Christoph Voegeli

Abstract
This study proposes a global and holistic knowledge management framework (GHKMF) for the hotel industry, particularly focusing on standard-setting hotel companies (SSHCs). The proposed GHKMF is a pioneering effort in the hotel and hospitality sector. It is intended to assist researchers and practitioners in understanding, focusing on and leveraging knowledge management. The study’s comprehensive literature search confirmed the absence of a hotel-specific knowledge management framework (KMF). This finding was reinforced in a second round of searching for publications from the most prolific hospitality and tourism scholars, which confirmed that no prior work on hotel KMFs exists. The most relevant KMF from Meher and Mahajan’s 2016 study was thus selected, and its elements were tabulated to assist in the GHKMF’s development. The proposed framework is based on extensive research and expert hotel industry knowledge. It will be further validated in a forthcoming research paper (based on expert validation survey data). The GHKMF will help increase the awareness of the value of knowledge and industry stakeholders can use it as a strategic asset to improve their performance.

Keywords: Knowledge management, hotel industry, knowledge assets, external knowledge resources, hospitality, knowledge framework.