Exploring the dynamics of the efficiency in the Italian hospitality sector. A regional case study

Abstract

This paper introduces a methodology to describe and compare the economic relative performance of the hospitality sector of the Italian regions during the period 2000-2004. Dynamics of the hospitality sector of each region is represented by the evolution of its economic efficiency. The investigation involves the following steps: a static Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to estimate the pure economic efficiency; two different notions of distances between time series and hierarchical clustering techniques are used to classify the economies in the sample. By using a correlation-based distance, three main clusters are detected, while two clusters are identified when the average distance is used. The trend patterns, identified by employing the correlation distance, can be interpreted in terms of exogenous factors that influence the economic efficiency of the group of regions, causing shocks picked up by the high volatility as well as structural breaks. By employing the average distance, one infers information on the cluster that have had similar efficiency values over the period under analysis. This efficiency can be also interpreted in terms of a particular type of hospitality management as well as the firm structure. Following the analysis, some policy and management implications are presented.

Does gender matter for hotel performance? Evidence from the Italian hospitality industry

“…Although a recent study investigated gender and economic performance in the Spanish hotel industry (Marco, ), the current literature predominately focuses on the role of women as customers. This paper is the first to empirically test the influence of female hotel executive managers on Italian hotel performance, whereas other studies in Italy explored the dynamic of the hospitality sector by the evolution of its economic efficiency (Brida, Deidda, Garrido, & Pulina, ; Brida, Deidda, Garrido, & Pulina, ).…”

Analyzing hotel efficiency from a regional perspective: The role of environmental determinants

“…The main question is whether hotels operate efficiently, i.e., whether they use (scarce) resources in an efficient way. Despite the importance of destination performance, research on hotel efficiency at a regional level is limited (Barros et al, 2011;Benito, Solana, & López, 2014;Botti, Peypoch, Robinot, & Solonandrasana, 2009;Brida, Garrido, Deidda, & Pulina, 2012;Detotto, Pulina, & Brida, 2014;Guccio, Lisi, Martorana, & Mignosa, 2017;Huang, Mesak, Hsu, & Qu, 2012;Pulina, Detotto, & Paba, 2010;Solana-Ibáñez, Caravaca-Garratón, & Para-González, 2016). Assaf, Josiassen, Woo, Agbola, and Tsionas (2017) recently called for more research on specific destinations.…”

Analyzing the Performance of the South Tyrolean Hospitality Sector: A Dynamic Approach

“…Second, the evolution over time of the economic efficiency of hotels is analyzed. Using a hierarchical cluster analysis, based upon the dynamic analysis proposed by Brida, Garrido, Deidda and Pulina (), we classified decision‐making units (DMUs) according to the temporal evolution of their efficiency. By using two complementary measures of distance between the time series of the hospitality sector, in each of the 50 hotels taken into consideration (i.e.…”

“…Following the empirical framework proposed by Brida et al . (), where the regional hospitality sector is analyzed at a national level, the present paper involves a two‐step investigation to analyze not only the static efficiency of the hotels in the sample but also its evolution over time. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first time that hierarchical clustering techniques have been used to analyze the performance of the hospitality sector at a more disaggregated level.…”

“…This method, already employed by Brida et al . (), allows us to make a new hypothesis about the origin of the changes in the efficiency of the firms.…”