Lean Hospitality - Application of Lean Management methods in the hotel sector

The tourism businesses faces the challenge to reduce significantly their costs in the future and to structure internal processes more efficient. The hotel and tourism industry, which showed continuous growth in recent years, now looks ahead to economic turbulences and general difficult times. Given these developments, hotel companies will earn in the future less than before. This phenomenon has not been considered in tourism, while it exists since decades of years in the industrial sector. The industry applies successfully for many years modern methods and instruments to optimize productivity and efficiency and to increase the quality of services even further. These existing experiences to increase productivity in the industrial environment were taught for years as "Lean Management". This research aims to show practical experiences of the application of Lean Management methods in the hospitality sector and to make a statement about their suitability and the possible potential for optimization. The work refers to a case study in a hotel company, where several Lean methods have been implemented successfully. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.