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This paper aims to identify and analyse the hotel sector’s vulnerabilities that human traffickers exploit to use hotels as conduits for trafficking in human beings (THB).

Using the Method for the Assessment of the Vulnerability of Sectors framework of sector vulnerability analysis, the study adopted a qualitative approach using environmental scanning and semi-structured key stakeholder interviews in three European countries: UK, Finland and Romania.

The study identifies the types of THB occurring within the industry and the specific macro-, meso- and micro-level factors that increase hotel vulnerability to trafficking for sexual exploitation, labour exploitation or both.

Given the sensitivity of the topic, the number of interviewees is limited as is the generalisability of the findings.

The framework developed serves as a practical tool for independent or chain-affiliated hotels to use to assess their vulnerability to human trafficking for both sexual and labour exploitation.

The framework will assist hotel professionals to assess their vulnerability to human trafficking and identify specific and proactive measures to combat this crime within their business.

This is the first study to empirically explore human trafficking in the hotel sector and to apply an integrated theoretical lens to examine macro-, meso- and micro-level sector vulnerabilities to a crime. It contributes to the authors’ understanding of why hotels are vulnerable to human trafficking for both sexual and labour exploitation.

The purpose of this study is to explore the risk factors that employers consider when assessing an employee’s business travel (BT) assignment and the risk treatment, crisis response and recovery strategies they use to discharge their BT duty of care.

An exploratory approach is taken with in-depth interviews of 21 executives, travel managers and insurance brokers involved with the management of BT in four international hotel groups. In all, 12 follow-up interviews were conducted to assess the possible COVID-19 impact on BT risk management processes.

Employers assess BT assignments considering the travel’s characteristics, including the destination’s risk profile against seven types of risks (health, political, transport, natural, crime, technology and kidnap), length of stay, travel mode and activities undertaken in the destination as well as the traveler’s profile which includes diversity and travel experience. Accordingly, they develop a range of duty of care strategies for BT risk treatment, crisis response and recovery.

BT practitioners can use the proposed framework to develop risk assessment methodologies based on more accurate destination and traveler profiles and pursue targeted risk treatment strategies and insurance policies. The proposed duty of care approach can be used as a blueprint for organizations to design and manage BT policies.

BT risk is an under-researched area. The extant research looks predominantly at travel risks and their assessment taking the traveler’s perspective. This study looks at business travel risk and explores it from an employer’s risk management perspective offering a BT risk assessment framework and a BT duty of care plan.

Although the threat of terrorist attacks is not a new phenomenon for hotels, limited literature exists on measures that hotels can take to prevent them or limit their damage. The purpose of this paper is to propose a baseline strategy to address this threat.

Using the terrorist attack cycle and the security function models introduced in this paper, 19 hotel security experts, members of an international working group on terrorism, were tasked to reach consensus on a baseline anti‐terrorist strategy for a hotel. To reach this consensus, the study employed the Nominal Group Technique.

The study presents a six‐step baseline anti‐terrorism strategy and a series of measures and actions under each step. In the centre of this strategy lies the disruption of the terrorist attack cycle.

There are limitations inherent to the Nominal Group Technique which may not allow the generalizability of the findings. However, every effort was made to ensure the reliability and validity of the study.

The study suggests a shift from physical protection alone to a more intelligence‐led approach. Counter‐surveillance, terrorist behavioral analysis, higher visibility of security measures, stronger relationships with local community leaders, collaborative relationships with emergency response agencies and strategic use of risk intelligence providers will have to take a higher place in the agendas of hotel security departments.

The paper presents, for the first time, two models that industry practitioners will find useful when designing security policies: the terrorist attack cycle and the security function model. Each component of the proposed strategy provides a starting point for the design of security strategies tailored on the security needs and budget of any hotel property.

This paper's aim is to critically review the use of Delphi techniques in qualitative research for utilising “expert” opinions and to explore through a detailed example how Policy Delphi can be used by hospitality researchers as an alternative to the more widely used Normative Delphi.

The paper reflects on the research methodology of a project that explored organisational crisis signals detection using Policy Delphi with a criterion sample comprising 16 senior hotel executives involved in crisis management.

The main methodological concerns regarding Delphi are the definition of consensus, the expertise of the panel, its lack of scientific rigour, and – due to its lack of uniformity – reliability and validity of findings. Policy Delphi by default addresses the first since it does not seek consensus and can, through its design and execution, address the remaining concerns.

Carefully designed Policy Delphi can offer a powerful research tool for exploratory research in hospitality, particularly for development of policies and strategies within an organisation. Unlike Normative Delphi, it is not intended as a decision making tool, but rather as a tool to generate options and suggest alternative courses of action for consideration.

The paper presents a valuable research tool that has evaded the attention of many hospitality researchers offering an illustrative example of its use in exploratory research to deliver credible, transferable and confirmable findings.

Quality has been historically viewed by hospitality organisations in terms of product and service efficiency. The emergence of total quality management in the 1980s has forced a significant number of them to move away from the idea of efficiency and put more emphasis on customer needs. Such culture should give equal emphasis on the internal dynamics of the organisation, recognising that, in order for a hospitality organisation to be truly effective, each department within the hotel should treat the recipients of their output as an internal customer and strive to provide high quality outputs for them. This will consequently lead to a high level of quality built into the service offered to the external customer. While considerable research has been conducted in the hospitality industry focusing on (external) service encounters and external customer satisfaction, internal service encounters and internal customer satisfaction have received very little attention. This article explores from a theoretical perspective, the internal service encounters that take place in a hotel and to set a framework of investigation for future empirical research.

Over the last two decades, the hospitality industry has witnessed a considerable shift of focus towards customer orientation, however, the vast body of the relevant hospitality research literature – with few exceptions concentrating on the concept of internal marketing and internal service constructs – is focused on the external customer neglecting the importance of the quality of internal service encounters, where one department in the hotel serves another. The purpose of this study was to explore an “internal service chain” in three international city hotels and identify the events and behaviours (service dimensions) that distinguish a successful internal service encounter from a non‐successful one. Although internal customers were usually not recognised as such, it was found that interpersonal relations affect to a great extent all internal service encounters in a hotel. Other factors influencing the internal service encounters are the professionalism, the dependability, the conscientiousness of the internal suppliers, their communication skills and the consideration they show to their internal customers.

To offer a complexity‐informed framework for the design of an effective organizational crisis response system.

A narrative analysis of the crisis response in a hotel chain facing a major food poisoning outbreak, seen from a complexity theory perspective. Data were collected through 17 in‐depth interviews of persons involved in the crisis response and through analysis of secondary data.

The analysis identified weaknesses in the chain's crisis response and complexity theory provided a good theoretical foundation of the proposals to overcome them.

Organizations should redefine the role of crisis management plans and crisis management teams. An effective crisis response should be viewed as a living (co‐evolving) system within the organization. By adopting complexity principles the organization can make this system far more effective.

The paper is among the very few that deal with crisis management from a complexity perspective.