<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//NLM//DTD JATS (Z39.96) Journal Publishing DTD v1.4 20221130//EN"
  "JATS-journalpublishing1-4.dtd">
<article xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
         xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"
         xmlns:ali="http://www.niso.org/schemas/ali/1.0/"
         xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         article-type="research-article"
         dtd-version="1.4"
         xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="https://jats.nlm.nih.gov/archiving/1.4/xsd/JATS-archivearticle1-4-mathml3.xsd"
         xml:lang="en">

  <front>
    <journal-meta>
      <journal-id journal-id-type="publisher-id">CACTUS</journal-id>
      <journal-id journal-id-type="nlm-ta">CACTUS J Tour Bus Manag Econ</journal-id>

      <journal-title-group>
        <journal-title>CACTUS – Journal of Tourism Business, Management and Economics</journal-title>
      </journal-title-group>

      <issn pub-type="epub">2247-3297</issn>

      <publisher>
        <publisher-name>ASE Publishing House</publisher-name>
        <publisher-loc>Bucharest, Romania</publisher-loc>
      </publisher>
    </journal-meta>

    <article-meta>
      
      <article-id pub-id-type="publisher-id">cactus-2019-4</article-id>

      <article-categories>
        <subj-group subj-group-type="heading">
          <subject>Research Article</subject>
        </subj-group>
        <subj-group subj-group-type="jel">
          <subject>L83, C83</subject>
        </subj-group>
      </article-categories>

      <title-group>
        <article-title>Research on the Perception of Employees with Regard to their Contribution to Creating Competitive Advantage in Luxury Hotels in Bucharest</article-title>
      </title-group>

      <contrib-group>
        
        <contrib contrib-type="author" corresp="yes">
          <name>
            <surname>Voicu</surname>
            <given-names>Aura-Mihaela</given-names>
          </name>
          
          <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1_1"/>
          <email>voicuaura95@gmail.com</email>
        </contrib>
      </contrib-group>

      
      <aff id="aff1_1">
        <label>1</label>
        <institution-wrap>
          <institution>Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania</institution>
        </institution-wrap>
      </aff>

      <pub-date pub-type="epub">
        <day>15</day>
        <month>6</month>
        <year>2019</year>
      </pub-date>

      <volume>1</volume>
      <issue>1</issue>
      
      

      <history>
        <date date-type="received"><day>15</day><month>6</month><year>2019</year></date>
        
        
      </history>

      <permissions>
        <copyright-statement>Copyright © 2019, The Author(s)</copyright-statement>
        <copyright-year>2019</copyright-year>
        <copyright-holder>The Author(s)</copyright-holder>
        <license license-type="open-access" xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">
          <license-p>This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).</license-p>
        </license>
        <ali:free_to_read/>
        <ali:license_ref>https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/</ali:license_ref>
      </permissions>

      <abstract xml:lang="en"><p>The competitive advantage of a company brings together the unique elements and attributes that it owns and exploits them in order to set apart significantly from its competitors. Advantage benefit sources are multiple, and a combination thereof leads to a series of unlimited opportunities for strengths diversification against the competitors. One of the most valuable sources is the employees, whose contribution is vital to gaining competitive strengths. This paper aims to investigate the perception of the employees of the luxury hotels in Bucharest regarding their own contribution to the creation of the competitive advantage. The research was conducted using a questionnaire applied to people with work experience in 4- or 5-star hotels in the capital city, regardless of the position held, and was based on three main objectives. The first set goal was aimed to test the hypothesis according to which employees are the most important source of competitive advantage, but this was not fully confirmed by the respondents. The second hypothesis refers to the fact that all positions held within a luxury hotel can contribute to the creation of the competitive advantage, which is unanimously confirmed by the interviewees. The third objective of the research was to discover how the employees of the luxury hotels in Bucharest assess their own contribution to the creation of the competitive advantage within the hotel where they work; The conclusion for the proposed objective was that they assess on average their own contribution with a grade of 8 out of 10. The implications of this article may be found in other researches that could, for example, address the competitive advantages of luxury hotels in other cities worldwide, compared to those in Bucharest or the differences between luxury hotels in Bucharest and those located in other large cities in Romania, in terms of competitive advantage.</p></abstract>

      <kwd-group xml:lang="en">
        <title>Keywords</title>
        <kwd>Competitive advantage</kwd>
<kwd>employee perception</kwd>
<kwd>luxury hotels</kwd>
<kwd>Bucharest</kwd>
      </kwd-group>

      <self-uri content-type="text/html" xlink:href="http://0.0.0.0:3000/articles/cactus-issue-1-vol-1-no-1-2019-art-4"/>
      <self-uri content-type="application/pdf" xlink:href="http://0.0.0.0:3000/Pdf/vol_1/Voicu_Aura.pdf"/>
      <self-uri content-type="application/xml" xlink:href="http://0.0.0.0:3000/api/articles/cactus-issue-1-vol-1-no-1-2019-art-4/jats"/>

      <related-article ext-link-type="uri" related-article-type="in-issue" xlink:href="http://0.0.0.0:3000/issues/cactus-issue-1-vol-1-no-1-2019" id="ra1"/>

    </article-meta>
  </front>

  <body>
    <p>Full text available in PDF format.</p>
  </body>

  <back>
    
    <ref-list>
      <title>References</title>
      
      <ref id="ref1">
        <element-citation publication-type="other">
          <comment>Benedictar, K. (2012). Service strategies and competitive advantage of five star hotels in Nairobi, Kenya. School of Business, University of Nairobi. Retrieved January 3, 2019, from http://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke/bitstream/handle/11295/95568/Kariuki%20_Service%20Strategies%20And%20Competitive%20Advantage%20Of%20Five%20Star%20Hotels%20In%20Nairobi,%20Kenya.pdf?sequence=4</comment>
        </element-citation>
      </ref>

      <ref id="ref2">
        <element-citation publication-type="other">
          <comment>Cakmak, P., &amp;amp; Tas, E. (2012). The use of information technology on gaining competitive advantage in Turkish contractor firms. Istanbul Technical University, Faculty of Architecture. Retrieved January 4, 2019, from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/40b9/b73a95f617af9e22a1a3c1bb31fe08ebe2fa.pdf</comment>
        </element-citation>
      </ref>

      <ref id="ref3">
        <element-citation publication-type="other">
          <comment>Camara, S., Hernandez, M. J., Moyano-Fuentes, J., &amp;amp; Vargas-Sanchez, A. (2003). Information technology and competitive advantage: The role of the ownership structure. University of Jaen. Retrieved January 4, 2019, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/221409160_Information_technology_and_competitive_advantage_The_role_of_the_ownership_structure</comment>
        </element-citation>
      </ref>

      <ref id="ref4">
        <element-citation publication-type="other">
          <comment>Dogan, H., Nebioglu, O., Aydin, O., &amp;amp; Dogan, I. (2013). Architectural innovations are competitive advantage for hotels in tourism industry? What customers, managers and employees think about it? Retrieved January 3, 2019, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042813039864</comment>
        </element-citation>
      </ref>

      <ref id="ref5">
        <element-citation publication-type="other">
          <comment>Enz, C. (2011). Competing successfully with other hotels: The role of strategy. Cornell University. Retrieved January 3, 2019, from https://scholarship.sha.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1295&amp;amp;context=articles</comment>
        </element-citation>
      </ref>

      <ref id="ref6">
        <element-citation publication-type="other">
          <comment>Foroudi, P. (2018). Influence of brand signature, brand awareness, brand attitude, brand reputation on hotel’s brand performance. International Journal of Hospitality Management. Retrieved January 4, 2019, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278431917308411</comment>
        </element-citation>
      </ref>

      <ref id="ref7">
        <element-citation publication-type="other">
          <comment>Kim, B., &amp;amp; Oh, H. (2004). How do hotel firms obtain a competitive advantage? International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management. Retrieved January 3, 2019, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237935928_How_do_hotel_firms_obtain_a_competitive_advantage</comment>
        </element-citation>
      </ref>

      <ref id="ref8">
        <element-citation publication-type="other">
          <comment>Mathur, P. (2015). Achieving competitive advantage through employees. The IIS University. Retrieved January 3, 2019, from ijahms.com/upcomingissue/08.09.2015.pdf</comment>
        </element-citation>
      </ref>

      <ref id="ref9">
        <element-citation publication-type="other">
          <comment>Xu, J., &amp;amp; Quaddus, M. (2013). Information systems for competitive advantages. Atlantis Press. Retrieved January 4, 2019, from http://www.springer.com/978-94-91216-88-6</comment>
        </element-citation>
      </ref>
    </ref-list>
  </back>

</article>