An Analysis of strategic information published by large Spanish hotel chains

Abstract

At present when the market is increasingly demanding free-flowing information concerning corporate expectations, we often encounter criticism as to the absence of this type of information in annual reports. The relevance of this lack of information is based, among other reasons, on the fact that it is the only information that businesses make public. With this hypothesis as a point of departure, we have asked ourselves if this same situation is also produced in the Spanish hotel sector. Our interest in this business is due to the importance of the tourism sector in the Spanish economy. To contrast this hypothesis, we have carried out field work consisting of, firstly, a review of annual reports for the fiscal years 2000, 2001 and 2002 published by hotel chains representative of the sector and, secondly, an analysis of the information concerning the strategies published in these reports. This paper is part of a research stream that remains open and whose objective is the elaboration of a Balanced Scorecard prototype for the Spanish Hotel Sector.