Abstract

This paper's purpose was to identify the key sources when formulating competitive advantages of hotel chains. The research assessed the financial activities performance included in annual hospitality industry reports and on their official websites; questioning of loyal and potential customers; the five-point Likert scale and the Pearson correlation coefficient were applied to understand the possible consumer reaction to a certain competitive advantage or its absence. The paper confirms the effectiveness of key sources used by management to win and retain competitive advantages: despite strong dependence on the economic cycle phase etc., after the devastating crisis of 2007, 2008, but also to achieve sustainable growth. All the networks examined over the last decade have expanded their presence in international markets, diversified the portfolio of brands, increased the number of jobs and profits. It was also proved that the opinion of the final consumer is still not sufficiently taken into account in the assessment of the Pearson correlation coefficient (the latter allowed the authors to propose their own definition of the competitive advantage in the industry). The paper attempts for the first time to consider the competitive advantages of hotel chains from the point of view not only of theorists and business practitioners, but also with the view of the opinion of the services consumer; there were identified the discrepancies, which consideration would allow to increase the level of guest satisfaction and, accordingly, the efficiency of the hotel business. In future papers, the authors plan to verify the existence of a correlation between the degree of guest loyalty to a particular hotel network and the main financial results of its activities.