Crisis Management Strategy for Recovery of Small and Medium Hotels after the COVID-19 Pandemic in Thailand

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I would like to thank the authors for this research that employs structural equation modeling (SEM) to identify the recovery strategy of 386 SME hotels in upper north Thailand. The result advances the literature on crisis management by identifying strategies that directly and indirectly facilitate SME hotel recovery.

The research subject is timely, innovative, and interesting. It also fits the aim and scope of the journal.

The research is well designed and follows a sound scientific research method.

Results and recommendations are clear and could have an impact among the community of researchers.

However, some modifications are needed in order to improve the quality of the paper.

You need to verify your manuscript by a native speaker as several grammatical errors were detected.

You need to better clarify your research aim. You need to reformulate the research aim. If you will talk about recovery, it is more appropriate to say post-covid recovery and crisis Management. Crisis Management is during the crisis. Post covid means after the crisis and here you need to talk about the different mechanisms of recovery. So, write a research aim short precise and concise. It would be better that it starts like that: This research aims to explore the ….

Line 201; It is not appropriate to cite our findings in the research methodology section. You need to remove that.

Check the format of some acronyms. First time citation of this acronym. You need to fully mention it and put it between parentheses.

Methods: You need to clearly specify when the interviews and questionnaires were conducted.

Conclusion: You need to add the implications of your research.

References: You need to add recent references. Some useful ones are suggested.

Other minor comments are directly attached to the manuscript.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

It is worth doing a lot of jobs for "Small and Medium Hotels Recovery from COVID-19".

The paper presents some interesting contextual data but reconfirms existing knowledge and relations in the SEM.

The "Figure 1. crisis management strategy for SME hotel recovery from COVID-19 pandemic model" was limited new contribution to the field. I suggested the authors to revised this logical model. Thus, the scientific value will be more suitable.

For example, the relationship among hypotheses SV, CR, RM, and CS.

 

In the introduction section, the study's gap (neither contextual nor theoretical) was not discussed. For any empirical study, it is crucial to discuss the research gap(s) that demonstrate the study's importance. Thus authors are requested to address the research gap in detail. Although, the authors have provided little information related to the gap at the end of the literature. Some similar literature maybe added: The impact of COVID-19 on tourist satisfaction with B&B in Zhejiang, China: An importance–performance analysis; An evaluation of green ryokans through a tourism accommodation survey and customer-satisfaction-related CASBEE–IPA after COVID-19 pandemic; The green B&B promotion strategies for tourist loyalty: Surveying the restart of Chinese national holiday travel after COVID-19.

 

 

The conclusion section needs to be improved. Focus on showing the originality of your work. Novelty? What are theoretical contributions? Management implications? What are the limitations? These segments are missing

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

I attached my comments below:

1.      The article doesn't study the state of the whole of Thailand, but only its northern part. This should be changed in the title.

2.      Introduction should be updated on what changes have already been made in Thailand regarding restrictions and how this has changed the functioning of the tourism sector in the country (in Introduction is information about planing changes which starting from April 1st , 2022)

3.      H1: Authors didn't specified duration when a cost-saving related strategy will be essential for SME hotels to recover from the COVID-19 crisis phase. 

4.      The hypotheses include the phrase "crisis phase", but Authors don't present and don't description the crisis phases - it's not known in which phase is hotel in crisis during using strategies and what the hypotheses refer to. (po. ang. prevention and preparation - Response – revision)

5.      Structure of the article - more readable when will separate "material and methods" (and there statistical methods) and "results"

6.      The method of testing hypothesis is illeligible to me. Was, at the first the result of the respondents' answers to individual strategies added up?

7.      Discusion – There is no comparison of the effectiveness of the applied strategies with the condition of the hotels after its application (turnover, number of employees, number of customers, etc.) In my point of view it could be appropriate to compare the state of tourism and the economy in Thailand before and after the pandemic and conections with tourism sector. Based on knowledge of crisis management, connections of hotels functionality before and after COVID-19 pandemic and results of research authors they could have conclusions.

 

8.      Conclusions - too long and repeat the same information as before. In this part should be recorded only the conclusions of the research.

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

Overall, the manuscript is a solid and well-organized paper, which attempts to identify the crisis management strategy for of 386 SME hotels in upper north Thailand with the structural equation modeling (SEM). Several comments / questions are listed below.

 

1. According to author, the variables and constructs used in this study are measured with adapted scales from existing literature, it would be nice to have the references for listed in the Table 1, thus readers can easily refer to the references to check the survey questions.

 

2. In SEM, it is recommended that all factor loadings should above 0.7 (Henseler et al., 2009), but it seems in author’s model, we have some items not meet the criteria, could you explain this?

 

3. One of the major contributions of this paper is conducting the analysis on the SME hotels, I am more interested to know if there are any differences between SME hotels and large hotels (in the literature), in terms of crisis management strategy. 

                                                                                           

Minor suggestions

1. In 3 Research Methodology, it seems the first paragraph is 1-line space, while other text is 1.5 or 2-line space. It would be better to make them consistent.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors made the necessary changes.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

Thank you for your comment. The revised version of my manuscript is formatted and proofread by MDPI English Editing service. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Thanks for the revision from the authors.

There are some mini-revision comments.

Please be sure the "Northern Thailand" is precise or not.

The title "The Crisis Management Strategy for Small and Medium Hotels 2 Recovery from the COVID-19 Pandemic in Northern Thailand" will be better if it is like this:

The Crisis Management Strategy for Small and Medium Hotels Recovery After the COVID-19 Pandemic in XXX.

If the "8. Limitations and Future Study" and "6. Theoretical and Practical Implication" were in the "5.Discussion" part, it would be better.

 

The text needs the intervention of a native English speaker, which will improve the paper, respectively the quality of the presentation.

Apart from this intervention that still has to be done, I consider your paper suitable for publication in this journal.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

Thank you for your comment. The revised version of my manuscript is formatted and proofread by MDPI English Editing service. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

After correction your manuscript is really better.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

Thank you for your comment. The manuscript is formatted and proofread by  MDPI English Editing service.  

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf