Improving efficiency in international tourist hotels in Taipei using a non-radial DEA model.

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to evaluate the operational efficiency of 23 four‐ and five‐plum international tourist hotels (ITHs) in Taipei in 2006, paying attention to efficiency improvement using a non‐radial data envelopment analysis (DEA) model.Design/methodology/approach – A non‐radial DEA model is proposed to improve the efficiency of inefficient hotels focusing on the output side by allowing for non‐proportional reductions in each positive input or augmentations in each positive output. The model considers four inputs (total number of rooms, total number of employees, food and beverage (FB variable returns to scale are assumed.Findings – The empirical results show that the radial and non‐radial DEA models provide not only different performance measurements for the corresponding hotels but also different benchmarks from different angles for improving efficiency.Practical implica...