The Adoption of Administrative Knowledge Management in Advancing Tourism and Hospitality Sector Performance and Sustainabilty

The modern business environment is rapidly changing and generating unpredictable competitive challenges. Tourism and hospitality industry is specifically vulnerable to such unplanned changes and forced to respond in quick time to address detrimental business situations. It is known for a long time that competitiveness in the global market depends on the organization’s ability to capitalize on its intellectual and knowledge-based assets. In that sense, knowledge is recognized as fairly potent asset supporting organizations and the entire tourism industry in creating an efficient model for achieving competitive advantage and realizes their desired business performance. The Tourism and Hospitality industry has been exposed to turbulent business environment as a result of the unstable economic challenges affecting the Nigerian economy. In this unpredictable environment, thinking smart creates sustainability hence the study aims to leverage the appropriateness of administrative knowledge management adoption as a survival strategy to enhance performance in the Tourism and Hospitality industry. The research was prompted by the observation that, despite Nigerian leapfrogging in the tourism sector from the time of multi-currency, the country remains essentially a consumer nation with nothing to show on the knowledge based economy. The authors explored relevant literature to systematically examine the significance of incorporating administrative knowledge management concept in the hospitality and tourism sector in Nigeria. The main findings are that Lack of application of administrative knowledge management system and inadequate adoption of the ICT is affecting knowledge sharing and utilization to take place. In addition, the study revealed that Poor knowledge management comes from lack of clear human resource management procedures, lack of policies for management of intellectual capital and lack of learning culture and organizational structures in the Tourism and Hospitality industry. The authors therefore recommended that the Nigerian tourism and hospitality industry should make deliberate and intentional efforts at improving the adoption of administrative knowledge management, align knowledge management with rewards, support knowledge sharing culture, teamwork and reduce bureaucratic structures in other to enhance their level of performance.

Keywords: Administrative Knowledge Management, Intellectual Capital Security, Tourism, Hospitality Sector Performance.