Hospitality Industry Development via Scientific Research: SWOT analysis

Abstract

Hospitality industry is a part of a larger industry known as travel and tourism industry. Developing of this industry needs updating of knowledge continuously by creating mutual links with research institutions. This research aims at highlighting the factors that influence hospitality industry development via scientific research from both scientific researchers and hotels policy makers' perspectives. Two questionnaires were designed to collect practical data, the first was directed to hotel managers, and the second was directed to hospitality scientific researchers. The collected data was analyzed statistically. The research developed a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis for the factors influencing hospitality industry development via scientific research. The research recommends enhancing the role of scientific research in developing this industry by ensuring the mutual links under the supervision of the national governmental agenda Keywords: Hospitality Industry-Scientific Research-SWOT analysis. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………... Introduction Scientific research (SR) is defined as a systematic and controlled investigation of hypothetical propositions about the presumed relations among observed phenomena, and helps to create scientific knowledge. This means that the main role of SR is to develop studies that address current and actual problems and to focus on recommending solutions to be applied nationally (Molteberg et al., 2000). In service industries, despite of the importance of scientific researches, little researches are translated into actions, even when they are on issues in scope. Mostly, it returns to two major problems: Transmitting the researches' results to the industry policy makers and the trust of the policy makers in the researches' results (Coe et al 2002). Literature Review Before 1970s, it was highly assumed that most scientific researches' results are widely used by policy makers for decision making. Till 1979 Caplan observed that policy makers became rarely using knowledge gained through scientific researches, hence, he developed his theory "two communities" which emphasizes that there is a cultural gap between scientific researchers and policy makers, each of them has his own worldviews that made him create a separate community away from the other (Caplan, 1979). Afterwards, in 1993 Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith clarified that policy makers have direct and indirect links to utilize scientific researches' results, as they may not use scientific researches' results in the nearby time "directly", but they use them to develop a gradual shift in their conceptual thinking over time "indirectly" (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith, 1993). In the hospitality industry, although there are several other stakeholders who can affect or be affected by the industry's policies (creditors, owners, employees, governmental agencies, unions and suppliers ….), still hotel managers are the most important sector who puts and controls the organization's strategies, as they are re...