Assessing the future of housekeeping operations in Dubai’s five-star hotel industry – room for innovation?

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the need for innovation as a means of competitive advantage in the housekeeping (HK) department of five-star hotels in Dubai and consider how the nature of the industry in the region provides particular challenges. Design/methodology/approach – An initial White Paper produced by Amadeus served as the stimulus to conduct a preliminary literature review of innovation in the field of hospitality. The application of innovation was then considered via a content analysis of web sites in Dubai to identify potential candidates for interview. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with Senior Housekeeping Executives in two internationally recognized chain hotels in Dubai to better understand whether there is a need for innovation, what types of innovation are important within these HK departments and understand the potential challenges confronting senior managers in fostering innovative practices. Findings – The key results of this study provide interesting insights into the problems of developing and managing innovation within HK operations, highlighting the issues that exist as potential barriers to innovation in terms of the organizational culture and the ownership structure within the industry in Dubai. The research also highlights the fact that much of the innovation introduced within the HK department is focused on utilization of technology and is very much “output”-orientated in terms of improving customer service and creating operational efficiencies. Research limitations/implications – The paper profiles the potential problems confronting the HK department when it comes to identifying and adopting innovation. The paper also highlights the ever-changing nature of the organizational culture and the ownership structure in the five-star hotel industry in Dubai as a critical influence in terms of the perceived importance of innovation as a success factor for the future. Originality/value – The study is the first in a series of research papers that explores the relationship between key stakeholders in the hospitality industry in Dubai as the customer demand alters and they try to identify and implement innovative ideas and concepts that provide return on investment, increased customer satisfaction, sustainability and competitive advantage. It is the first paper that identifies the context and the current internal and external environments and the drivers within the industry in Dubai (five-star) hotels with a particular focus on 2020. This is within an industry that is showing evidence of change management within the customization of the hotel build and specification, and within the adaption of IT, but is looking for innovation within the application of ideas into industry processes.

Creating the luxury accommodation experience: case studies from New Zealand

“…All the properties had some form of a vision or mission statement declaring expectations, intentions, promises and guarantees affecting both the employees and the guests, and all the participant groups acknowledged the existence of both official and unofficial versions of these. An exploratory study conducted by Anthonisz (2014) revealed that the terms “innovation” and “creativity” appear regularly, or are embedded, in the company values and philosophies of several five-star hotels in Dubai. Likewise, in New Zealand, lodge guests talked about the general manager or other managers having an innovative and creative input into the overall vision of how the lodges are run, and that the vision came from owner(s) and was implemented by the managers and employees in the lodges.…”

Sustainable management practices in UAE hotels

“…Hotels may use innovative technology in their operations to improve customer service and satisfaction. Innovation in hotels provides a sustainable competitive advantage (Anthonisz, 2014) by introducing new aspects that will add value (o’sullivan and dooley, 2009; Jayawardena et al , 2013).…”

Hotel Managers’ Perception of the Internal Environment for Innovation: The Case of Egyptian Hotels

“…Many authors agreed that innovation leads to a competitive advantage and consequently of performance and success either in manufacturing (Anderson et al, 2014;Omerzel, 2016) or in the service context (Orfila-Sintes et al, 2005;Hjalager, 2010;Campo et al, 2014;Pikkemaat and Zehrer, 2016) . Hotels could be considered innovative once their features has been involved new development of idea creation, organizational learning and performing or leading change which might happens in one of four dimensions as reported by Anthonisz (2014): first, the product innovation which has changes in the hotel products or the offered services to the target customer; second, process innovation that has changes in the way in which products or services are created and delivered; third, position innovation which means variations in the context in which products or services are introduced; forth, paradigm innovation which has changes in the underlying mental models which structure the purpose of any organization. This previous literature leaded the researcher to the first hypothesis which is: Hypothesis 1: Perceived innovation is a multidimensional concept.…”

“…This previous literature leaded the researcher to the first hypothesis which is: Hypothesis 1: Perceived innovation is a multidimensional concept. The main problem of Innovation as reported by Anthonisz (2014) in the hotel industry has frequently been criticized for its absence of innovation. Artič (2013) indicated that innovation is predictable if an organization needs to continue in the market, and nevertheless the hospitality context still seems to be lagging behind, mostly in relation to more inclusive and radical innovations.…”