Impact of Covid-19 on UK Hospitality Industry: A Study on Brown's Hotel

This research project aims to identify the impact of Covid-19 on the efficiency and performance of employees within UK hospitality industry, with a focus on Brown's hotel. The study examines the challenges faced by the hotel during the pandemic and the strategies adopted to improve employee performance.

Foundation Year Research
Project
(To identify the impact of Covid-19 on the
efficiency and performance of employees within
UK hospitality industry.)

Table of Contents
Chapter1: INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................3
Research Topic............................................................................................................................3
Research Background..................................................................................................................3
Research Aim..............................................................................................................................3
Research Objectives....................................................................................................................3
Research Problem........................................................................................................................3
Research Questions.....................................................................................................................4
CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY...................................................................................................5
CHAPTER 3: LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................................................7
What is the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on the performance and efficiency of employees
within UK hospitality industry?..................................................................................................7
What are the challenges faced by Brown's hotel during the time of pandemic?.........................7
What are the different strategies that help Brown's hotel in improving the performance of
employees during Covid-19?......................................................................................................7
CHAPTER 4: SECONDARY DATA ANALYSIS.........................................................................8
Presentation of findings...............................................................................................................8
.....................................................................................................................................................9
Summary of findings...................................................................................................................9
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION......................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

Chapter1: INTRODUCTION
Research Topic
To identify the impact of Covid-19 on the efficiency and performance of employees
within UK hospitality industry.
Research Background
The current research is based on identifying the impact of Covid-19 on the employee
performance and efficiency in the UK hospitality industry (Rindermann, Becker and Coyle,
2020). Covid-19 has affected the livelihood of many people and this has reduced the growth and
profitability of many businesses because of lock-down situation. Pandemic has reduced the
efficiency and working capability of employees as they do not feel motivated and inspired to do
work in the organization. The chosen organisation in the current research is Brown's hotel. This
hotel was considered as a famous luxury hotel that provide quality services to their customers
and was established in 1837, in Mayfair, London.
Research Aim
To identify the impact of Covid-19 on the efficiency and performance of employees
within UK hospitality industry. A study on Brown's hotel
Research Objectives
 To identify the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on the performance and efficiency of
employees within UK hospitality industry.
 To examine the challenges faced by Brown's hotel during the time of pandemic.
 To determine the different strategies that help Brown's hotel in improving the
performance of employees during Covid-19.
Research Problem
The major problem related with the present ongoing research is the effect of Covid-19 on
the functioning of the organisation as it reduces the working efficiency and effectiveness of
employees (Flannery, 2021). The main problem is that the organisation is facing several
challenges in the time of pandemic and this has impacted the overall performance and
productivity of the employees within UK hospitality industry.

Research Questions
 What is the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on the performance and efficiency of
employees within UK hospitality industry?
 What are the challenges faced by Brown's hotel during the time of pandemic?
 What are the different strategies that help Brown's hotel in improving the performance of
employees during Covid-19?

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY
Qualitative research: Researcher will focus over using qualitative research methods for attaining
the pre-defined aim and objectives of the study (Mohajan, 2018). Investigator will be choosing
qualitative research choice because it assists in the collection of information which is available in
theoretical and non-numerical form. The main advantage that researcher will gain is that it helps
in the process of accumulating in-depth information in relation to the selected topic of research.
Investigator will be selecting interpretivism philosophy so that assembled theoretical information
can be easily analysed and evaluated. On the other hand, this investigation will also depend over
inductive approach so that new theory can be established for meeting each pre-defined objective
and question. The most important data collection method is secondary method and this will be
using in this investigation to accumulate accurate and relevant information. Secondary research
method will facilitate investigator to collect large data in short time because this type of
information is already available on various platforms and channels such as books, articles,
publications, website, internet and many more (Dźwigoł and Dźwigoł-Barosz, 2018). Researcher
will also follow strategy of systematic literature review in which different theories are carried out
and in-depth analysis of concept is made. Thus, secondary data is aimed to carry out existing
investigation.
Time framework: Gantt chart refers to the tool which is generally used by investigator in the
investigation for scheduling time to each activity (Robles, 2018). This tool assigns time to all the
activities of the study in such a manner that researcher can achieve pre-determined aim and
objectives in a systematic manner. Basically, this chart has two important sections which help
researcher to identify which activity needs to be completed in how much time. One of the
sections of this chart covers all the tasks and activities that need to be completed and the other
section of the chart gives proper time for completing those mentioned activities.

CHAPTER 3: LITERATURE REVIEW
What is the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on the performance and efficiency of employees
within UK hospitality industry?
As per the view of Yu, Park and Hyun (2021), Covid-19 has a adverse impact on the
performance and efficiency of the employees as the hotels are not earning any profits they are
unable to provide salary on time and some are not receiving salary. The pandemic has possessed
strict restrictions on travelling and this has effected the growth and success of the UK hospitality
industry. As they are not receiving any monetary benefit in the times of pandemic, the working
motivation and encouragement to achieve the predetermined goals and objectives has reduced.
What are the challenges faced by Brown's hotel during the time of pandemic?
As per the view of Nyashanu, Pfende and Ekpenyong (2020), there are several challenges
that Brown's hotel face at the time of Covid-19 pandemic globally. Mass cancellations on the
booking of the hotel is the most important challenge that the hotel face as this has affected its
productivity. Paying salary to the employees working in the hotel as they are not earning any
profits in the time of pandemic. Low occupancy rate is also a major challenge that hotel face at
the time of pandemic and this has resulted in diminishing the sales of the organisation.
What are the different strategies that help Brown's hotel in improving the performance of
employees during Covid-19?
As per the view of Hao, Xiao and Chon (2020), there are different strategies that Brown's hotel
adopt in order to improve the performance and productivity of employees towards achieving the
desired goals and objectives. Providing work from home facility to employees of the company is
an effective strategy that helps the hotel manager in improving the working efficiency and
effectiveness to work. Increasing engagement of employees within the business so that they feel
happy and motivated to work effectively in the time of tough situation also.

CHAPTER 4: SECONDARY DATA ANALYSIS
Presentation of findings
As per the information assembled in the section of literature review, it is carried out that
hospitality industry is considered as one of the industries which is mostly impacted by the
outbreak of global pandemic COVID-19 (Giousmpasoglou, Marinakou and Zopiatis, 2021).
Government has imposed certain restrictions on the movement of people and made them to stay
in their houses. This has decreased the business of hospitality industry and many hotels and
restaurants have closed down permanently. It is being recorded that many employees and
workers of the hotel have laid-off from their work due to sudden shut down of hotels. This has
discouraged existing employees to work and operate towards their work because they also felt
that they do not have any job security. Many employees have also left hotel due to fear of global
pandemic COVID-19 (Manuel and Herron, 2020). These employees were scared to work in risky
situations such as COVID-19. This has negatively impacted the productivity of hotel because as
Government has eased the restrictions on movement of people and hotel has faced issue of lack
of employees to carry out business operations and activities. There are several challenges which
are faced by hotel such as loss of revenue & profit, reduced customer base, permanent closure of
the business and many more. All these challenges have reduced the productivity and
performance of the hotel and negatively impacted the financial stage of the hotel. Hotel has
adopted several strategies to decrease the negative impact of COVID-19 such as adoption of
advance technologies, installing self check-in & check-out, proper sanitisation and hygiene
measures and many more.

Illustration 1: Impact of Covid-19 on hotel of UK
Source: Percentage change in hospitality footfall due to to the coronavirus (COVID-19)
pandemic in the United Kingdom (UK) from February 20 to March 20, 2020*
Summary of findings
It is being summarised with the assistance of above gathered findings that hotels have
faced many challenges due to COVID-19. Hotels are largely dependent over guests, visitors and
tourists but due to COVID-19, government has put restriction of lock down (Anguera-Torrell,
Aznar-Alarcón and Vives-Perez, 2021). This is restriction that has forced people to stay at their
rather than moving and this restriction was created to put control over spread of COVID-19. Due
to restriction of COVID-19, hotels were closed down and this has made people to cancel their all
pre-bookings and accommodations. This created chaos and confusion among hotels to refund the
payment of visitors in an instant manner. This has disturbed the internal operations and activities
of hotels and made them to suffer large customer base and great profits. Hotels were also forced
to pay salaries and wages to their workers even though they were not able to earn any revenue or
profit due to COVID-19. This has also made hotel suffer financially as they were continuously

facing losses. Thus, hotels have focuses over forming certain stages through which they can
reduce the impact of global pandemic COVID-19. These strategies include: adoption of crisis
management practices in which hotels keep certain resources for risky and uncertain situations,
laying off employees so that they do not need to pay salaries to them and reduce the financial
burden on business, adoption of technologies that can reduce the physical contact of people,
adoption of health & safety policies to maintain safety of employees as well as guests (Abbas,
Malik and Sarwat, 2021).

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION
It is being concluded from the above gathered data is that Covid has a major impact on
the performance and efficiency of the employees and this has affected the growth and success of
the organisation. The hospitality industry also faces several challenges and this has hampered the
morale and motivation of employees to work in a happy and stress free manner. Motivating and
inspiring employees is necessary as they are the only person that are responsible for providing
services to the customers in the hotel for gaining increased satisfaction of customers. Thus, it is
important for the hospitality industry to implement several strategic ways that helps in achieving
high profitability in the times of pandemic.

REFERENCES
Rindermann, H., Becker, D. and Coyle, T.R., 2020. Survey of expert opinion on intelligence:
Intelligence research, experts' background, controversial issues, and the
media. Intelligence, 78, p.101406.
Flannery, K.V., 2021. The research problem. In Guilá Naquitz (pp. 3-18). Routledge.
Mohajan, H.K., 2018. Qualitative research methodology in social sciences and related
subjects. Journal of Economic Development, Environment and People, 7(1), pp.23-48.
Dźwigoł, H. and Dźwigoł-Barosz, M., 2018. Scientific research methodology in management
sciences. Financial and credit activity problems of theory and practice, 2(25), pp.424-437.
Robles, V.D., 2018. Visualizing certainty: What the cultural history of the gantt chart teaches
technical and professional communicators about management. Technical Communication
Quarterly, 27(4), pp.300-321.
Yu, J., Park, J. and Hyun, S.S., 2021. Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on employees’ work
stress, well-being, mental health, organizational citizenship behavior, and employee-
customer identification. Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management, 30(5), pp.529-
548.
Nyashanu, M., Pfende, F. and Ekpenyong, M., 2020. Exploring the challenges faced by frontline
workers in health and social care amid the COVID-19 pandemic: experiences of frontline
workers in the English Midlands region, UK. Journal of Interprofessional Care, 34(5),
pp.655-661.
Hao, F., Xiao, Q. and Chon, K., 2020. COVID-19 and China’s hotel industry: Impacts, a disaster
management framework, and post-pandemic agenda. International journal of hospitality
management, 90, p.102636.
Giousmpasoglou, C., Marinakou, E. and Zopiatis, A., 2021. Hospitality managers in turbulent
times: the COVID-19 crisis. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality
Management.
Manuel, T. and Herron, T.L., 2020. An ethical perspective of business CSR and the COVID-19
pandemic. Society and Business Review.
Anguera-Torrell, O., Aznar-Alarcón, J.P. and Vives-Perez, J., 2021. COVID-19: Hotel industry
response to the pandemic evolution and to the public sector economic measures. Tourism
Recreation Research, 46(2), pp.148-157.
Abbas, M., Malik, M. and Sarwat, N., 2021. Consequences of job insecurity for hospitality
workers amid COVID-19 pandemic: does social support help?. Journal of Hospitality
Marketing & Management, 30(8), pp.957-981.