Exploring How Corporate Culture Becomes Critical Success Factor in Hotel Operation

This study discusses how corporate culture becomes a critical success factor in hotel operation. This research employed qualitative in-depth interviewing to interview 27 hotel owners and managers and the results indicated that every hotel has a corporate culture. Some cultures are positive, allowing the hotel to adapt successfully to the changing needs of the market and to outperform its peers on a consistent basis. Others are negative, which adversely affects performance and may threaten the hotel’s existence. Most hotels have cultures somewhere in between, exhibiting cultural strengths and weaknesses. Hotels should manage strategically their culture, to tap its strengths in order to achieve superior performance, and to identify their weaknesses in time to overcome them.