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The COVID-19 pandemic has provided fresh evidence of the external turbulence that has impacted the worldwide labor-intensive tourism sector. Because the hospitality business relies on physical (i.e., in-person) interactions, the pandemic almost completely stopped any economic turnaround, a fact reflected by the grim condition of the mass layoff of more than 4 million people, according to American Hotel & Lodging Association (2023). The World Travel and Tourism Council (2021) reported a $4.5 trillion total loss worldwide. The same experience occurred in, with nearly 1 million workers being furloughed. As the global health environment improves, tourism is again flourishing, but it is facing daunting tasks, one of which is restarting its hospitality function in the formal sectors of the hotel industry.
Layoffs and furloughs almost completely stopped the business routines in hotels during the pandemic. The travels of international tourists after borders reopened increased by 900% relative to before the pandemic. A report from the Indonesian Tourism Ministry (2022) indicated a consumer optimism rate of 86%, an increase in digital nomads, and flourishing Small Medium Entreprises (SMEs). COVID-19 also pushed the rise of revenge tourism—the tendency to travel, to release the constraints after lockdown—as observed in a 46% rise of hotel occupancy in 2022 relative to 2021 (World Tourism Organization, 2023). Syariati et al. (2023) pointed to the tendency to move toward green hotel initiatives after the pandemic, including a launching by the Indonesian government of cleanliness, hygiene, sanitary, and environment (CHSE) certification, to accommodate Indonesian hotel transition policies. These government efforts, health measures, and economic booms have led to an urgent need to reinvent the service climate after the temporary closure of hotels. These changes are prerequisites to the new hotel management as investigated in this study.
The service climate, the capacity to present a standardized service, has to be re-created as job reopening during economic recovery necessitates the hotel management to rebuild the standards. Hotels urgently need an excellent service climate because it affects the delivery of quality service, customer satisfaction, and employee well-being. Employees’ shared perceptions of a hotel’s policies, practices, and procedures are the foundation of hospitality offerings. Service climate, first coined by Schneider (1980), appreciates the nature of the service industry, which mainly deals with humans instead of machines (Grönroos, 2006; Shostack, 1977). Thus, the service industry, to provide excellent service established in the organizational routines, must create a strong sense of belonging and appreciation. This notion is consistent with the service-dominant logic (Vargo & Lusch, 2004) that characterizes management systems of the hospitality business.