An investigation into the relationship between size and efficiency of the Italian hospitality sector: a window DEA approach

This paper analyses the efficiency of hotels across all of the 20 regions in Italy using a data envelopment analysis (DEA). The empirical results indicate that Sardinia can be considered as a region ‘‘falling further behind”, whereas some regions in the North and Centre of Italy can be regarded as ‘‘moving ahead”. Using the island of Sardinia as a case study, approximately 150 firms are analysed in detail over the time span 2002–2005. Via a window DEA, both technical and scale efficiencies are computed. An efficiency compar- ison amongst hotels categorised by size and municipality is run. Finally, policy implications are drawn from the empirical findings that advise how to improve hotels that attained low efficiency scores.