Patterns of Hotel Management Development in South East Asia

Abstract

The development of a hotel's general manager is crucial to the longer term success of that hotel. The behavior and practices of the manager have substantial impact on the people, strategic objectives and the way things are done to achieve success. The emphasis of this paper is quite specific: The author has asked hotel managers questions about what they do and about how, in their view, they have developed.

The hotel industry worldwide is recognized as one in which employees who start at the bottom of the management career ladder can work their way up to the top-level general manager position. The career ladders for most of local Asia employees, however, stop short of the executive office. The majority of South East Asia's large international hotels are managed by expatriate foreign managers coming either from the United States or Europe.

The major benefit to the South East Asia region hotel industry from this research will be to identify why expatriate hotel general managers are able to succeed where local managers fail.

The results from this research will highlight how vital management development is in terms of helping senior managers perform effectively in a general management role.