-in/checkout

time at hotels, to explore the elimination of fixed check-in/check-out as an

entrepreneurial opportunity that can generate competitive advantage. The hotel

industry in Malaysia, a Southeast Asian country of about 28million people,

provides the contextual background for the study.

The situation analysis of Malaysia hotel industry was used to expound on the

industry’s dynamics, strengths, opportunities, threats and weakness, with

emphasis on the importance of tourism and its growth projections for Malaysia;

the influence of government policies; import of increasing crime rate and

shortage of labour; relevance of Malaysian’s natural resources and its strategic

location in the region.

The key concepts associated with the research objective are service quality and

entrepreneurship; hence available literatures in these areas were reviewed as a

foundation to establish the connection between the two. Discussion on service

quality explored its link to profitability of a business; how it is measured and

service recovery when unsatisfactory service encounter occurs. For the

entrepreneurship part, existing literatures on entrepreneurial cognition and

entrepreneurial orientation were used to explore how both contribute towards

opportunity recognition and competitive advantage.

Using questionnaire responses from 101 guests in Malaysian hotels and

interview responses from six entrepreneurs in Malaysia hotel industry, the

hypotheses derived from the main research questions were checked for

fulfilment. Subsequently, four of the five hypotheses were seen as fully

supported while one was only partially supported.

The research concludes with the following findings:

• Check-in/check-out time is an important aspect of hotel experience and

a gap exists in fulfilling this need. Implementing a 24-hour boarding

basis (by eliminating fixed check-in/check-out time) will fill this gap

and lead to more patronage, while proving a source of competitive

advantage.

• Entrepreneurial orientation behaviours like innovativeness and alertness,

lead to recognition of opportunities/new market space and

entrepreneurial cognition is a key contributing factor.

Item Type: Dissertation (University of Nottingham only)
Depositing User: UNM, ePrints
Date Deposited: 26 Dec 2014 12:00
Last Modified: 19 Oct 2017 14:16
URI: https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/id/eprint/28008

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