Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is one of the biggest challenges the world is facing; currently, that affects all corporate sectors, especially the hospitality sectors. Apart from the hospitality sector, it also negatively affects the financial, corporate, social conditions, and lifestyle of the people globally [1,2]. Previous studies have shown that otherworldly challenges caused by natural disasters, economic, demographic, and political factors affect only a destination or city or state or country for a while. However, COVID-19 has affected the world globally with uncertain duration, degree of its effect, and no tendency of returning to normality at the end of the pandemic [3-8]. 

COVID-19, as campaigned by the World Health Organization, as cited by Bello and Bello [1], Terry and Woo [9], is a contagious disease caused by a virus called severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus -2 (SARS-COV-2). It belongs to a particular group of coronaviruses called beta (β), which is transferred from human to human at a very high frequency. Though the first case of Covid-19 in Nigeria was reported on February 27th, 2020 in Lagos state (Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC), 2020), however, it was not named Covid-20 but Covid-19 because it was first reported in December 2019 at Wuhan, Hubei province, China. This virus had spread like a 'wild fire' to all nations of the world; hence the WHO in March 11th, 2020 declared covid-19 as a pandemic. 

Thus, most countries came out with different measures to combat the spread of this pandemic, such as lockdown, hand washing, social distancing, and vaccination.  Ironically, these efforts to stop the spread had caused more harm than good to the hospitality industry [10]. For instance, it had reduced the revenue, increased employee retrenchment, and caused mental health due to fear associated with losing one's job. For example, the revenue generated per available room and hotel occupancy have reduced by 30.5% and 43%, respectively, in Ethiopia, as documented by Smith Travel Research (STR). 

In the works of Khan et al. [11] they noted that there are few studies in the hospitality sector compared to other sectors on the effects of covid-19. Based on the above, and considering the uncertainty of covid-19, the study therefore contributes to the existing works on its impact on non-financial performance of the hospitality industries in Delta State. 

Hospitality industry and Infection Disease

Hospitality industries and Infection diseases such as covid-19 are bidirectionally linked as regards the causes and effects. In other to control the spread of covid-19, was the lockdown which directly leads to cancellation of accommodations already booked and also the restrictions on hotel operations in conferences, restaurants, banquets and seminars. The above controls measure affects the performance in hotels [1].

Javed [12], study noted that about 90% of hotel bookings were cancelled  in  Pakistan either caused by the fear of contacting or other measures to control the covid-19 pandemic. Before the advent of the covid-19 pandemic, Bello and Bello [1] assert that the contributions of the hospitality industry to the Pakistan Gross Domestic Product (GDP) had a growth rate of 133% from 2012 to 2014, while during the covid-19 pandemic, the industry lost $253.7 million. Furthermore, lock [13] opine, a drop in occupancy rates in the hospitality industry from 70% to 13.3% from 2019 to 2020 respectively, was caused by government measures to combat the pandemic. The study concluded that the hospitality industry in Nigeria suffers low occupancy rates, reduction in patronage and profits. In the same vein, the works of Proshare Research and Okafor [14-15] established that four quoted hospitality industries in Nigeria that reported a profit of 1.85 billion nairas in 2019, now declared losses of 19.77 billion nairas in 2020.          

Gursoy et al. [3] affirmed the findings of the editorial team of the Journal of Hospitality and Management (JHM) that customers may likely not patronize the hotel after lifting up the restrictions on travel and sit-down at home. These findings have affected investors from investing in the hospitality industry since the outbreak of covid-19 in Delta state. Seth, Ganaie and Zafar [16], the lockdown has a negative impact on business, leading such an economy to experience slow growth and, most likely, into recession if not properly controlled. In addition, Aharon et al. found a negative and significant relationship between Covid-19 pandemic and the hospitality industry. Their study buttresses that government measures to combat Covid-19 have a significant negative impact on stock returns of the hospitality industry in the United States of America financial market. Furthermore, Gursoy and Chi [17] assert that above 50% of customers are not ready to travel outside their location to stay in the hotel, which directly reduces the revenue generated from accommodations. Henceforth, travelers or tourists can no longer visit some countries without evidence of taking covid-19 vaccination. This policy had a negative effect on the hospitality industry since some tourists, especially the Christian faithful, are not ready to take the vaccination due to their beliefs. Therefore, since tourism is the major driver of the hospitality industry, the vaccination policy will definitely affect the performance in the industry. 

Fear

The presence of Delta variant and omicron (covid-19) had created more fear and uncertainty, which affects the mental health of the people [18-19] business [20] and economic and social aspects of the life of the citizenry [21-22]. Donthu and Gustafsson [20] posit the presence of fear and the consequences of covid-19 had led most investors not to invest in the hospitality business, which directly reduces the return on assets and its contribution to the economy.

Though, covid-19 has little effect on the hospitality industries in Nigeria when compared to the fear of insecurity since Nigeria is among countries that are non-dependent on tourism [6]. The tourism business cannot prosper in countries like Nigeria due to the high risk of insecurity.  As established by Alfakoro [23], the biggest challenge facing Nigerian businesses is insecurity; this has made persons avoid patronizing the hospitality industries for fear of being kidnapped. Furthermore, in the works of Olaiya [24], between May 29th, 2019 to May 29th, 2020, more persons died through killings and kidnapping than covid-19 in Nigeria. In addition, the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) noted that about 2,771 lives had been lost through Boko Haran insurgency, kidnappers, herdsmen, murderous activities of bandits from January 2020 to May 29th, 2020, while the total death caused by covid-19 from February 27th, 2019 to June 17th, 2020 is about 455. Alfakoro [23] established that more kidnapping exists during the period of emergent of covid-19, implying that a relationship exists between covid-19 and the rate of kidnapping.

Performance Measures in the Hotel Context

The performance of a business is reflected in its returns and the progress of operations. It is a good practice within the hotel industry to have standard key performance measures to monitor and benchmark its performance and success [25]. Hence, Phillips [26] defined performance as the accomplishment or outcomes of an entity, while Reijonen and Komppula [27] defined it as the ability of an object to produce results in a dimension determined a priori, concerning a target. Thus, there are several dimensions to assessing the performance of a firm. Tarurhor and Osazevbaru [28] opine that the performance of a company is a function of formulating appropriate policies, efficient production, and deploying suitable and proper strategies. Venkatraman and Ramanujam [29] identified three dimensions of a firm's success: the financial, operational, and organizational dimensions. The indicators used to operationalize these dimensions are mainly financial ratios, occupancy, prices, RevPAR, sales growth, and customer satisfaction. 

In another study, Ottenbacher [30] identified three other performance dimensions: market performance, financial performance, and employee and customer relationship enhancement. These dimensions can be operationalized by using the following indicators: market share, attracted new customers, profitability, cost efficiencies, total revenue, positive employee feedback, competencies of employees, as well as customer satisfaction [30-31]. Another model of performance measurement was developed by Harris and Mongiello [32], and it is based on three dimensions of investigation: balance – related to balanced scorecard, orientation, and coherence.

Even if measuring a firm's performance is complex, literature has suggested that there are a variety of different measures of success that can be classified into two major categories: financial and non-financial performance measures [26,28,30,33,34]. According to Harris and Mongiello [32], financial performance indicators only allow for feedback on the action taken, while other indicators can give a feed-forward on what is occurring due to actions taken. Among the most used financial indicators are cash-flow, profitability, cost efficiencies, turnover, ROI (return on investments), among others.

However, some authors [32-33] maintained that financial measures are not enough to explain a firm's trends since different causes are influencing the firm's activity, such as competitiveness, quality of products, and services offered, and resource utilization. Consequently, Kaplan and Norton [33] averred that the financial measures need to be complemented with operational measures, which are "the drivers of future financial performance" – customer satisfaction, internal process, and innovation and improvement activities. Some of the variables Kaplan and Norton [33] named operational are used by other authors to define non-financial performance measures [26,34]. Most frequently used non-financial performance measures are: customer satisfaction, market share, employee feedback, human resources, product quality, efficiency, on-time delivery, and utilization [26,30,33,34]. As such, this research pays attention to the non-financial performance measures of the hotel industry using customer care services and service delivery as performance indicators. 

Quantitative methods of research design were adopted in this study. The total population is forty-two registered hotels in Delta state, as compiled in Aziza Goodness. The total population sampling technique is appropriate in this study since the target group of four persons per hotel is adequately small [4,23]. The questionnaires were designed using five scale measurements. Four questionnaires each were sent to the forty-two registered hotels arising to a total of one hundred and sixty-eight questionnaires. Two questionnaires were targeted at the hotel management staff (manager and head of the housekeeper) and the remaining two on the customers. From the above, a total of eighty-four each were distributed to the hotel management staff and customers. Though, a total of about seventy-two percent (72%) amounting to one hundred and twenty-one (121) were retrieved and found useful. 

The reliability test results report of Cronbach Alpha shows an overall of 0.87. Based on the above Cronbach Alpha result, the questionnaires were satisfied okay, coded, and used for the analysis [13,36].

Model Specification

Multiple regression model technique, which helps to capture the effects of explanatory variables on the dependent variables of performance, was adopted in this study [35,36].

The formulated model is thus:

cs = f (cd, fr)

(1)

sd = f (cd, fr)

(2)

Where,

cs : Customer care services     

sd : Service Delivery

cd = Covid-19

fr = Fear

Note, cs and Sd are proxies for non-financial performance. 

Table 1 reports total observations of 121 being the total useful numbers of questionnaires retrieved from the respondents. The maximum and the minimum measurements scales are service delivery, 5.00 and 4.57 for the control variable fear, respectively.

The correlation analysis matrix in Table 2 reports a positive relationship between proxies of non-financial performance (customer care service and service delivery) and covid-19 and fear. The values of their coefficient range from 0.4409 to 0.7207, cannot cause multicollinearity on the result, as their values are relatively lower than the rule of thumb of -0.90 to 0.90. As such, the regression results can be relied upon [36].

Table 3 reports the relationship between customer care service is a proxy of non-financial performance, covid-19, and fear. The results show a positive relationship between customer care service and the explanatory and control variable, which are statistically significant at a 5 % significance level. This positive relationship is justifiable because hotel management measures to control and combat covid-19 have increased the cost of customer care service, which negatively affects the profitability of the hospitality industry. The study reports an Adj R-Squared of 0.5767, indicating that covid-19 and fear are influencing 57.67 % of customer care service. Therefore, this study is consistent with Aharom et al. [37] reporting a negative relationship between covid-19 and performance proxied by stock returns in the US financial market.

Table 1: Descriptive analysis

Source: Researcher result.

Table 2: Correlation analysis

Source: Researcher’s result

Table 3: Regression results when proxied by cs

Source: Researcher’s result

Table 4: Regression results when proxied by sd

Source: Researcher’s result

In the same vein, when service delivery (sd), proxied for non-financial performance, as shown in Table 4, a positive relationship exists between service delivery, covid-19, and fear. However, its relationship with covid-19 is not statistically significant at a 5 % level of significance. The implication of this study indicates that fear has a significant impact on the profitability of hospitality industries in Nigeria than covid-19. Hotel cost of operations increases tremendously in providing securities to alleviate guests' anxiety about being kidnapped. This provision has negatively impacted the profitability of hotels. This study is consistent with Alfakoro [6], Demir et al. [23] and Olaiya [24] which reported that more persons died through kidnapping and killing compared to covid-19 in Nigeria.

The unknown causes of this pandemic from covid-19 to delta variant and currently omicron have impacted and still negatively impacting the entire nation, especially in the hospitality industry. This current study gathered data from the hotel management staff and customers to establish the relationship between covid-19 and non-financial performance of the hospitality industries in Delta state [38-44] The results report that covid-19 and fear positively impacted proxies of non-financial performance. However, measuring with service delivery reports that the relationship with fear is statistically significant and also affects more than covid-19 in its contribution to the performance of the hospitality industries in Delta state. The study recommends that the Nigerian government should provide adequate securities to alleviate fear in order to boost the tourism and hospitality industry.

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