Managing Hotels during Economic Challenges: A Case Study on Hotels in Sharm El-Sheikh and Hurghada, Egypt

The tourism and hospitality industry in Egypt is suffering since 2011. This study comes to explore the impacts of economic downturn on the basis of hotels and investigate crisis management practices implemented by hotels. This research used questionnaire survey as a research method and sum of 107 forms were distributed on hotels’ executives in four and five star hotels in Sharm El-Sheikh and Hurghada, among these 82 forms were valid. The results of the study showed that hotels were much influenced by the economic downturns in Egypt reflected in a variety of aspects: high drop in occupancy percentages, fall in hotel sales and decline in tourist arrivals. The findings revealed that focusing and marketing hotel services to new segments, reducing employees’ wages and emphasizing cost reduction in all business activities were among the most highly ranked and implemented measures by hotels. The study highlighted statistical significant differences occurred between four and five star hotels across some investigated crisis measures. The study stressed on the great importance of government support to assist hotels in times of economic challenges and concluded with a List of 32 practices for hotel operators to manage their businesses during economic crisis concentrating on four main dimensions: marketing, workforce, cost control and responsible bodies support.