Competitiveness and Business Performance in the Portuguese Hotel Industry.

The growing importance of the tourism sector in the Portuguese economy makes it critical the assessment of its financial achievements and the competitive advantages of this sector (Bank of Portugal, 2016). Over the past few decades the competitiveness has been growing interest in international research into tourism in general and particularly in hospitality. The main aim of this research is to analyze the economic and financial achievement of the hotel sector as well as find out its financial potential. So, and bearing in mind the goal of this paper, the methodology used was based on the collection of data relating to a selection of the companies with the Portuguese classification of economic activities (CEA) 55 -- Accommodation, in 2017, a whole of 6.792 companies. The economic and financial information was collected from balance sheets and financial reports of 2007 to 2016, through SABI (Iberian Balance Sheet Analysis System) database. Furthermore, we analyze the differences in financial ratios of hotels and other tourism companies and statistical significance test were applied to test the existence of statistically significant differences between this two groups of companies. The indicators of corporate performance under consideration are Return on Assets (ROA), Return on Equity (ROE), Earnings before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization (EBITDA), Business Volume (BV); Gross Value Added (GVA), Apparent Labor Productivity (ALP), General Liquidity (LG), Solvency (SLV) and Financial Autonomy (FAUT). The examination of the economic and financial performance of the hotel sector allows, through the evolution of its indicators, to highlight the main strengths and weaknesses of this sector. This examination is shown to be crucial in defining the strategy of the sector, both from the point of view of investors and hotel managers and government tourism policymakers. We conclude that most of the variables present statistically significant differences comparing the results between the accommodation and the other tourist activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]