There is a wide range of contemporary issues facing operators and managers in the hospitality industry. Identify the range of issues facing hospitality organizations across the world and critically analyze and evaluate the nature, effects, and implications of three key contemporary issues within the context of a specific hospitality sector in a particular market/country.

Tourism product can be considered to be a fragile industry as it is susceptible to many external forces. This essay seeks to achieve the following aims:

Identify the range of issues facing hospitality organizations across the world.
Explain via critical analysis and evaluation the nature, effects, and implications of three key contemporary issues for hospitality operators and managers in the Caribbean, namely:
a) Natural disasters
b) Safety and security
c) Lack of provision of quality customer care by hospitality employees

The aim of the paper is to explain the contemporary issues facing managers in the Caribbean and to make suggestions for handling and preventing the issues. The data was collected through interviews, journals, books, local newspapers, and websites.

The rationale of the study is to show that contemporary issues in hospitality can have a direct effect on the operation and sustainability of a hotel. By having a better understanding of the effects of these contemporary issues, the hotelier is more equipped to make better decisions in preventing or handling these modern-day obstacles.

There is much range of issues facing hospitality operators such as natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions, and hurricanes. Other contemporary issues would be fuel costs, the increased use of technology in tourism especially in booking accommodation, safety and security, Airbnb, and climate change. These contemporary issues have a significant effect on the way hotel managers operate their businesses and the sustainability of their operations. During the last five years, there have been many contemporary issues that plagued the Caribbean region but the most significant have been natural disasters, hurricanes being the most catastrophic.

The frequency and intensity of hurricanes have increased in the last five years and within this year alone (2017), there were two major hurricanes. Hurricanes Irma and Maria devastated many Caribbean islands, having wreaked havoc on tourism-dependent islands such as St. Martin, St. Thomas, St. Croix, Barbuda, Tortola, Cuba, and lesser dependent tourist economies such as Martinique, Guadeloupe, Dominica, and Puerto Rico.

Hurricanes are indeed a contemporary issue facing managers of hospitality operators since they, in many instances, damage or destroy entire properties as well as the infrastructure and superstructure of the country. St. Martin a country that depends heavily 3 on tourism, especially cruise tourism, was severely destroyed with television reports indicating that 90% of the buildings were destroyed.

St. Thomas, another popular tourist destination was significantly damaged along with the neighboring islands of St. Croix, St. John, and Tortola. Dominica was almost flattened by Hurricane Maria and Puerto Rico was destroyed so badly that television news reports stated that it would take the island at least six (6) months to restore electricity and water.

Hurricanes present as a contemporary issue due to the frequency of their occurrences and their widespread destruction to countries, their economies, and in some instances, as was the case in Barbuda in September 2017, the destruction of an entire island.

When a hurricane occurs and destroys a hotel, the operator must look at repairing the property. If the physical building is not entirely damaged, damage to the pools, gardens, furniture, and fixtures may have occurred. As a consequence, directly after the hurricane, managers must assess and address the physical damages.

The effects of natural disasters are often immediate and in the case when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, the hospitality sector saw an immediate decline. Dorfman (2007) stated that ‘the tourist sector in New Orleans saw a serious decline and the job losses within the first 10 months was a 25.4% decline in the sector.”

This means that even if the hotel has the infrastructure to welcome tourists, a decline in arrivals is inevitable when a natural disaster occurs as visitors may feel less inclined to visit the destination in fear of a re-occurring disaster. Post-disaster visitor decline was seen in Taiwan when the earthquake hit that country in 1999 and immediately there was a fall-off of 15% in tourist arrivals.

Other evidence suggests that natural disasters will cause an immediate downturn in tourist arrivals for hotel operators. Hall (2010) states “Hurricanes result in a decline in tourism real expenditure and cause tourist arrivals to fall briefly before reversing into modest increase.’’ The above-mentioned statement was evidenced in the case of Hurricane Gilbert in Jamaica in 1988. Jamaica too saw a decline in tourists directly after the country was hit by Gilbert.

Hotel operators must consider that disasters will affect tourist arrivals, as highlighted in the occurrence of natural disasters in New Orleans, Taiwan, and Jamaica, also noting the dip in arrivals would directly affect their profits. When a hurricane destroys a destination, a hotel operator would see lower guest arrivals, and lower profits for that period directly after the disaster and during the period of closure because of needed repairs to the property.

The implications for the hotel operators or managers are few but very significant. Hotel operators must seek to build or rebuild using hurricane-resistant materials as a means of preventing damage by another hurricane or another natural disaster. Losing income due to hurricanes can be a financial downturn for a hotel, so it would be best to safeguard the investment by building with hurricane-resistant materials.

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