Location of hotel groups’ headquarters

Abstract

The paper assesses the factors that influence the location of hotel groups’ headquarters. The concentration of headquarters in a particular country is modelled by three different variables: share of Hotels 325 ranked hotel groups headquartered in the country, share of hotels in Hotels 325 ranked groups headquartered in the country and share of rooms in Hotels 325 ranked hotel groups headquartered in the country. Three groups of factors are assessed: hotel industry-specific factors (size of the hotel industry, average capacity and share of affiliated hotels in the local hotel industry), tourism-specific factors (size and importance of tourism industry, destination’s competitiveness) and the general business environment (GDP, GDP per capita, population size, levels of globalisation, human development, and corruption). The sample includes 116 countries. Findings reveal that highest concentration of hotel groups’ headquarters is in countries with large hotel industries, high share of affiliated properties, high tourism competitiveness index and in the USA. Tourism policy implication, limitations and future research directions are also discussed.