Paper Title
Examining Hotel Management Contract Negotiation Processes in Some Selected Hotels in Northern Nigeria

Abstract
In the Nigerian hospitality industry, hotel management can be overwhelming on the owners; as a result most hotels owners give the management of their hotels to operators. This study, which adopted the survey design aimed at examining the importance attached to hotel negotiation, selection processes and its effectiveness in some selected hotels. Non-probability sampling and the opportunity sampling method technique was used to select10 operators and owners of participating hotels from Bauchi, Kaduna and Abuja. Structured questionnaire was designed and administered. One sample t-test and descriptive statistics was used to analyse and test the hypothesis formulated for the study. Major findings revealed evidence that owners and operators of contract hotels in Northern Nigeria attach high level of importance to the ideals of the negotiation process. Developing and issuing request for proposal to gather information on all operators for the purposes of comparing and ranking in the negotiation; and recruiting negotiation key player such as legal counsel, consultant, and asset managers are weak in their level of effectiveness in the sampled hotels. Therefore owners are to ensure that ideal means of recruiting the right operators for achieving organisational goals for investment is adopted. Keywords: Contract, Management, Negotiation, Processes, Importance and Effective