The use of ISO standards in the hospitality industry: a comparative analysis of European clusters

The article provides a comparative analysis of the use of ISO standards in the hospitality industry among 46 European countries. The study confirms the hypothesis that the more actively ISO 9001 standards are distributed in European countries, the higher is the level of implementation in the hospitality industry and other ISO standards for management systems (ISO 14001, ISO 45001, etc.). The degree of ISO standards distribution can be a non-formal criterion of the degree of population’s involvement in the technological, technical, organizational culture of the European society. The degree of correlation relationship between the Rating of countries by the number of issued ISO 9001 certificates and the Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI), Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) and Global Innovation Index (GII) rankings of countries is examined. The authors offer the clusterization of the European countries according to three criteria: the number of obtained ISO 9001 certificates; the time of accession to the EU (and the existence of the membership status of countries, candidate countries or potential candidates); the presence of common characteristics according to the technical, socioeconomic, sociological and technological level, as well as moral and ethical norms formed in these countries during the existence of two political and socioeconomic system