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The majority of businesses within the Austrian hospitality industry fall into the category of small and medium sized businesses and moreover are family owned. Within the next years a high number of hoteliers will retire, which means that they have to hand over the business to the next generation. Family businesses differ from non-family businesses in many aspects and furthermore, the succession process is different in each case. Moreover, the transition to a family member brings additional difficulties which the involved parties have to deal with. Actually no real planning for the succession process currently exists within the Austrian hospitality industry. The reasons for this are that long term planning, such as strategic management which also includes the planning of transition of the firm to the next generation, is not conducted in a proper way. Moreover, the handing over within a family business involves a lot of psychological aspects and therefore the involved parties often postpone thinking early enough about planning the process. Due to the variety of aspects influencing the succession within a family business, the author of this master thesis researched these important factors. The combination of the literature research, together with the gathered information from the empirical research based on expert interviews, brought up recommendations for action.

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Kornelia Friedrich, BA MA, born in Austria in 1983 holds a Bachelor of Arts in Business and a Master of Arts in Business degree from Salzburg University of Applied Sciences in Austria. She is specialized in hospitality management and succession planning for small and medium sized enterprises (SME).

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