Crisis Management Approaches and Business Resilience in Three to Five-Star Hotels in Nairobi City County, Kenya
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Date
2025-06
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Kenyatta University
Abstract
The hospitality industry has contributed to economic growth and poverty reduction in Kenya. In recent times, the industry has faced various crises that have threatened its survival, such as pandemics (COVID-19) and acts of terrorism, as shown by the downward trend of the Key Performance Indicators. There have been uncoordinated crisis management efforts to mitigate the negative trends. This study investigated crisis management approaches and business resilience in three-to-five-star hotels in Nairobi City County, Kenya. Specifically, the study sought to: find out how proactive planning influences business resilience, find out how business continuity planning influences business resilience, find out how crisis communication influences business resilience, and finally describe the hotel star rating moderating role in the relationship between crisis management and business resilience. A mixed-methods research design was used. Both quantitative and qualitative data was collected by use of both the questionnaire and interview schedule as the tools for data collection from the target population, who were the general managers and senior departmental managers in the hotels. Seventy-one departmental managers selected using stratified sampling filled in the self-administered questionnaires, while five general managers purposively selected were interviewed as key informants. Descriptive and inferential statistics, including frequencies, percentages, means, correlations, linear and moderated regressions, were computed. Qualitative data was analyzed using thematic analysis. The study determined that there were prevalence crisis risks with a mean score of 2.65 for 3-star, 2.84 for 4-star, and 2.82 for 5-star hotels. Proactive planning had a strong positive and significant correlation with hotel business resilience (p<0.05); the effect level of proactive planning on hotel business resilience for 3-star, 4-star, and 5-star hotels was as captured in R-square values (R2=0.356, R2=0.338, and R2=0.275), respectively. Business continuity planning had a strong positive and significant correlation with hotel business resilience (p<0.05); the effect level of business continuity planning on hotel business resilience on 3-star, 4-star, and 5-star rated hotels was as captured in the R-square values (R2=0.344, R2=0.352, and R2=0.380) respectively. Significant correlation between crisis communication and hotel business resilience (p<0.05) was reported. The effect level of crisis communication on business resilience in 3-star, 4-star, and 5-star rated hotels was as captured in the R-square values (R2=0.668, R2=0.707, and R2=0.614) respectively. The moderation role of star rating on the relationship between crisis management approaches and business resilience was tested through linear regression analysis, and the decision made based on P-value<0.05; The relationship between crisis management and hotel business resilience was significantly moderated by hotel star rating (change in R2 0.056=0.291-0.235; P-value=0.033<0.05). Hotel star rating significantly moderated the relationship between proactive planning, business continuity, crisis communication planning, and hotel business resilience (p<0.05) with a change in R2 (0.292-0.20=0.02), R2 (0.292-0.32=0.028), and R2 0.292-0.49=-0.198) respectively. It was established that higher star rating was tandem to the less effect crisis management had on business resilience. The study recommended that; hotels embrace crisis management approaches model and adopt strategic crisis management planning to mitigate challenges and exploit opportunities for enhanced business resilience, government agencies should support and fund training of hotel staff on crisis management practices to enhance sector-wide resilience, and replication of the study in the other counties, hotels of all star ratings and other sectors of the hospitality industry such as restaurants, in order to validate and allow generalization of findings.
Description
A Thesis Submitted in Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Award of the Degree of Master of Science in Hospitality Management in the Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management, in the School of Business, Economics, and Tourism of Kenyatta University, June 2025.
Supervisors
1. Rahab M. Mugambi
2. Shem Wambugu Maingi