Affiliation to Hotel Chains: Requirements Towards Hotels in Bulgaria

Abstract

The hotel chain’s expansion involves several strategic decisions – whether to expand, choice of a destination, choice of an entry mode, and selection of a hotel partner. This research note focuses on the hotel partner selection and more specifically on the requirements the hotel chains have towards hotels in Bulgaria that aim to be affiliated, as well as hotels’ perceptions of chains’ requirements towards them. Findings reveal that chains put higher emphasis on the task-related rather than the partner-related criteria. The hotels systematically overrate the importance of the specific requirements chains have towards them. Managerial implications, research limitations and directions for future research are also discussed.

Keywords: hotel chains; partner selection; task-related criteria; partner-related criteria; entry mode; Bulgaria