The Austrian Hotel and Restaurant Panel
5.2 Survey and Database Design
For the AHRP,financial information is collected annually on a confidential basis from between 1000 and 1300 hotels and restaurants. The data are collected either from interested companies that voluntarily participated in this project (15.0%),consultancy companies (5.5%) and cooperating industry organizations which are Österreichische Hotel- und Tourismusbank (55.6%) and BÜRGES Förderungsbank des BmwA (23.9%).7 The sample size varies between 2 and 3% of all hotels,restaurants and similar accommodation and/or food and beverage (F&B) providers in Austria,which is similar to other studies in this field.
During the seven years under observation,the number of participating hotels and restaurants was relatively stable with an exception in 1995 when a technical problem by one of the cooperating industry organizations caused a considerable drop in the number of participating companies (see Fig. 5.2).
The data comprise information from a company’s balance sheet and the profit and loss statement,and information obtained from an additional questionnaire. The detail of information in the accounting part of the survey follows the most common definitions in the Austrian hotel and restaurant accounting system.
Performance analysis solely based on accounting information does not reflect many aspects of operational productivity and neglects important differences between various forms of businesses. For instance,accounting data usually do not capture information about the number of employees and the
7 Percentages represent average share of companies provided to the AHRP project by the different parties.
1600 1400 1200 1000
600 800
400 200 0
1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997
Hotels or similar accommodation providers Restaurants or similar F&B providers
Number of companies
Year of observation
Fig. 5.2. Number of companies in the AHRP.
distribution of the personal resources in the different cost centres. Especially in the hotel sector,financial reports do not indicate the number of overnights generated during the fiscal year,nor do they give information about the available (maximum) capacities. Hence,even the simple calculation of more valuable ratios of productivity requires additional information on certain business characteristics.
In AHRP,the non-financial data are obtained using an additional questionnaire that is filled out either by the general manager himself or by the tax consultant in charge of the accounting issues. Information captured by questionnaire includes the type of accommodation or food and beverage supply,average annual capacity,number of employees,number of days of operation,number of overnights,the geographical region where the business is located and the form of ownership. A complete listing of variables in the data set for each individual company is presented in Table 5.1 for the balance sheet, in Table 5.2 for the gain and loss statement and in Table 5.3 for the additional
No. Variables B211B212
B213
Real assets
Technical equipment and machines Other fixed assets
B210 Fixed assets B221B222
B223B224 B225
Raw material and goods Receivables
Cash and bank deposits Other current assets Accruals
B220 Current assets B251B252
B253
Equitycapital (capital stock and earned surplus) Appropriated retained earnings
Other equitycapital B250 Equitycapital B261B262
B263B264
Long-term liabilities Current liabilities Deferrals
Reserve for uncertain liabilities or anticipated losses B260 Total liabilities
B240 Total assets
Table 5.1. Balance sheet data in AHRP.
No. Variables B311B312
B314
Food revenues Beverage revenues Accommodation revenues B310 Main revenues B320 Sideline revenues B510 Total sales revenues B330B341
B342B351 B352
Other revenues Exceptional revenues External revenues
Liquidations of reserves and provisions Other revenues from financial transactions B360 Total revenues
B411B412 Food costs Beverage costs
B415 Food and beverage (F&B) costs B417 Other material costs
B410 Material-type costs B420 Total payroll and related B431B432
B433B434 B435B436 B437B438 B439B441 B447
Energycosts Cleaning costs Maintenance costs
Communication (phone fax and mail) costs Costs for promotion and representation Administration costs
Taxes and contributions Rental and leasing costs Interest for loan capital Costs for material of low value Miscellaneous costs B451 Total other payable costs B473B474 Depreciation
Endowment of reserves and provisions B452 Not payable costs
B520 Operating costs
B460 Exceptional costs and sideline expenses B480 Total costs
B500 Profit (before tax) or loss
Table 5.2. Gain and loss statement in AHRP.
information gathered from the questionnaire. The variable names displayed in the left column of these tables are used in equations and elsewhere as appropriate.
5.2.1 Limitations associated with accounting studies
Uniform accounting systems have existed for many years in several industries, particularly in the US. They are a set of principles and in some cases of account- ing methods,which,when incorporated in the accounting system of the members of an industry,will result in the gathering of comparable financial figures. In the hospitality industry,the most well-known accounting standard is the Uniform Systems of Accounts,which was developed by the American No. Variables (capacity)
S120S100 S110S131 S132S190 S133
Number of overnights in the fiscal year Number of beds
Number of rooms
Number of seats in the restaurant
Number of outside seats (garden or terrace) Total days of operation
Days of operation (outside) Variables (employed staff) S151S152
S153S155 S156S157 S158S150
Number of employers Number of employees Number of trainees
in the kitchen in restaurant service in accommodation service in administration Total number of staff
Variables (other data not included in financial statements) A100A110
A120A130 A140S160 S195S170 S175
Industry(full hotel, hotel garni, spa hotel, restaurant, inn, coffee-house, bar, buffet) Category(1–5 star system for hotels; category1–2 for restaurants or similar) Location (village, small town, mid-size town, Vienna)
Period of operation (seasonallyor annually) Propertyconditions (perfect ownership, rented place) Value of fire insurance
Gross investments in fiscal year to be capitalized Employer’s remuneration
Private deposit or withdrawal
Table 5.3. (Additional) Questionnaire data in AHRP.
Hotel and Motel Association in 1961 and revised several times since then.8 Chinet al. (1995) state that the Uniform Systems of Accounts facilitates perfor- mance measurement and comparison. Therefore,many international hotel chains have adapted to this norm,and in the US,78% of all hotels,which have recently been reported by Kwansa and Schmidgall (1999). In Europe,due to characteristics of small and medium-sized entities,many countries decided to develop their own standards that are,however,in many aspects in accordance with the US rules.
An adaptation of the uniform accounting system was introduced in Austria that provided accounting guidelines considering the special needs of the Austrian lodging industry. However,although heavily promoted by industry representatives,many financial statements of Austrian hotels and restaurants still lack the desirable level of comparability. Some hotels and restaurants provide very detailed information whereas others are at a high level of aggregation.
To achieve a minimum level of comparability for the AHRP project,clear definitions are given to all data providers. These definitions not only include guidelines for virtually every possible figure in a firm’s financial statement, but give answers to questions like ‘Where are costs for water consumption to be included?’ Care has been taken to deal with the classification of business operation,property,and the level of service (categorization scheme),the evaluation of seating and lodging capacities and the number of employees (assessment of half-time/part-time workers). The definitions are printed next to the data entry fields of the evaluation form and are also available at the AHRP Internet site at TourMIS illustrated and discussed in the next paragraph.
At the end of the data entry for a specific fiscal year,plausibility checks are performed. Based on the check,firms are excluded due to missing or question- able data. To address differences between reports by different firms,some of the general business data are aggregated or weighted in order to achieve acceptably comparable information in the data set. For instance,the total number of seats as an indicator for the F&B capacity of a hotel or a restaurant is calculated by the number of seats inside the restaurant/hotel building plus the number of seats available outside (garden or terrace) weighted by the number of days with outside operations divided by the total number of days in the fiscal year. A comprehensive list of all definitions and transformations performed on the data set is given by Wöber (1994–2000).
In order to allow more meaningful comparisons hotels and restaurants are classified according to their size,location (country or city),number of closing days and season of operation in 34 different strategic groups (industry sectors).
Typologies of hotels based on criteria of ownership,size and opening pattern are commonly used in hospitality studies as they offer a more accurate picture of individual businesses (e.g. Sundgaardet al.,1998). For at least two reasons
8 The Uniform Systems of Accounts for the Lodging Industry is now in its ninth revision (American Hotel and Motel Association, 1996). For more information see www.ei-ahma.org
the classification scheme has been kept unchanged since the beginning of the AHRP project. The first reason is to maintain continuity in the reporting.
One important aspect,appreciated not only by interested (or participating) companies,but also by industry representatives,is the possibility of gaining a certain understanding of industry trends by comparing time series. Some investigation of time series of key ratios has been done for specific strategic groups within the industry. Secondly,budgetary restrictions on the project did not allow for the work of preparing new schemes,implementing these and revising editing and reporting programs to accommodate the changes.
The definitions of the strategic groups outlined in the AHRP,and regularly analysed and reported by Wöber (1994–2000), are listed in Table 5.4.