Human capital plays an essential role in firm sucess in the hospitality industry (Baum, 2015; Tracey, 2014); however, how the mechanism through which human capital contributes to a hotel's performance remains unclear (Bagri et al., 2010; Domínguez-Falcón et al., 2016; Ooi et al., 2015). By extending Hua et al. (2015) and O’Neill et al. (2008), this study systematically examined the impacts of human capital, proxied by Total Labor Expenses at different lagged time points, on hotel operating performance, while controlling for a comprehensive array of potential confounding variables. This study offers a more holistic view of whether human capital influences hotel operating performance, and if so, how. It further sheds light on explaining the mixed results from prior research. The employment of the fixed effects model framework also enables control for fixed effects variables such as chain scale and location.