Golden Tulip Top Hospitality Group jako system hotelowy

Abstract

To summarise, the overall description of Golden Tulip Top Hospitality Group can be encapsulated in four inescapable conclusions: 1. Golden Tulip Top Hospitality Group is a Dutch hotel system based on the Golden Tulip Hotels, Inns & Resorts chain. 369 hotels with a total of 40,600 rooms in 40 countries on 5 continents in December 2003 (487 hotels in 46 countries on 6 continents in March 2005) makes the group global. Being one of the biggest European hotel groups, it ranks very high among hotels worldwide. Alongside KLM, the group is the most important Dutch company within the whole tourist industry, which reflects the significant role of the service sector in Dutch economy and which can be also regarded as a response to Dutch citizens’ high tourist activity. 2. In the history of Golden Tulip, which to some extent reflects worldwide tendencies within the industry, a few distinct aspects should be emphasized: – transition from the organisation based on the cooperation of independent hotels to a hotel chain cooperating with KLM corporation, that is transition to a type of organisation whose expansion led to the establishment of Golden Tulip, – relatively quick development of franchising, – resistance to the tendency of taking over hotel groups and chains by financial groups or REITs organisations, – successful separation from NH Hoteles counter to worldwide consolidation tendencies. 3. The most distinctive characteristic of the group is its emerging since 2002 internal structure, which has been established as a result of a merger of two initially independent companies originating from different countries. The structure embraces both franchising and consortia activities and gives to its units broad autonomy, resulting in lack of distinct central management. This seems to question, to some extent, the status of the organisation as a ‘hotel group’. Apart from this, the division into two polarised segments (four segments since 2005) can be observed. The cooperation within them seems to be more important than the fact that all the units constitute one group. Another characteristic of the system is the fact that the whole group includes an alliance of entirely independent organisations managing the group’s hotels, which imitates their belonging to the group. 4. Unlike other international hotel groups, Golden Tulip Top Hospitality Group focuses only on the hotel sector. The first exception to this rule occurred as late as in March 2005, when a chain of conference centres was established. Golden Tulip Top Hospitality Group is an extremely interesting phenomenon in the hospitality industry. Its combination of both typical and atypical features constitutes an exceptionally integrated whole. Accuracy with which Golden Tulip has selected atypical but appropriate solutions over the years does not allow making predictions concerning its further development, thus encouraging close monitoring of its activities.