Abstract

With increased globalisation and technological advancement, the need of hotels for bringing innovation and using innovation management practices has become highly important. This research is conducted for analysing innovation management practices used by hotel industry of China. In order to conduct the research, Hotel Hilton China is used as case study and employees of hotel are used to collect primary data. Moreover, the study also used secondary data collected through articles, books and internet sources. The sample size for this research is 58 employees. The study has found that hotel is involved in effective management of innovation practices and it focuses on practices through which operational efficiency of hotel can be enhanced. Although the management is able to bring innovation within the firm but still there is a need of further improvement. In the end of this research, recommendations are also given.

Chapter 1: Introduction

1.1. Introduction

In this chapter, the introduction is briefly presented. Setting the hook in the right manner is very important as it sets the tone for the whole manuscript. It shapes reader expectation as well as makes them excited. This principle has been followed in the introduction of current research. It provides the background of the topic. Then researcher identified the problem statement. On the basis of problem statement and the variables used in this research, research questions and objectives are formulated. The research gap is also identified. The introduction chapter also covers the significance of the study, and at the end of this chapter, thesis structure is also given.

According to the previous researches, the main issues and the problems faced to the hospitality industry. These are operating issues, marketing issues, technological issues and economic issues (PKF Hospitality Research, 2006). The operating issues include the labour shortages because of the limited human resources, cost containment is needed; competition between the growing number of hotels across the globe (The Globe and Mail Report on Business Magazine, 2007).The marketing issues include overlapping brand market segmentation and increased guest sophistication (Butler, 2006).The technological issues include interactive reservation system, guest – room innovations, data mining and yield management (Mauri, 2007).The economic issues include globalisation and dependence on nation’s economy. In the previous researches the challenges that have been identified are many. These include low occupancy level (Gu, 2003). Others are related to lack of support from the government, inadequate training provided, lack of attractions and facilities, lack of financing, unreliable financial environment and access to finance (Zapalska and Brozik, 2007). These issues are very basic issues but there are issues to which researches have not given importance and these include recession and other societal as well as economic issues. These are researched out in the current research and the problem is to identify as well as postulate out some innovative actionable ways to the Hilton Hotels & Resorts to improve its current situation in all of the locations in China.

Hilton Hotels & Resorts is a brand which can be seen in all parts of the world with full service hotels, resorts and the Hilton Worldwide (flagship) (McMorris, 2016). Hilton Hotels & Resorts was previously known with the name Hilton Hotels (Rooney, 2011). This company was formed by Conrad Hilton in the year 1919 in Cisco, Texas (Hilton website, 2016). To date, the number of hotels is more than 570, present in 84 countries and in six continents (McMorris, 2016). The properties of the hotels are managed by, owned by, or franchised to an operator who is independent. In China, Hilton Hotels & Resorts are present in more than thirty cities which show that how much the hotel is liked by the consumers of China. However, Hilton Hotels & Resorts is not enjoying success in Chinese environment and this is studied out in the current research.

The Hilton Hotels & Resorts, China is the case of the research because it is one of the hotels which are present all across the globe. The Hilton Hotels & Resorts is facing issues and problems through which the hotel is not enjoying success in terms of more customers or revenues. Therefore, there is a need to provide some recommendations to the Hotel on how it can continue its operations in China successfully.

The problem which is under investigation in the current research includes identification of the main problems which are faced to the Chinese hospitality industry and that relates to Hilton Hotels & Resorts in China as well. In addition to this, the problems are evaluated and