The business challenges and intensely competitive environment in today’s economy make productivity a key factor for organizational survival. This paper examines what productivity means to the services industry, in particular, to the hotel industry. This is underpinned by an investigation of the fundamental differences between goods and services and the implications on productivity measurement and control in the manufacturing and services industries. The purpose of this paper is to critically review productivity measurement and control methods used by researchers and hotel operators in order to find a model suitable for the hotel industry in Singapore, taking into consideration the local cultural expectation and legal context.