Effect of strategic human resource management on tourism product quality among hotels in the north rift region, Kenya

Abstract

Strategic human resource management is an essential determinant of the tourism product quality in tourism businesses and destinations. Although there have been efforts by both the public and private sector to promote the development of domestic tourism in various parts of the world, the tourism product quality has been relatively low compared to the changing customer needs, wants, and preferences. This has been greatly attributed to lack of clear human policies by most tourism organizations, which exposes them to challenges in recruiting, developing and maintaing a committed, competent, well-managed and well-motivated workforce ( Luiz, 2000). This has led to frequent complaints from the guests as well as the employees in the tourism businesses, particularly in the hotels. This study sought to establish the effect of recruitment and selection, employee training and development, employee motivation and remuneration on tourism product quality. This research study was carried out using explanatory research design. It targeted a total of 209 hotels and sampled 138 hotels. The study used simple random sampling technique to select the sampled hotels. Data was collected from hotel managers of the sampled hotels with a closed-ended questionnaire. Data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Frequency distribution was used as descriptive statistics for all variables because they were categorical variables. Multiple regression analysis was used as inferential statistics to establish effect of recruitment and selection, employee training and development, employee motivation and remuneration on tourism product quality. The findings showed that strategic human resource management was given low consideration by tourism industry, unlike other industries, though tourism product quality was was reported to be high. The four components of strategic human resource management under investigation were rated low by the hotel managers. The findings further showed that recruitment and selection (p=0.152), training and development (p=0.741), and employee remuneration (p=0.068) had no significant effects on tourism product quality. Only employee motivation (p=0.004) had significant effect on tourism product quality. This shows that tourism industry puts more emphasis on employee motivation as the main determinant of product quality. The study findings have shown that strategic human resource management has not been fully adopted by the tourism industry. The study therefore recommends: The National and County Governments to formulate policies that direct full adoption of Strategic Human Resource Management in the tourism indusry and to organize regular county sensitization forums for the purpose of sharing with tourism stakeholders. Management of hotels should allocate adequate resources to employee motivation, recruitment and selection, training and development, and employee renumeration