A descriptive examination of corporate governance in the hospitality industry

The purpose of this descriptive study is to explore the nature and extent of corporate governance practices in the U.S. hospitality industry. The data were derived from three sources: Standard and Poor's Compustat database, the Center for Research in Security Prices, and RiskMetrics. The results indicate that hospitality firms with weaker shareholder rights tend be relatively larger in size, have relatively higher earnings per share, closing stock prices, return on equity, lower capital expenditure per assets and higher leverage ratios. Moreover, there were significant differences in several firm performance measures between high and low corporate governance firms across the three industry segments, namely hotels, restaurants and casinos.