Hotel marketing strategies in turbulent times: Path analysis of strategic decisions

The hotel industry has been hit hard by the economic recession. Given the economic challenges facing businesses have not been seen since the Great Depression, hotel executives are making unstructured or first-time decisions, responding to the current business climate. Using McCracken's (1988) long interview method, four Pacific Asia hotel executives provide insights of how two major hotel chains develop new strategies in these turbulent times. To provide structure to these insights, Mintzberg, Raisinghani, and Theoret's (1976) unstructured strategic decision making model provides a template to map problems or opportunities and alternative development and selection. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.