Risk Management in the Swedish Hotel Industry

The hotel industry prides itself in its welcoming attitude by offering hospitality, comfort and privacy. Meanwhile, guest safety and security has been argued to be of primary concern. The aim of this work was to study how hoteliers implement risk management procedures to ensure safe hotel operations, and to study how to gap the bridge between providing hospitable services which are safe and secure. The study found that the hotel industry in Sweden lacks a common risk management framework to implement consistently and coherently. A common framework would enable hoteliers to embrace risk management and be able to utilize it in their operation. It was also found that risk management ought to be integrated in all organizational processes. It should not be an isolated event, but rather implemented on an on-going basis. Providing hospitable services that are safe necessitates that risk management is implemented consistently by regularly aiming to raise current standard. Hence, continuous improvement ought to be of fundamental importance in any organization that is fully committed to risk management. This study, therefore, suggests a model that interlinks risk- and quality management.