The impact of Sars in Hong Kong: implications for the hotel industry in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic

• Autor(a) principal: Rodrigues, Joana Dos Santos Costa
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10362/108605
• topic: Hotel industry; Implications; Disease outbreaks; Coronavirus; Sars; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Economia e Gestão

Throughout the years, crises of different nature affected the hotel industry. Disease outbreaks are an example of these type of events that have a potential devastating impact due their complexity.In 2003, the SARS outbreak affected several locations in the world and had tremendous consequences for the tourism and hotel industry, especially as hotels did not have adequate strategies in place to mitigate the impact.With the surge of the coronavirus pandemic, whose impact is noticeably more serious than that of SARS, the hotel industry is suffering even more. Past studies focused on different health crises situations and their impact in the hotel industry, but none has targeted pandemics. It is thus fundamental that hotels learn from previous situations and understand which is sues to address when designing crises management strategies.This study aims to answer the following research questions: First, in order to manage the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic in the hotel industry, what can hoteliers learn from the impact of SARS and strategies used to overcome it by hotels in Hong Kong?; second,what can these past lessons teach hoteliers in order to be better prepared for future similar situations?.To answer these questions, this study was built on the impact of the SARS outbreak in the hotel industry in Hong Kong by examining the relationship between key performance indicators,together with an analysis of different studies covering the consequences and strategies used by hotels in this area. Our results uncover a considerable impact in the hotel industry.The main strategies used to overcome the consequences of this crisis focused on staff management,guaranteeing health safety,ensuring the standards of service,securing hotels’ image and reputation, ensuring efficient external communication,exploiting lower occupancy levels,increasing demand,and managing the decrease in revenue through cost control measures and potential new revenue streams. It is recommended that hotels address these points but build on the impact of coronavirus in order to be prepared for a future similar situation.