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A Consumer Service in Interwar Britain: The Hotel Trade, 1924–1938

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2011

Rex Pope
Rex Pope
Affiliation:
REX POPE is head of the Department of Historical andCritical Studies at the University of Central Lancashire, in Preston, United Kingdom.
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Abstract

An examination of the fortunes of three hotel groups in the 1920s and 1930s suggests that the collapse of international demand and the growth of a middle-class motorized trade were the major influences on differential performance. While trading difficulties led to an effort to exit from unprofitable outlets or to rationalize supplies and services, opportunities for economy were restricted by customers' rising expectations of facilities and the need to protect a preeminent position in the market. Company organization appears to have contributed little, with the best performance achieved by the group with the smallest individual units and the least opportunity for structural specialization or economies.

Type
Articles
Information
Business History Review , Volume 74 , Issue 4 , Winter 2000 , pp. 657 - 682
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 2000

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