Abstract:

The Hospitality industry is one of the main sectors of tourism activity, being important to assess the performance of the hotel companies. The aim of the present paper is to study the financial performance of 570 companies operating hotel units in Portugal, in 2017, allowing for comparison among companies with similar stars rating and market orientation to explore the question of branded and non-branded affiliation. This issue is studied using a methodology based on Data Envelopment Analysis to assess the overall performance for each company. The hotel company performance is assessed through the aggregation of multiple financial indicators using the composite indicator derived from the DEA model. The empirical results show that the hotel branded companies have, on average, significantly, higher overall financial performance than hotel non-branded companies. Although, the best practices are observed in hotel branded and non-branded companies. This analysis can support the strategic decision process of the hotel companies in choosing to operate independently or selecting a brand affiliation.