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Studies have documented the existence of persistent performance differences across business units and firms in many industries and countries. Unfortunately, little is known about the causes of these performance differentials. Using property-level data from the lodging industry, this study documents the existence of large and persistent performance differentials across lodging units. These differences exist after controlling for the resources utilized for the production of the service as well as market conditions and hotel property characteristics and are most persistent for the highest and the lowest performers. Similar to studies that analyzed performance differences in other industries, our analysis leaves a large portion of the variation in performance differences unexplained. However, we do find that a small portion of these performance differences is positively related to the hotel property's choice regarding chain size and hotel portfolio company scope, suggesting the possibility of benefits from scale economies and/or scope. Understanding how performance differences arise and persist requires a close look into less deterministic, quantifiable, and tangible factors such as managerial practices, decision-making processes, innovation, knowledge creation, the transfer of knowledge, the flow of information, compensation, and personnel policies, among others. In other words, there is much unexplained and yet to be discovered here, resulting in a ripe area for future research. Future research that links attributes of the industry's demand, management controls, or technology to factors driving productivity may help explain, and perhaps enhance, the industry's productivity growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on two demand and supply characteristics that may affect the transferability of revenue management (RM) practices from traditional (e.g., hotels) to nontraditional (e.g., golf, restaurants, entertainment venues) RM settings. Consumption within many nontraditional RM settings is largely discretionary in nature, with the potential to affect how demand and price should be managed across the booking horizon. Equally, operators are often challenged with a high degree of time-based inventory complexity, which may require that price and inventoried demand are managed at a greater level of granularity than traditional RM applications dictate. Using longitudinal golf reservations data, we found that superior revenue performance was associated with capturing a higher proportion of demand early in the booking horizon, rather than protecting inventory at higher prices for late bookers. Competitive price positioning in which price was higher than the competition during within-day peak-demand tee times also shaped revenue gains. Similarly, conversion management was found to be most critical during within-day peak demand periods. These findings suggest that traditional RM strategies may not apply in nontraditional RM settings where one or both of the demand and supply characteristics of interest is present. The implications of these findings for practitioners are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accounting earnings are used extensively in the lodging industry for the purposes of incentive contracting, credit assessment, and valuation but we know little about the attributes of lodging properties' accounting earnings and their determinants. Two important attributes of accounting earnings are persistence and predictability, which have been identified as key components of sustainable earnings. In this study, we examine a sample for lodging properties over a lengthy time-period to investigate the property-specific determinants of the persistence and predictability of lodging properties' earnings. We find that barriers to entry, measured by the relative amount of marketing expenditures, have a positive impact on these earnings attributes. We also find that revenue diversification has a positive effect on these attributes, presumably through its impact on earnings stability. Finally, we find that resource rigidity, as measured by operating leverage and labor intensity, have a consistent dampening impact on persistence and predictability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]