Response strategies to changes in the environment adopted by three star hotels in Nairobi

Abstract

Three star hotels mainly owned by private firms in Kenya have a very big stake in development of hotel industry and requires strategic management for growth and sustainability. The objectives of this study were to identify strategies adopted by three star hotels in Nairobi in response to numerous changes in the environment and to identify the extent to which changes in the environment affect the strategic direction of three star hotels. The study was descriptive survey.

The population of the study was the entire three star hotels in Nairobi as gazetted on 23rd July 2004 gazette notice number 5693 of the republic of Kenya, which totaled to eight with seven respondents head of operational departments per each hotel giving a total of 56 respondents. The study found out that most of the three star hotels have basic practices of strategic management and are influenced by environmental forces towards strategic management.

They are mainly reactive and not proactive in strategic planning. Due to private ownership, strategic response is highly influenced by entrepreneurial leadership by the owners. Amongst the major recommendations is that there is a great need of proprietors to allow professionalism so as to achieve much speedier growth of three star hotels to other levels.

There is also a need to involve all staff on issues of strategic management for understanding and ownership of business structures. Further, there is also a need to establish intensive research for the hotels with professional forums for business information sharing. The limitation of the study was that it was conducted in Nairobi city whereas there are other types of three star hotels at the coast and in the parks whose management may be influential to hospitality business trend.