Onofre Martorell Cunill

The franchise contract in hotel chains: a study of hotel chain growth and market concentrations

Hotel chains can expand by using a variety of different growth strategies. Some studies argue that hotel chains use a wide array of strategies, with none prevailing over the rest. Several arguments can now be put forward to demonstrate that systems not based on capital transactions, particularly franchise agreements, are the strategies that hotel chains prefer when carrying out expansion programmes. The conclusions show that the franchise system has become the growth strategy most widely used by hotel chains and that the sharp rise in the use of this system has led to increasing market concentrations by hotel chains.

Valuing Growth Strategy Management by Hotel Chains Based on the Real Options Approach

This paper proposes a method for valuing growth strategies by hotel chains, especially when the investment project involves a high degree of uncertainty. To do this, first the opportunity risks that are inherent in this type of investment project have to be defined and the shadow options ascertained. The second step is to describe the strategies available to hotel chains and the combinations of real options they have implemented. The third step is to propose an investment strategy valuation method that will enable the selection of a strategy that maximizes the value of the company. The most important contribution of this paper is that it highlights the problem that failure to recognize the real options inherent in hotel investment strategies where uncertainty is involved will lead to undervaluation, while the recognition of options that are not key factors (over-recognition) can be misleading. This emphasizes the importance of recognizing only options that are key to the investment project.

Choice of entry mode into a foreign market: The case of Balearic hotel chains in the Caribbean region

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that play a decisive role in determining growth strategies implemented by the hotel chains of the Balearic Islands in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico.Design/methodology/approach – In line with most research on the choice of entry mode, the dependent variable is a categorical one. Given the nature of the dependent variable, logistic regression (or logit) models were used to verify the hypotheses. Since there were more than two categories involved, a multinomial logit model was applied.Findings – The main findings show that the choice of foreign market entry mode cannot rely solely on host‐specific factors. Moreover, this study facilitates a comparison of the results of this paper and the results of other similar studies of the international hotel industry.Originality/value – This paper offers several contributions. First, it is a new contribution to the understanding of the factors that determine the behavior of hotel chains in their internatio...

Análisis del impacto de la titulización hipotecaria en la estabilidad financiera del sistema bancario español

El presente trabajo analiza la relacion existente entre la estructura de propiedad (posicion e identidad de los grandes accionistas) y el riesgo corporativo para una muestra de empresas de veintiun paises de la OCDE durante el periodo 2001-2008. Nuestra principal contribucion es la incorporacion de las oportunidades de inversion y del entorno institucional de la empresa. Nuestros resultados ponen de manifi esto que dichas oportunidades de inversion modelan la infl uencia de la estructura de propiedad, al dar diferentes incentivos al accionista principal para asumir riesgo en funcion de las oportunidades disponibles. Asimismo, detectamos una tendencia al alineamiento de intereses entre los accionistas de referencia distintos del principal, de modo que estos alientan la toma de decisiones arriesgadas cuando existen oportunidades de inversion y tratan de reducir el riesgo corporativo en caso contrario. Tambien encontramos que los accionistas de naturaleza familiar o individual presentan una tendencia a la toma de decisiones menos arriesgas.Resumen Este trabajo tiene por objeto analizar el impacto de la titulización hipotecaria sobre la estabilidad financiera y el riesgo de crédito de las entidades financieras espanñolas. Para ello, se ha elaborado una base de datos que combina información financiera de 87 entidades de crédito durante el período 2004-2009, obtenida de Bankscope, asi como todas las emisiones de bonos de titulización hipotecaria realizadas en dicho periodo. El resultado de nuestro trabajo muestra como la titulización ha tenido un impacto negativo en la estabilidad financiera. Además, el efecto positivo a corto plazo sobre los activos ponderados por riesgo y negativo sobre el Z-Score y la tasa de morosidad nos lleva a concluir que dicho impacto responde a un efecto indirecto provocado por una política crediticia más arriesgada.

Academic Contributions in Asian Tourism Research: A Bibliometric Analysis

Bibliometrics is a fundamental field of information science that helps to draw quantitative conclusions about bibliographic material. During the last decade, the use of techniques and bibliometric studies has experienced a significant increase due to the improvement of information technology and its usefulness to organize knowledge in a scientific discipline. This paper presents an overview of the most productive and influential Asian universities and countries in academic tourism research through the use of bibliometric indicators, according to information found in the database Web of Science (WoS). This database is considered one of the main tools for the analysis of scientific information. In order to analyze the information obtained, several rankings of universities and countries have been carried out, both global and individual, based on a series of bibliometric indicators, such as the number of publications, the number of citations and h-index. Analyzing the results, we observe that within tourism research in Asia, the most influential countries are China, Taiwan and South Korea, and that the leading university is Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Asian Academic Research in Tourism with an International Impact: A Bibliometric Analysis of the Main Academic Contributions

Asian academic research in tourism is a very recent field of research, which has significantly developed over the last decade due to the strong expansion of the tourism industry worldwide, and also owing to the strong evolution of search engines via the Internet. This article analyses the main contributions to Asian academic research in tourism over recent years using bibliometric indicators. The results obtained are based on the information contained in the Web of Science database. These results focus on explaining three fundamental questions. Firstly, we study the publication structure of Asian articles in tourism over recent decades, as well as the citations these articles have received. Secondly, we present a ranking of the most important tourism journals in Asia through the use of a series of indicators such as the number of publications in said journals, the number of citations, and the h-index. Finally, we present a list of the 50 most cited Asian articles in tourism (and hence the ones that can be considered the most influential) of all times. The results show how, in Asian terms, the most influential journals in this field are Tourism Management (TM), the Annals of Tourism Research (ATR) and the International Journal of Hospitality Management (IJHM).