People Practices in the Hospitality Industry: How Employee First Mentalities Create Value for Employees and the Bottom Line

Abstract

Hospitality is often touted as one of the most difficult and competitive industries in which to compete. In an increasingly crowded marketplace firms can no longer expect customers to patron their businesses by the nature of being open; they must create meaningful and sustainable competitive advantage. This advantage can and should come from the people employed at the company. This paper aims to synthesize an employee based managerial model based on the research of the hospitality and corporate management sects which is appropriate and actionable for the owners of small, independent hospitality firms.