A study on adapting the EFQM model to accommodation businesses for effective corporate assessment

The rapid industrial development after the industrial revolution has led to the emergence of the modern accommodation sector. The introduction of new transportation technologies that allow mass transfers, increasing trade volumes between countries and continents have triggered people to travel for different reasons, and the demand for service provision in the accommodation industry has increased rapidly. As in other fields, hospitality industry organizations have sought the best ways to manage their operations and growth brought on by the rise in technology and demand levels. In the last century, organizations have tried to solve much more complex problems under the influence of social changes, increasing level of technology, production and competition-oriented market dynamics. In this process, organizations searched for the best management forms and tried to find and build the most appropriate management forms for their organizational contexts, by feeding off scientific developments, emerging management models and good practice examples that would increase their competitive conditions and productivity. These searches have had many important results. One of these approaches is Total Quality Management, whose predecessors emerged in the early 1900s, went through different phases, and gained a new dimension in Japan in the 1950s, which was described as an extraordinary development in the field of management. Making very important contributions to the field of Total Quality Management and changing the direction of the Japanese industrial revolution, the framework of the "Deming Awards" given on behalf of Dr. Edward Deming since 1951, The framework of the Malcolm Baldrige Awards given in the USA since 1987 and the framework of the EFQM Awards given in Europe since 1991 are management models created with Total Quality Management approaches, which are among the most preferred management approaches by organizations today. Total Quality Management practices have been interesting for the accommodation sector as well as in other sectors. The first version of the EFQM Model, created by the European Quality Management Foundation, which is one of the three original Total Quality Management models in the world, was put into use in 1990, and the last version, which was prepared in line with current developments, was put into use in 2020. Since its introduction, the EFQM Management Model has been implemented in over 60,000 organizations and has become a popular management tool that has attracted interest from practitioners and researchers. EFQM has developed an assessment system to measure the institutional maturity level of organizations, as well as the administrative framework set forth by the EFQM Model. Organizations have also effectively used this assessment approach and the development roadmaps that emerged as a result of the analyzes in achieving superior performance. In this study, the attractive framework offered by the EFQM Model for the management of accommodation enterprises was discussed, and it was discussed whether the assessment criteria and methodology of the model could be changed in the accommodation sector, using the "Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process". Structured interviews were conducted with sixteen hotel executives, each with over twenty years of experience in the hospitality industry. In the interviews, the assessment framework offered by the EFQM model was handled specifically for the accommodation industry. The collected data were analyzed using the "Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process" and important results were obtained. The results are given in detail in the "Findings" and "Conclusion and Suggestions" sections. It is considered that the results of this research, together with the EFQM Model framework, will make a very important contribution to determining the management practices and institutional maturity levels of accommodation businesses.