Determinants of Hotel Business Success in Rural Areas of the Western Balkan Countries

This paper examines the impact of ten microeconomic factors on hotel business success. This research encompassed a sample of 115 small, family-operated hotels situated in rural regions of the Western Balkan countries (WBC). This research was based on the assumption that factors such as the size of the hotel, age, solvency, liquidity, labour productivity, capital productivity, CSR, and reduction of CO2 emissions exhibit a positive influence on business success, whereas leverage, indebtedness, and energy consumption have a negative effect on the business success of hotels. The findings revealed that business success from the previous period, size, liquidity, and CSR exhibit a positive influence on business success, whereas leverage, capital productivity, and indebtedness demonstrate a negative effect. Conversely, the age of the hotel and labour productivity were not found to significantly influence business success, as did energy consumption. In the context of sustainable development, a positive CSR impact means that tourists value this behaviour of the hotel, while a lack of a statistically significant impact of energy consumption implies either that hotels do not implement efficient measures of energy efficiency or that energy efficiency may not be a crucial factor in attracting guests or influencing their loyalty. The findings also show that labour productivity expressed conventionally does not have a statistically significant impact on hotel business success. However, when expressed in a way that respects the concept of sustainable development and CSR, workforce productivity is a significant factor in hotel business success. Due to the problem of multicollinearity, the influence of CO2 emissions was not examined. The findings suggest the following two groups of key measures: 1. Policymakers must work on ensuring more favourable conditions under which hotels can borrow, as well as on ensuring adequate infrastructure; 2. They must work on improving the strategy for maintaining liquidity to avoid the high costs of short-term loans and increasing size in order to further utilise economies of scale. These two microeconomic factors have the greatest impact on the business success of hotels.