Influence of strategic orientation on performance of selected hotels in Mombasa County.

Abstract

The performance of hotel industry is considered to be one of the key drivers of the economy in both the developed and developing nations. The sector contributes to the economy through employment creation, wealth creation and innovation. However, a number of hotels fail to take off, and are closed within the first three years of their inception. One of the possible reasons for the failure is the nature of strategic orientation that a particular hotel adopts for its operations. This study aimed at determining the influence of strategic orientation on the performance of hotels. The study is anchored on firms’ performance theory and resource based theory.The study adopted descriptive survey design that focuses on research questions that call for real-life contextual understandings, multi-level perspectives and cultural influences. The target populations were the eight classified beach hotels in Mombasa County and the sample size comprised of five respondents from each of the eight classified beach hotelsin Mombasa County, Chief Executive Officer, an operation manager, relationship manager, information technology manager and a strategic manager. This study concluded that Entrepreneurial orientation, Marketing orientation, Technology orientation and Customer orientation have influence on the performance of beach hotels in Mombasa County. Entrepreneurial orientation (r=.874**, P<.05) has the highest correlation coefficient with performance of beach hotels.Strategic orientation (Entrepreneurial orientation, Marketing orientation, Technology orientation and Customer orientation) have a positive and significant influence on the performance of beach hotels in Mombasa County (r=0.948**, p<.05). A linear regression modelresults showed that strategic orientation (Entrepreneurial orientation, Marketing orientation, Technology orientation and Customer orientation) explained 89.9% of the variations in performance of hotels (R2=0.899).Multiple linear regressions confirmed a positive and significant association between strategic orientation and performance of beach hotels in Mombasa County. Entrepreneurial orientation has the greatest influence on the performance of beach hotels in Mombasa County while technology orientation has the least influence on the performance of hotels in Mombasa County. The study recommended that key leaders especially CEO’s in beach hotels should focus more on the implementation of strategies that enhance entrepreneurial orientation. The study results indicated that the respondents agreed that the influence of entrepreneurship orientation on hotel performance was real. This study therefore recommends that the marketing officers give close attention to after-sales service as this has proved vital in enhancing the hotels’ performance.