Title: Hotel terrorist attacks and their worldwide/USA performance implications

Authors: Sofia Dermisi

Addresses: College of Built Environments, University of Washington, 424 Gould Hall, Box 355740, Seattle, WA 98195-5740, USA

Abstract: In recent years terrorists shifted their focus towards 'soft targets', such as hotels, and mass transnational casualties which are analysed in this paper from 1996 through 2014. The trends explored, include: attack cyclicality, factors affecting their frequency, and the financial fallout among luxury, mid-price and economy hotels. The results suggest an 8-year attack cycle on hotels and a 3-year on casualties, with the attack frequency increasing by 75% after 11 September 2001 and new hot spots recently generated. Additionally, countries which are predominantly Muslim, with radical elements, experience a 52% increase in the frequency of attacks on hotels. However, only the luxury hotel Average Daily Rate (ADR) and Revenue-per-Available Room (RevPAR) decreased by 6.9% worldwide and 1.7% in the USA when hotel terrorist attacks occurred. Other socio-economic variables (e.g. GDP/capita, oil prices, recessions) applied had either a non-effect or a diverse effect on attack frequency and hotel revenue.

Keywords: terrorist attacks; hotel attacks; asset management; attack cyclicality; attack frequency; financial fallout; luxury hotels; mid-price hotels; economy hotels; financial performance; socio-economic variables; hotel revenue; terrorism.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBEAM.2015.075059

International Journal of the Built Environment and Asset Management, 2015 Vol.1 No.4, pp.307 - 328

Received: 27 Nov 2015
Accepted: 31 Dec 2015
Published online: 01 Mar 2016 *

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