“Strategic Responses of the Hotel Sector to COVID-19: Toward a Refined Pandemic Crisis Manage Framework” – A Research by Dr. Jenny Le
The International Journal of Hospitality Management, the top-tier journal in hospitality has recently published Dr. Le Thi Phuong Dung (Jenny Le)’s research on “Strategic Responses of the hotel sector to COVID-19: Toward a refined pandemic crisis manage framework”. Dr. Jenny Le is an Assistant Professor it the College of Business and Management, VinUniversity. Her works include a wide range of researches published in accredited journals such as The International Journal of Hospitality Management, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, Current Issues in Tourism… on various aspects related to customer experience management and applied technology for sustainable development.
In this research, collection and analysis of 219 articles from leading global news media sources were conducted by Dr. Jenny Le and her co-author (Giang Phi) to evaluate responses of the hotel sector to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The first wave of the pandemic in 2019 was classified into 5 major phases: Pre-event and early symptom, Emergency, Crisis, Recovery and Resolution. The research adherently conveyed effective policies successfully implemented by hospitality businesses to mitigate the pandemic’s negative impacts in each of the phases.
For instance, during the Crisis phase signified by a drastic increase of community transmission cases and government’s strict policies for lockdown and social distancing, the hotel sector was left with only two strategic options: hibernation and/ or service transformation. A number of big hotels found a slim opportunity in providing quarantine facilities while others struggled to maintain their cash flow through side-services such as food delivery, home laundry, etc
Subsequently, the following Recovery phase has witnessed an accelerated adoption of service automation (such as contactless check-in/check-out, AI-integrated personalized customer care) and revenue diversification as the hospitality industry strived to bounce back. In addition, hotels in developed countries such as the United Kingdom, United States, etc. and developing countries also substantially benefits from government stimulating packages including wage subsidy, tax deduction and flexible loans, etc
In the midst of the current complicated and unpredictable pandemic, Dr. Jenny Le’s research has provided valuable theoretical insights on crisis management models with coherent strategies for marketing, human resources and finance to assist the hospitality industry in getting through this challenging times.
Read more about Dr. Jenny Le’s research at http://bit.ly/JennyLeResearch
