Study On Decision Factors For Hotel Outsourcing

Outsourcing strategy is adopted as one of an effective way to deal with the fiercemarket competition. Although the academia has paid close attention on the outsourcingissues for years, not much are focused on hotels. More research achievements based onthe characters of hotel industry are needed to help hotels make better outsourcingdecision.This article studied the decision phrase of whether outsource or not. The article firstreviewed the research progress of outsourcing. Then, the paper analyzed factorsinfluencing outsourcing decision of enterprise, motivation of hotel outsourcing, currentsituation of hotel outsourcing. After that, decision factors for hotel outsourcing wereproposed based on the analysis mentioned above and three theories, that is, supply chaintheory, transaction cost theory and resource-based theory. Through two questionnairesurveys among hotels, scholars and experts of hotel management and hotel staffs, ahierarchical hotel outsourcing model using analytic hierarchy process was built up. Themodel consisted of5factors, namely outsourcing gains, outsourcing risk, externalenvironment, function uniqueness and function substitutability, and17variables. Besides,in the analysis on weights of factors, there are some meaningful conclusions:(1) Hoteloutsourcing decision is a multifactor decision and the influence of outsourcing gains andrisk should be emphasized.(2) The transaction cost of a hotel function is the key to decidewhether the function should be outsourced.(3)Hotels focus more on the strategic gains ofoutsourcing.(4)Information security and impact on hotel culture are major concern ofoutsourcing risks.(5) In terms of external factors, hotels focus more on factors affectingthe development and operation of outsourcing while little attention is paid on theinfluence of competitor.