MEASURING THE ORGANIZATIONAL RESILIENCE OF HOTELS IN THE ECONOMIC CRISIS IN SRI LANKA

Abstract

Tourism industry plays with facing different changes (economic crises, climate change, pandemics…) due to the industrial complexity. Since the tourism industry faces many changes, the sectors of the tourism industry including the hotel sector have a significant affection. According to the recent evidence, the COVID-19 pandemic also has a several impacts on the tourism field in general and on the hotel sector in particular. In this context, the economic crisis also has an impact on tourism fields and the hotel sector. Therefore, the aim of this survey study is to measure organizational resilience through predictors of resilience, i.e. strategy and change, and to assess how organizational resilience contributes to the performance of hotels in Western province and Sothern province of Sri Lanka in the economic turbulence. Data was collected via questionnaire from hotel managers of 36 above 3-star hotels which registered as SLTDA classified tourist hotels. And, convenience sampling was used and data was analyzed to identify the relationships between predictors and to test the hypotheses using SPSS software. Findings emphasize that the resilience predictors have a considerable effect on hotel resilience and the resilience positively influences the hotel performance in the economic crisis in Sri Lanka. This study extends to providing a framework to identify organizational resilience and its effect on hotel performance in the economic crisis in Sri Lanka to hotel managers with giving a better idea regarding how to be adapted to environmental changes. Also, the study is valuable to the knowledge of how hotels should be managed in a period of economic crisis.