Crisis Management Strategy for Recovery of Small and Medium Hotels after the COVID-19 Pandemic in Thailand

Abstract

The COVID-19 crisis has created serious and complex challenges for the hospitality industry. A body of literature has identified crisis management practices in the hotel industry at different phases of the crisis. However, the existing literature mainly includes research on large and leading hotels, and knowledge of crisis management practices for small and medium-sized (SME) hotels, particularly at the recovery stage of the crisis, is limited. This paper explores the post-COVID recovery strategies of 386 SME hotels in the upper northern part of Thailand. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the proposed hypothesis. The results indicate that customer relations (CR)-related and service provision (SV)-related strategies significantly affect SME hotel recovery. Meanwhile, cost-saving (CS) and revenue management (RM) strategies do not have a direct effect but are associated with CR and SV in facilitating SME hotel recovery. This paper provides useful information to assist SME hotel owners and managers in managing how to recover from the pandemic.