RESHAPING POLICY DIMENSIONS OF HUMAN RESOURSE MANAGEMENT IN THE TOURISM SECTOR: WHAT WORKS AND WHAT DOESN’T.
ABSTRACT
Develop the view that human resource management is a central strategic and operational concern within the tourism and industries, with implications for quality and market positioning of tourism at local, regional and national levels. Suggests that all stakeholders, be they public or private sector, visitor or host community, would benefit from a close integration of human resource, labour market and education policies. Presents two studies which substantiate this view: one which generally examines policies for human resource development, and another which addresses the policy issues involved.
Nigeria offers a wide variety of tourist attractions such as extended and roomy river and ocean beaches ideal for swimming and other water sports, unique wildlife, vast tracts of unspoiled nature ranging from tropical forest, magnificent waterfalls, some new rapidly growing cities and climatic conditions in some parts particularly conducive to holidaying.
Other attractions include traditional ways of life preserved in local customs; rich and varied handicrafts and other colourful products depicting or illustrative of native arts and lifestyle, and the authentic unsophisticated but friendly attitude of many in the Nigerian population.
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Recent trends in the tourism sector indicate that tourists are becoming more aware of the wide diversity of people and environments in Africa, from its fantastic wildlife and natural landscapes to its intriguing and cultural historical heritage. It is not surprising though that Africa has now become a destination of choice. The significance of the tourism industry is reflected in the World Toursim Council Report (2011) which indicates that there were 18 million jobs in the sector during the period under review. In addition, (Blanke and Chiesa 2008b) mentioned that the tourism industry accounts for 10.4% of Gross Domestic Product, 12.2% of world exports and 9.5% of world investments. Furthermore, the highest percentage growth rates in tourism investment have predicably been seen in Asia and some parts of Africa and the Middle East. However, despite the heavy investment in terms of cultural and historical values there has been a serious neglect of the ongoing importance of essential skill proficiencies in developing countries. Furthermore, structural changes that have occurred specifically in Southern African over the past decades have shown great strides towards greater capital and skills development intensity (Olorunfemi & Raheem, 2008). However, while we acknowledge that the economic fundamentals are in place at the macro-economic level, the governments are now recognizing that further strengthening of economic fundamentals at the micro economic level is critical. This has provided the necessary stimulus for growth, particularly in the tourism sector. In addition, education and skills development has been aligned within the wider social and economic objectives of national development plans. For instance, Botswana has adopted
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1.3 AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE RESEARCH
Human and Policy Dimensions is an innovative, interdisciplinary and international research journal addressing the human and policy dimensions of hazards.
The journal addresses the full range of hazardous events from extreme geological, hydrological atmospheric and biological events such as earthquakes, floods, storms and epidemics to technological failures and malfunctions such as industrial explosions, fires and toxic material releases. Environmental Hazards: Human and Policy Dimensions is the source of the new ideas in hazards and risk research.
With a genuinely international perspective, this journal highlights issues of human exposure, vulnerability, awareness, response and risk. The role of hazards in affecting development, and issues of efficiency, social justice and sustainability are also explored in the journal.
Well known conventional hazards receive extensive coverage but submissions about new forms of hazard, emerging risk management institutions and restructuring of ideas about hazards – including their role in human affairs – are particularly welcome.
Reinvigorating the debate about how we define, understand and manage hazards, the journal is interdisciplinary in scope and open to contributions by specialists from a wide range of fields who are interested in the effects of hazards events on people, property and societies
1.4 JUSTIFICATION FOR THE RESEARCH
Facilities management is a relatively new area with origin in United States of America and spreading to the United Kingdom in the late eighties. Little or nothing had been written about the management of hotel properties generally in Nigeria and in particular facilities management as a strategic estate management tool to meet organizational objectives.
Most of the current literature in Nigeria are therefore preliminary and pedagogic addressing issues such as definitions and scope [Odiete (1998), Ojo (2002)], facilities management tools [Mbamali and Adebayo (2006), Opaluwah (2005)] and which of the professionals within the environmental setting is best suited to serve as facilities manager or to handle what within the facilities management field [ Odiete (1998), Ahmad (1998), Ojo (2002)].
It is only recently that facilities management has come to be applied to specific sectors of the economy usually education and hospital sectors. Most of earlier studies have taken place in South Africa [Kotze and Nkado (2003)] and United Kingdom [Amaratunga and Baldry (1999), Amaratunga (2000)]. In Nigeria, studies have not yet been applied to any sector of the economy. Most of the studies in Nigeria have been devoted to clarifying what facilities management really entails and distinguishing it from the traditionally practised property management and maintenance management. The present study will fill this gap by providing a pioneering application of facilities management to a major economic sector in Nigeria and that is the hotel industry.
The seeming survival of the privately owned hotel in Nigeria might be due to so many reasons amongst which are applications of facilities management principles. Thus, despite the challenges permeating the fabric of hotel businesses in Nigeria, some are still functioning and effectively too. Among the major players are Sheraton Hotels and Towers, Lagos Airport Hotel, Lagos and Trascorp Hilton, Abuja. Within the medium and small hotel categories, there are functional and efficient ones too. What is keeping them going may not be unconnected with effective facilities management, effective management including strategic estate management. The industry is a porous one and the business of owning hotels remains an all comers’ affair. Commendably, more wealthy people, local and foreign, including State Governments are still investing huge sums of money building great structural edifices in a bid to buy into the market, which potentials, experts said remained largely untapped. Probing the extent of applications of facilities management principles and establishing the benefits, probable challenges against holistic adoption of facilities management principles should contribute a great deal to the resolution of this level of uncertainty and information obscurity. It will also provide research result from which upcoming hoteliers can pick from to guide them on successful operation of hotels in Nigeria. Furthermore, the researcher is unaware of anyone who had investigated the impact or contribution of facilities management to hotel management in Nigeria. Thus, in order for business to be conducted in any hotel, it is essential for constructed assets to be appropriately managed if the investment is to maintain and enhance its value and sustain reasonable returns. If Nigeria is to give fillip to the tourism sector of the economy as a veritable and dependable source of foreign exchange, the backbone of which is the hotel and hospitality industry, then the research is considered as highly justified.
1.5 SCOPE OF THE RESEARCH
The scope of this study is limited to the hotel sector within the South-western geo-political zone of Nigeria; in particular Oyo, Ogun, Osun, Ondo, Ekiti and Lagos States. It should have been ideal to cover all the States in Nigeria, however, the study opted to restrict the scope to South-western geo-political zone of Nigeria because a study of the entire country would make conclusions unnecessarily wide varied and incapable of clear interpretations since the study is perhaps the first of its kind in Nigeria. Thus, a study restricted to South-western geo-political zone of Nigeria on the other hand, would allow the researcher to form definite conclusions, which may be more amenable to clear interpretations and create a pedestal for further research that can be extended to other parts of the country.
Again, it would have been ideal to address the application of facilities management to all sectors of the economy. However, this is unrealistic for the same reasons mentioned earlier. A study of the application of facilities management to sectors as varied as oil and gas, education etc with their differing problems and standards would merely result in generalized and shaky conclusions which may lead to varied implications of inadequate understanding. A study devoted to the hotel industry, on the other hand, would afford the researcher a more concentrated study in a hitherto neglected area of the economy.
Also, the time frame allowed for the research as well as associated logistics in covering the whole country make it imperative that the research be limited to the South-western geo-political zone of Nigeria.
Further, there are so many hotels, private or public, singly or collectively owned; or quoted or unquoted on the stock exchange. It is not possible in the face of the various limitations to cover all the hotels. This research focused on 2 – star to 5- star hotels, that is, hotels with a minimum of 20 bedrooms, private or public. This category accounts for more than 70% of the total hotel stock in accordance with Standard for National Classification and Grading of Hotels and other Serviced Accommodation in Nigeria (2001) produced by Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC) in collaboration with Standard Organization of Nigeria (SON). The reason had been that these categories of hotels cut across privately and publicly owned hotels but exclude other serviced accommodations which are classified with 1- Star hotels or lower category of hotels. It is also noted that the hotels are concentrated within big and popular cities of each State with heavier concentration in the State capital as shown in Appendix I. Thus, the farther the city from the State capital the lesser the number of hotels, the lower the quality and the lesser the number of accommodations provided. These inner city hotels can be categorized as hinterland hotels or rural hotels if one goes by Stephen’s classification based on British situations. For this research they have to be dispensed with.
Facilities management is a new field internationally including Nigeria as reflected in the literature review. This study is particularly an exploratory survey research trying to establish the receptivity of facilities management principles in asset management within the Nigerian economy. In this context, the research relied extensively on research questions and field interviews in achieving its aim and objectives.
1.6 LIMITATIONS OF THE RESEARCH
It is recognized that, in some ways, any research work would have limitations. For this research, there is little published work relating to hotels in Nigeria, and what is available mainly focused on the privatization of government hotels. Also, as highlighted by Asika (1991), there are various barriers to the collection and exchange of information, compounded by the location and the remoteness of some hotels and fears about commercial confidentiality. All these had been guided against in the sample frame and sample selection.
Geographical limitation as introduced above and the adoption of Tourism Board list may inevitably introduce limited bias into the survey, which could limit the application of the results to geographically dissimilar areas. It is anticipated that the results could at least form the framework for future research of other far away locations in the country. Limiting the research work to South-Western geo political zone of Nigeria and the fact that the focus is on hotel businesses is a major limitation of this work in that it hampers the application of the findings to other sectors of the economy without caution.
1.7 DEFINITION OF KEY TERMS
In a study of this magnitude, it is necessary to define the various terms to distinguish between operational definitions and constitutive definitions to avoid ambiguity. Constitutive definition involves substituting the concept or construct being defined with other concepts or constructs. Operational definition requires that the concept or construct be assigned a type of meaning which one wants it to carry throughout the study (Asika, 1999).
Facilities Management, as applied to the hospitality sector, is defined as the proactive management of constructed facilities and organizational assets to improve their efficiency and add value to their performance and services (Okoroh, Jones and IIozor, 2003). This is in tandem with Alexander’s (1996: 1) definition as ‘the process by which an organization delivers and sustains support services in a quality environment to meet strategic needs’. This study borrows from these two definitions and proposes that facilities management, as applied to the hotel business, is the proactive management of facilities, support services and organizational assets to improve their efficiency and add value to the core accommodation they provide for their customers to meet organizational strategic objectives. Facilities, in the context of hotels, include buildings, industrial kitchen equipment, restaurant, halls of all categories, central air-conditioning system, fans, elevators, lifts, electrical installations, escalators, bakery equipment, recreational facilities including golf courses. This essentially tallies with the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors’ Facilities Management Skill Panel’s (1993) [Cited in Owen, 1993] assertion that FM consists of the management of support services; the management of property and the management of information technology. This research adopts this definition totally and as an exploratory study focuses on the three (support services, property and information technology) as they apply to hotel organizations.
Hotel Effectiveness
Effective hotel combines resources and activities to generate the hotel environment vital to the success of the organization. At corporate level, it contributes to the delivery of strategic and tactical objectives. On a day-to-day level, effective hotel provides a safe and efficient working environment which is essential to the performance of the establishment and give the customer what he wants and needs at a price he is prepared to pay while the hotel sells itself.
Hotel Stakeholders
Hotel stakeholders are the people who are involved in hotel organizations either as investors, general managers, and hotel workers of all categories including line staff and facilities managers and hotel users or customers.
Management Style
This refers to property asset sustenance method that is being applied in the running of the hotel and it could be maintenance management, property management or facilities management
Operational Excellence: This according to Torkildsen (1992) is anything or everything being done to satisfy customers’ requirements and meet the organizational goals and objectives in a sustainable way. This study adopts this definition for its operation.
Support Services: These are functions that are accessories or adjunct to the core services in many organizations. For hotel businesses some are rendered as revenue yielding activities while some are part of the total package. They include mail services, fleet cars, catering, reception, housekeeping, and office administration; refuse disposal, reprographics, car park management, horticulture and porterage. This is in agreement with the schedule of support services as identified by (Owen, 1995).
Strategic Estate Management
Aakers (1984:6) defined strategy as “the development of a sustainable competitive advantage with which to compete in a chosen product/market”. However, in line with Thorncroft’s (1965) view and for this research, strategic estate management means property assets’ management decisions that determine the overall direction of business and its ultimate viability in the light of the predictable, the unpredictable and the known and unknown changes that may occur in its most immediate surrounding environments which are considered sustainable. Such decisions may include adoption of facilities management, sales and lease back and change of use of strategic properties.
1.8 The Structure of the Thesis
The thesis consists of seven chapters, organized in a logical manner in order to enable the readers to appreciate the thoughts of the author in achieving the objectives of the study. The chapters are organized as follows:
Chapter One is the introductory chapter and it provides the background of the study, the statement of the research problem, aim and objectives, justification for the study, scope of the research, limitation of the research, definition of key terms and the structure of the thesis.
Chapter Two deals with the review of the related literature, which is structured into a discussion of the whole essence of facilities management detailing its history, goals, and functions. Further the chapter reviews previous empirical studies, which basically are current research studies laden with quantitative analysis of facilities management and hotel businesses.
Chapter Three presents the concept and the theoretical framework of the research. It is composed of the outlines of the researcher’s process of thought, summary of a priori expectations and the theoretical framework.
Chapter Four describes the research method. It is composed of the setting of the study, the research design, population of study, sampling design/sampling frame, sampling size, data requirements, method of data collection, the techniques of refuting a priori expectations, method of developing the conceptual framework of the facilities management compliant hotel and method of data analysis.
Chapter Five presents the analysis of data and interpretation of results while Chapter Six discusses the results. Finally, Chapter Seven focuses on the summary of findings, conclusion and discussion of implication for theory, practice and research.
1.9 Chapter Summary
This introductory chapter deals with the research theme and the nature of the problem to be investigated. Others include the research problem, the aim, objectives, and justification of the study, the study area, and definition of key terms. The next chapter dwells on the review of related literature.
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