Sustainable Competitive Edge in Rehabilitation Hospitality: Insights From Ukraine

Compelling Storytelling Narratives for Sustainable Branding

Introduction

Our world faces many challenges - climate change, disasters, conflicts, and economic hardship. These affect entire populations and hinder future progress. Sustainable development offers a solution. It prioritizes people's well-being, including mental and physical health recovery, accessible recreation for all, and high-quality, inclusive hospitality services for future generations. Key factors like service quality, infrastructure, and innovation can ensure success in rehabilitation hospitality. True sustainability means protecting nature's resources, developing infrastructure and the economy fairly, and promoting social responsibility. It also involves supporting eco-friendly practices in rehabilitation hospitality. In Ukraine, studying sustainable practices in this field is crucial. This includes using innovative, energy-saving technologies, and supporting local communities through social initiatives. It's a pressing need to overcome the war's consequences.

This chapter focuses on rehabilitation hospitality and its ability to draw in customers with disabilities or other special needs. It argues that creating a welcoming environment that's accessible to everyone should be standard practice in the hospitality industry, regardless of a business's size or budget. The research here examines findings from past studies, which often relied on surveys of hotel customers about their awareness of events. Ultimately, the goal is to show that clear and genuine information highlighting the unique features of hospitality events can be a powerful tool for attracting new customers.

Rehabilitation hospitality in the context of sustainable societal development offers ample opportunities to discuss various aspects. Consequently, the primary hypothesis concerns the potential of rehabilitation hospitality to enhance the quality of life for people with disabilities, as well as individuals impacted by war, thereby contributing to sustainable social development. From this main hypothesis, we derived the following sub-hypotheses:

• H1: Integrating rehabilitation concepts into the hospitality industry enhances business social responsibility, thereby promoting sustainable societal development.

• H2: Rehabilitation hospitality can drive social inclusion and community building, contributing to a sustainable society.

• H3: Applying rehabilitative hospitality principles in hotel operations fosters balanced natural resource use and environmental preservation, essential for sustainable development.

• H4: Implementing rehabilitation hospitality programs for war-affected individuals aids in overcoming post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and social adaptation, ensuring effective societal inclusion and improving overall well-being.

The practical value of this work includes developing the theoretical background and practical insights for rehabilitative hospitality in light of modern technological challenges and increasing environmental pressures. Furthermore, the focus of this work was on shaping new approaches to organizing rehabilitation services in the hospitality industry, which may provide useful insights to various stakeholders (e.g. industry professionals, hospitality managers, local authorities) to help them create competitive services and support their efforts to achieve sustainable development.

Literature Review

Undoubtedly, the rehabilitation industry is a multidisciplinary subject, as it includes hospitality services, medical services, economic situation, and dimensions of sustainable development...etc. Therefore, it is highly sensitive to anychanges that may occur in the surrounding environment (macro and/or micro), including environmental challenges (such as environmental pollution), social challenges (such as demonstrations), political challenges (such as conflicts and strikes), and psychological challenges (such as quality of life, mental health, stress, and occupational exhaustion), medical (such as deterioration of health services, infections, epidemics and viruses, and physical and psychological disabilities), and economic (such as financial crises) among other challenges. On this basis, we will orient the research focus on the analysis of issues of sustainable community development, and rehabilitation and hospitality services (service activities of hospitality entities).