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Hospitality Leadership Through Learning
Faculty & Research

Hotel Managers' Perceptions of the Blackout of '03

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Vol 4 No 4
By: Robert J. Kwortnik Ph.D.

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Executive Summary: When power failed late in the afternoon of August 14, 2003, hotels in the northeastern United States and southern Canada were left without electricity for as long as two days. To assess the lodging industry's response to the event, a study of hoteliers was conducted by surveying selected participants in the Smith Travel Research database. Of the 147 respondents, 93 were from hotels that lost power and 54 were from hotels that retained power during the blackout. On average, the blackout lasted 16 hours for the responding hotels- meaning that guests at half the hotels being studied spent an entire night without electricity.

While all the hotels had the code-required emergency power for exit lights, such power failed at half of the hotels, mostly when the batteries died. Half of the hotels had generators, and 85 percent of those kept their emergency lights on for the duration. Only one of four hotels had auxiliary power for other than emergency circuits (e.g., for HVAC or guest room lights), and one-quarter of those systems failed before the blackout ended. Despite these problems, and contrary to media reports of hotels' putting guests on the street, all of the hoteliers in this study reported accommodating guests, including walk-ins and people from the vicinity who abandoned or could not reach their homes.

Key operating systems were shut down at most hotels, including HVAC, guest room lights, computer networks, cooking and refrigeration systems, and elevators. Some hotels completely lost access to a potable water supply-including running water for sanitary facilities.

Hotel managers and staff members operated as many systems as possible-often manually. That included escorting guests to their rooms, carrying buckets of water for sanitary purposes, and handing out flashlights and light sticks. Some hotels that lost the use of their F&B equipment set up barbecues on the premises, set up cold food buffets, and sometimes gave away food rather than allow it to spoil. To offset the loss of PBX service, telephone service was provided by cellular phones or, in some cases, by direct land lines not connected to the PBX.

Overall, the respondents said that their chief concerns were guest and employee safety and guest comfort and satisfaction. Some had no written plan covering the blackout and had to improvise. In the wake of the blackout, hoteliers reported plans to stock up on emergency supplies, but some 40 percent of the respondents said nothing additional had been done for emergency preparedness.

On balance, the respondents believed that they had maintained their service at reasonable levels, with only 10 percent stating that they had fallen short. They credited a strong effort by managers and staff members for maintaining service. In view of employees' extraordinary effort, most managers also believed that their guests were satisfied with their hotel stay during the blackout, perhaps because their expectations were lowered.

Many managers considered the Blackout of '03 to be an aberrant event. Nevertheless, hotel managers should review their emergency plans and stockpiles of emergency supplies. The relatively high incidence of facilities failures and process problems calls into question managers' perceptions of the service quality provided during the blackout. Whether guests' perceptions match those of managers is a critical open question and one that deserves future research-ideally, before the lights go out again.

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About Robert J. Kwortnik Ph.D.

Rob Kwortnik, Assistant Professor of Services Marketing, joined Cornell's faculty after earning his Ph.D. in Business Administration from Temple University in 2003. He also earned a BA in Journalism from Temple and an MBA from California State University, Northridge. Kwortnik’s research focuses on consumer behavior in service contexts, with special attention to customer experience management. He has published in the Journal of Service Research, The International Journal of Research in Marketing, Psychology & Marketing, and the Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, among others. He has been honored five times as a Teacher of the Year by students at the Cornell Hotel School. Prior to his career in academics, Kwortnik held several professional positions in marketing and was a travel industry consultant. He is a recognized expert on the leisure cruise industry and is a contributing writer to Cruise Industry News.

For more information visit http://www.hotelschool.cornell.edu/research/facultybios/faculty.html?id=105