African Journal of Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure (Jan 2020)
Balanced scorecard usage for hotel and tourism small and medium enterprises growth in ESwatini (Former Swaziland): A Proposed conceptual framework
Abstract
In the last ten years, there has been a high influx of tourists in Eswatini (Swaziland), and this has resulted in the development of the hospitality and tourism industry; more specifically the increase in the number of small and medium hotels in the country. Therefore,hotel and tourism small and medium entrepreneurs are now converting their homes and rental houses to accommodation services. However, these hotel and tourism small and medium enterprises (SMEs) seem to have no formal performance measurement system or model such as a balanced scorecard (BSC). A balanced scorecard model is a management and measurement performance tool that uses finance, customers, internal business processes, and learning and growth perspectives to evaluate performances (Kaplan & Norton, 1996). BSC is a framework that has been widely used and successful implemented by a small and large organizations. Its successful use has changed the perception that SMEs survive and exist between 3 and 5 years (Kala & Bagri, 2014). My study reveals that these SMEs in Eswatini unconsciously employ some aspects of balanced scorecard perspectives, but some variables are ignored. The BSC conceptual framework proposed in this article motivates that hotels and tourism SMEs should use BSC performance measurement variables together with clusters, innovation, knowledge sharing, trust culture, and shared value theories, criticals success factors and general factors as independent variables contributing to the improvement of their performance and growth. Literature reveals that BSC usage as performance measurement and growth tool for businesses such as the hospitality and tourism sector is essential for evaluating performance (Awadallah & Allam, 2015).Document analysis has been adopted as the main method of data collection in this paper. Hence, different publications, books, and academic journals on the BSC and cluster theory and their value and usage were used significantly as points of reference. The proposed BSC model for SMEs in this sector, being presented in this article, provides a conceptual framework that is empirically being tested in the hotel and tourism SMEs within the Manzini-Mbabane corridor, and it would not only contribute to academic scholarship, but also to the management of the sector under investigation.
