Hospitality Industry Decision Analysis in Malta

Having worked extensively in the travel and hospitality sectors author questioned what made people decide in favour of choosing one service provider instead of another. There are always a multitude of reasons why consumers decide one way or the other. These many reasons are what the author refers to as decision-choice criteria (DCC). The final choice is the result of a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) by the potential buyer. Initially the research sought to analyse those criteria that make a potential customer choose between a number of 5-star hotels. 24 DCC were framed within the four perspectives of the Balanced Scorecard. Prioritising the 24 DCC resulted in a hybrid-BSC or a Prioritised Scorecard (PSC) subsequent to two major quantitative surveys. The demand-side survey targeted potential superior hotel customers. The supply-side exercise targeted superior hotel executives in Malta. The MCDA method chosen to analyse responses was the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). When the results of both surveys were compared a strong correlation was evident. In other words hotel managers in Malta have a very good idea of what a customer expects from a 5-star hotel.