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The public health crisis brought by the COVID-19 pandemic has made a huge impact on life and safety of all people, and international tourism and hotel industry takes the first brunt of the impact. The purpose of this study is to probe the responding strategies to crisis by the international tourist hotels during the COVID-19 pandemic and to observe the responding strategies adopted by the leading hotels through the analysis of iconic hotels with the same revenues and in the same area.
Five international tourist hotels in Taipei, including the Regent, the Ambassador Hotel, the Grand Hotel, Le Méridien, and the Grand Hyatt, were chosen for the case study. Based on the grounded theory approach, related articles and documents of and about these five hotels, such as the annual reports, news information, and public talks given by top management, were collected and analyzed so as to organize “the tourist hotel industry’s response strategies during the pandemic.” Four propositions of the study are suggested as follows.
First, when the crisis impact is rapid and severe and the force of such an impact will not be expected to be alleviated soon, companies tend to adopt retrenchment response. Second, at the beginning of a crisis, due to the extent and uncertain duration of the crisis impact, companies tend to adopt persevering response. Resourceful companies are more willing to use idle resources (manpower and facilities) arising instantly from a crisis (rapid market shrinkage) and try innovating response by adjusting their ways to use resources. Companies of a relatively smaller size or a lower market status are more likely to adopt exiting response.
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