Case Study: Crisis Management Strategies at Hilton in Hospitality

This case study explores the significance of crisis management within the hospitality sector, using Hilton as a prime example. It investigates the concept of crisis management, its benefits for Hilton, and the challenges faced in addressing crises. The study employs a deductive approach with quantitative data collection, utilizing surveys to gather information. Key areas covered include the importance of crisis management plans in mitigating risks, improving employee well-being, and enhancing the company's reputation. Challenges such as information mismanagement, resource allocation, and ineffective communication are also examined. The research methodology encompasses a positivism philosophy and a survey strategy to derive meaningful conclusions about crisis management practices in the hospitality industry. This document is available on Desklib, a platform providing students with access to a variety of study resources, including past papers and solved assignments.

Research Project

Abstract
Crisis management plan is about structuring such strategies which are crucial to deal with
the negative impact of uncertain events. Here, crisis management is not only about having
necessary equipments, components to deal with crisis but it is related with having effective plan
to respond towards sudden events. It is found that the company also has to face ample of
challenges while structuring the crisis management plan. It is suggested that the respective
company needs to offer proper training to its employees with maintaining an appropriate
communication network.

Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................4
Research Aim:.........................................................................................................................................4
Research objectives.................................................................................................................................4
Research Questions.................................................................................................................................4
Rational of research.................................................................................................................................4
Scope of research:....................................................................................................................................5
Chapter preview:.....................................................................................................................................5
Chapter Two-Literature Review..................................................................................................................5
Concept of crisis management within the hospitality sector....................................................................5
Benefit of managing crisis within Hilton.................................................................................................6
Chapter three- Research methodology.........................................................................................................8
Chapter 4: Analysis and Findings..............................................................................................................12
Analysis.....................................................................................................................................................14
Chapter 5: A Critical Appraisal, Recommendations & Suggestions for Further Work\.............................25
Chapter 6: Conclusions..............................................................................................................................26
Reflection..................................................................................................................................................27
References.................................................................................................................................................28

Introduction
Crisis management is about preparing suitable strategies to deal with the future
uncertainties. Here, it helps in mitigating the risk which might occur in the future period of time.
By developing a crisis management plan, it is possible to identify the potential future risk and
structure suitable plans to mitigate such risk effectively. In addition, crisis management plans are
helpful in increasing the well-being of employees by improving the efficiency of company
(Wolbers and Boersma, 2018). The present study is about evaluating the significance of crisis
within hospitality industry. Hilton is taken into consideration for completion of present research
work. It is a renowned hotel brand having presence at ample of locations worldwide. The study
will cover benefits of crisis management plan for company along with the challenges, they face
while structuring the crisis management plan.
Research Aim: “To analyze the importance of managing crisis in the hospitality sector”. A case
study on Hilton”.
Research objectives
 To acknowledge the concept of crisis management within the hospitality sector.
 To understand the benefit of managing crisis within Hilton.
 To analyze the challenges faced by the companies while addressing the crisis.
Research Questions
 What is the concept of crisis management within the hospitality sector?
 What are the benefit of managing crisis within Hilton?
 What are the challenges faced by the companies while addressing the crisis?
Rational of research:
The main rational behind conducting the research on crisis management is to enhance the
knowledge and understanding regarding crisis management and its different components.
Further, the project will make the researcher enable to analyze the benefits of crisis management
plan along with the challenges faced while structuring the plan to manage the crisis. In personal
context, it will help in improving the skills and capabilities of researcher in order to gain success
in the future period of time.

Scope of research:
The present research study has wide scope in terms of analyzing the importance of crisis
management in context of hospitality industry. This will also cover complexities faced by the
researcher while undertaking the current research project.
Chapter preview:
Chapter 1: Introduction- In this first chapter, the introduction of study along with appropriate
research aims and objectives will include.
Chapter 2: Literature Review-Here, the opinions and view points of other authors regarding
the study will be discussed.
Chapter 3: Research methodology-This is the significant part of the overall research project
that will cover the methods of data collection and analysis.
Chapter 4: Analysis and findings-Under this, the overall analysis of findings of the report will
be discussed so that appropriate conclusion can be drawn effectively.
Chapter 5: Recommendations and suggestions for future work- This chapter is crucial as it
includes necessary recommendations to make improvements in the project work in future period
of time.
Chapter 6: Conclusion-This is the final chapter that will include a summary of findings of the
overall study.
Chapter Two-Literature Review
Concept of crisis management within the hospitality sector
According to Brandebo, (2020), crisis management is about preparing suitable strategies
to deal with the future uncertainties. Here, it helps in mitigating the risk which might occur in the
future period of time. Further, crisis management is a process through which a company can deal
with disruptive events in an efficient manner. Through crisis management, the organization
cannot only minimize the threat of future uncertainties but also control the harm to the wellness
of workforce. In other words, crisis management is the application of various strategies where an
entity can easily deal with the impact of negative events by preparing suitable strategies in

significant manner. A crisis is the result of any unpredictable event that might create potential
risk. In context of hospitality industry, there are numerous uncertainties that might affect the
success of a hospitality company profoundly. In recent time, COVID-19 has put a major impact
on hospitality business. It disrupted the activities of the companies. In this situation, there is
requirement to have knowledge regarding the crisis management so that the entity can prepare
suitable strategies when crisis occur in future period of time.
It is monitored that problem situation can cause huge risk within hospitality industry. It
directly affects the ability of a hospitality entity to operate business regularly without any issue.
Apart from this, it can create issue in terms of perception of customers, image of company and
more (Ertaş and et. al., 2021). This will put devastating short as well as long-term impact on the
respective business entity in longer run. The study of crisis management is important in each and
every field. But, the significance of respective concept has been increased post COVID-19. In
the respective industry, organizations can easily deal with the possible impact of crisis by having
effective crisis management strategies.
Benefit of managing crisis within Hilton
According to Kruse, (2019), Crisis management plan is about structuring such strategies
which are crucial to deal with the negative impact of uncertain events. Here, crisis management
is not only about having necessary equipments, components to deal with crisis but it is related
with having effective plan to respond towards sudden events. By developing a crisis management
plan, it is possible to identify the potential future risk and structure suitable plans to mitigate
such risk effectively. In addition, crisis management plans are helpful in increasing the well-
being of employees by improving the efficiency of company. By having crisis management plan,
it is possible to minimize the potential legal risk. This plan is useful in dealing with potential risk
that might occur in future. With this, it helps in mitigating the stress of business managers as
they get clarity.
In context of Hilton, crisis management plan will help in providing relaxation to mind
and also provide peace to the individual. Here, they will feel stress free that everything is in
place in order to deal with unexpected events in future. In addition to this, the reputation of the
respective organization will also improve by having an effective plan of crisis management. With
this, they can respond to the uncertain events in the best possible way that will improve the

market image of the respective entity. Through crisis management plan, it is possible to
communicate the necessary outcomes to the responsible stakeholder that will prove helpful in
mitigating the potential risk in an efficient manner (Brandebo, 2020). Additionally, the value of
customer relationship can also be enhanced by having an appropriate plan to deal with uncertain
events. In context of Hilton, they believe in responding quickly when they face any uncertain
condition. This will improve the customer relationship of the entity and also enhance the trust of
customers in the respective brand. By having crisis management plan, the respective organization
can easily maintain proper flow of information among people working at different levels.
Through this, they will able to know the responsibility of different individuals. With this, it is
possible to improve the productivity of workforce in significant manner.
Challenges faced by the companies while addressing the crisis.
According to Gilbert, (2018), it is monitored that crisis management plans are helpful in
increasing the well-being of employees by improving the efficiency of company. By having
crisis management plan, it is possible to minimize the potential legal risk. However, there are
numerous challenges which might occur while addressing the crisis. To structure a crisis
management plan, there is requirement to anticipate the future. Here, anticipating the future is
not easy. If the business managers are not able to make proper estimation, it might affect the
outcomes of crisis management plan. Information mismanagement is the major challenge that is
often faced by the business managers. During crisis, there is no proper way to circulate the
information from one person to other which further create mismanagement within the company.
In reference of selected hotel, it is a large multinational brand. Here, numerous individuals are
associated with the respective hotel. Here, circulating information is not easy which further
create mismanagement (Sarpong, 2018). Resources are required to fulfill different functions.
While preparing crisis management plan, the companies are likely to face the issue related to
allocation of resources. They not only face the shortage of resources but it is also difficult to
allocate the resources properly. During the crisis, Hilton is likely to face the issue related to
ineffective communication. At the time of crisis, it is quite difficult to maintain the proper flow
of information at different levels of the company (Uitdewilligen and Waller, 2018). The other
challenge is lack of coordination where the employees of the respective hospitality company
found it difficult to coordinate with each-other while facing uncertain events.

Chapter three- Research methodology
In research methodology, the steps taken to complete the project are included. Along with
the methods of data collection, it also included approaches, strategies, philosophies and more. In
this context, components of research methodology are outlined below:
Research Philosophy: It is the first element of research methodology wherein the
believes and assumption of researcher are taken into consideration. Major two forms of research
philosophies are positivism and interpretivism (WÅhlberg, 2017). To complete the existing
project, positivism approach is taken into consideration as it is useful in drawing valid
conclusion based on objective information.
Research approach: Research approaches are the important element to accomplish the
research project successfully. Here, deductive and inductive are consider as the two significant
approaches of research (Ratnam, 2019). From these two, the present study is based on deductive
approach so that the researcher can easily collect quantitative data based on the facts. In addition,
this approach is also useful in order to analyze the existing theoretical framework in an efficient
manner.
Research Choice: It refers to inform that what kind of data has been collected to conduct
the research. Making appropriate research choice is imperative to complete the research work
successfully. Here, quantitative and qualitative are the two major research choices (Daniel,
2018). In context of the present research work, quantitative research choice has been selected as
it helps in gaining authentic and reliable results based on numerical analysis. Moreover, it is also
useful in terms of getting appropriate outcomes based on facts and figures to attain the pre-define
research goals.
Data collection: In research work, there are two major sources of data collection:
Primary and Secondary. To collect the primary data, information has been taken out from 30
respondents. This information is completely raw and comprises higher level of authenticity. On
other side, the secondary data has been collected from different sources such as websites,
articles, journals, publications and more.
Research strategy: Research strategy includes the plans to accomplish the project work
in timely manner. These strategies are useful in completing the research project within pre-define

period of time (Rosskam, 2018). Generally used research strategies are case study, survey,
literature review and more. In context of present study, survey strategy has been used as it helps
in gathering detailed information from respondents to reach at meaningful conclusion in an
efficient manner.
Research instruments: There are ample of research instruments which are likely to use
by the investigator (Phakiti and et. al., 2018). In case of current project, questionnaire has been
used as the research instrument as it will help in collecting detailed information from various
respondents.
Sampling: Probability and non-probability are the two major methods of sampling. For
present study, the chosen sampling method is probability sampling as it is helpful in making fair
and authentic selection of units in order to create sample (Ross and Call-Cummings, 2020). In
this context, 30 employees of Hilton have been chosen as sample to gather necessary amount of
information.
Questionnaire
Name:
Age:
Gender:
Email:
Q1) Do you have an understanding of the concept of crisis management in relation to
business?
a) Yes
b) No
Q2) What do you think, is managing crisis is important for Hilton hotel growth and
development in the hospitality industry?
a) Yes
b) No
Q3) According to you, what will be the most beneficial strategy of managing crisis in the
hospitality sector that Hilton hotel can adopt to enhance profitability?
a) Determine action plan

b) Establish crisis unit
c) Evaluate risks at early stages
d) Build a positive work environment
e) Implement digital tools
Q4) As per your perception, what is the most effective crisis management strategy that
Hilton hotel can execute to maximize consumer satisfaction?
a) Prevention
b) Developing crisis communication team
c) Notification and monitoring system
d) Simulation excises
Q5) What are the current crisis management strategies that Hilton hotel is using to manage
issues and challenges in hospitality industry?
a) Risk assessment
b) Activation protocol
c) Command center plan
d) Crisis management plan by expertise in field
Q6) According to your opinion, what is the impact of crisis management that Hilton hotel
can gain?
a) Increase in overall revenue
b) Increase in profitability
c) Customer satisfaction
d) Increased competitive rivalry
Q7) According to your perception, what is the overall impact of crisis management on
Hilton hotel business growth?
a) Positive
b) Negative
c) Neutral
Q8) According to your perspective, what are the potential challenges that Hilton hotel is
facing to manage crisis in hospitality sector?
a) Complex forecasting
b) Decline in sales during crisis

c) Difficulties to gather sufficient amount of resources
d) In-effective communication
Q9) As per your perception, what are the potential ways that Hilton hotel can adopt to
overcome the challenges of implementing crisis management strategies?
a) Strong communication network
b) Digital crisis management tools
c) Increase in employee engagement
d) Training to workers
e) Strong research and crisis management team
Q10) According to your perception, which one is from Hilton hotel and Marriott hotel is
taking use of the most effective form of strategies of managing crisis?
a) Marriott
b) Hilton
c) Neutral
Q11) Provide further recommendations to management of Hilton hotel in implementing
crisis management strategies for long-term growth.

Chapter 4: Analysis and Findings
Frequency Table
Q1) Do you have an understanding of the concept of crisis management in
relation to business?
Frequency
a) Yes 29
b) No 1
Q2) What do you think, is managing crisis is important for Hilton hotel
growth and development in the hospitality industry?
Frequency
a) Yes 28
b) No 2
Q3) According to you, what will be the most beneficial strategy of managing
crisis in the hospitality sector that Hilton hotel can adopt to enhance
profitability?
Frequency
a) Determine action plan 8
b) Establish crisis unit 7
c) Evaluate risks at early stages 5
d) Build a positive work environment 5
e) Implement digital tools 5
Q4) As per your perception, what is the most effective crisis management
strategy that Hilton hotel can execute to maximize consumer satisfaction?
Frequency
a) Prevention 8
b) Developing crisis communication team 8