| dc.description.abstract | Overview
The hotel industry represents an important part of the wider tourism and hospitality
industry in Ireland. Although it takes more than one person to effectively manage a
hotel, the person with the overall responsibility for running the business is the general
manager of the hotel. Hotel financial experience has become mandatory for general
managers in the modern day hotel industry, but there are concerns over the nature of
the financial work undertaken by general managers and where these skills were
attained.
Purpose
This paper explores the actual nature of the financial work undertaken by general
managers in Irish hotels, and more specifically in the County Donegal region. It
specifically focuses on the financial work carried out by general managers,
determining where financial skills and competencies were attained, discovers what
financial work is outsourced by hotels and investigates the areas where general
managers lack financial expertise.
Findings
General managers were found to undertake a wide range of financial tasks as part of
their job. Financial work was deemed to be important to the work of hotel general
managers, although concerns were raised over the possession of these financial skills,
particularly accountancy related skills among general managers. A combination of
qualifications and work experience were identified as the most common methods used
for attaining financial skills. Accountancy was discovered to be highly suitable for
outsourcing, but suffered from low implementation rates in Donegal hotels.
Future research
Further research is required to analyse the usefulness of the material taught during
courses in order to evaluate how closely aligned these courses are to the required
industry standards for the work of hotel general managers. Another subject that would
merit further research would be the whole area of delegation of financial work to lower
level managers | en |
