Capital budget practices: a study in hospitality companies of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Salvador

Abstract

Budget is considered an essential process to management and communication to the company, to assist in the identification of potentials bottlenecks, to define specific goals and objectives and evaluate future performances. Therefore, this study aims is to analyze the capital budgeting practices adopted by the hotel companies in the cities of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Salvador. Data were collected applying questionnaires in the three cities, constituting a population of 12 hotels associated with ABIH (Brazilian Hotel Industry Association). The results show that the Profitability Index is considered dominant in the budget evaluation by the hotels companies in Brazil, as well the Cost of Equity at the definition of the minimum acceptable rate of return, which is usually the same for all investments. Regarding the most critical stages of the process of investments analyses, are considered critical by the managements the definition of the project and the cash flow forecasting. For the matter of predictability of the hotel environment, the behavior of suppliers is assessed as partially unpredictable, the financial market assessed as possibly predictable and the government assessed as totally unpredictable. And, in addition to this, it was found that the macroeconomic data and the life expectancy are knowledge obtained with little or no frequency by the hotel’s information system.