Application of outsourcing strategy in the hotel industry in Mombasa County Kenya

Abstract

Outsourcing is an important phenomenon in hotel sector. It is changing from a tactical to a strategic perspective, with greater scope and relevance to improving individual competitiveness. To survive economically today, organizations must transform themselves and their markets in an ever daunting challenge to redefine the business world before it redefines them. To the end, outsourcing has emerged as the single most powerful tool available to executives seeking this level of business change. According to Manuel and Thomas (2006), highly significant changes are currently taking place in tourism, with a notable increase in competition between hotel companies and especially between emerging and consolidated tourist destinations. The outsourcing of non-core activities allows the hotel to increase managerial attention and resource allocation to those tasks that it does best and to rely on management teams in other firms to oversee tasks at which the outsourcing firm is at a relative disadvantage. In Kenya, the tourism industry has not been spared by the current turbulence in the business environment. The Kenyan hotels, especially at the Coastal strip, have been hard hit recording, declining tourist arrivals. Hence the need to embrace outsourcing as a strategy, that can be used to improve the management of the hotels to level out the environmental turbulence. The study employed a descriptive survey design to establish the extent of outsourcing among the hotels in the Mombasa County. The yielded results ascertained that outsourcing as a strategy is being employed, thou partly. Hence, it is not possible to reap the full advantages of outsources, if not fully implemented. There is need to look beyond the poor performance when a strategy fails to yield the desired results and find out the root causes other than disbanding it all together.