Revealing the influence of managerial practices and entrepreneurs' characteristics on hotel efficiency

Productive efficiency in hotels varies greatly. Based on a large dataset on the hotel industry in an Italian region, a two-stage approach was used, first to distinguish the component of inefficiency arising from external factors, linked to destination, and then to isolate the role that firm-level variables play on hotel efficiency. Stage 1 was carried out with non-parametric frontier analysis; stage 2 was based on an econometric model which regresses inefficiency scores on a set of firm-level variables. Investment behavior was found to play an important role, and family management had a negative influence on productive efficiency.