Strategy, training and performance fit

The importance of human resource qualification for the tourism industry in general and for hotel firms in particular has been a recurrent theme for several years now. The present paper deals with training policy in hotels and has as its aim to know the extent to which their strategic orientation influences: (1) the investment that firms make in training; (2) the preparation of formal plans; and (3) the type of training developed. It is also our intention to check whether this strategy-training link has an impact on hotel performance. With that aim in mind, an attempt will be made to see whether the effect of training on business results is direct or materializes through a number of intermediate variables such as client satisfaction or changes in the behavior of employees (indirect effect). A comprehensive analysis of the literature was conducted to identify the main research and establishing the hypotheses to be tested. Our paper used a sample of Spanish companies with the partial least squares (PLS) method being applied for the analysis. The results show that the development of a training policy oriented to human capital development in the case of hotels following a differentiation strategy leads to improved business results both directly and indirectly, while simultaneously influencing investment as well as formality in training activities.