Introduction
In its initial stages, the hotel industry provides renting space for people who were travelling from one place to another. The industry has grown exponentially into a flourishing service sector with revenues of billions of dollars (Prasanna, 2013). The hotel industry has improved its products. While it offered accommodation and food in the earlier years of the hotel industry, the hotel industry in the contemporary environment offers theme parks, conference facilities, lodging, cruise line, restaurants, and transportation among others (Prasanna, 2013). The classification of the hotels using the star system is also partly based on the products, services, and amenities that various hotels can offer (Prasanna, 2013).
It is important for hotels to communicate the services, products, and amenities they offer to their services. Some hotels serve particular niches. This means that they are tailor made to meet the needs of a particular segment of the market. Marketing is even more important for such hotels because of their differentiated service and product portfolio. For instance, there are commercial hotels, airport hotels, residential hotels, conference centers, resort hotels, casino hotels, heritage hotels, budget hotels, economy hotels, suite hotels, luxury hotels, and business hotels (Prasanna, 2013).
The hotel operators need to communicate their unique products and services to their target customers so as to attract them. This is done through marketing. Marketing refers to offering appropriate products at the right place, time, and price (Prasanna, 2013). Trends in marketing have changed, not just in the hotel industry, but also in the entire business environment. The focus of the marketing strategies employed by various business is not just to ensure increased sales. There is an increased recognition of the value of sustainability, hence the focus on customer satisfaction.
Prasanna (2013) argues that the marketing efforts of business in the contemporary business environment should aim to establish a good rapport with their target customers, perform a needs assessment to determine the needs of the target audience, and tailor their products and services to meet the identified needs. This means that marketing is not solely about finding the appropriate customers for the services but offering products and services that are appropriate for the target market (Prasanna, 2013).
There are many marketing strategies that hotel operators can use to attract clients to their establishment. The choice of the marketing strategies to use is dependent on various factors and the products and services that are offered by the specific hoteliers. It is important to understand the marketing strategies that various hotel operators employ in order to attract customers. Understanding the strategies used by various hoteliers is essential to the evolution of marketing as well as the design of novel marketing strategies that communicate the products, services, and amenities offered by hotels more effectively.
Aim
The aim of this this proposal is to determine the marketing strategies used to attract new clients in hotel business.
Objectives
This will be guided by the following research objectives.
Rationale of the Study
Performing this study is important to the hoteliers as well as from an academic perspective. Firstly, the study will offer insights into the strategies that various hoteliers use in attracting new clients. This will help determine the most preferred marketing strategy. When the findings are published, the hoteliers can gain knowledge on the marketing strategies that their colleagues in the industry use to attract new clients.
The study is also important because it offers insights on the thought process of the hoteliers when choosing the marketing strategies to use in communicating their products, services, and amenities to their target customers. The knowledge of the factors that influence the choice of marketing strategies can also inform the understanding of the effect of the dynamics of the hotel industry on the choices made by the hoteliers.
The study is also important because it offers information on the perceptions of the hoteliers on how effective different marketing strategies are in attracting new clientele into the hotels. As highlighted earlier, there are many classifications of hotels. Certain strategies may be effective for a give classification of a hotel and not others. The information from the study will help determine which strategies are effective for particular hotels.
Literature Review
Hoteliers cannot rely on the customers to find them. They need to communicate to their customers of their products, services, and amenities. This informs the customer of the presence of the hotel as a choice for accommodation and dining among other services and products that are offered. For this purpose, hoteliers use various strategies as discussed below.
Marketing Strategies used by Hoteliers
Market segmentation
Marketing segmentation is the action of classifying the customers into distinct groups based on the commonality of characteristics. Middleton et al,. (2009) argues that marketing segmentation as a marketing strategy is a recognition of the fact that customers are have different needs. It is a recognition of the fact that the application of one model cannot meet the needs of all the customers satisfactorily. In the business environment where customer satisfaction is an important factor in the success of a business, hotels that do not differentiate themselves to meet the needs of a particular segment run the risk of reduced sales because the services offered using such a model do not meet the specific needs of any of the market segments (Kotler & Armstrong, 2004).
Kotler & Armstrong (2004) argues that hoteliers can segment the market based on four major criteria. These include geographic segmentation, behavioral segmentation, psychographic segmentation, and demographic segmentation. Using these segments, they divide the market into groups of customers with similar characteristics. The hoteliers can then decide to tailor make their products, services, and amenities to meet the needs of the customers in a given segment. For instance, if the hotelier decides to cater to the high income earners under the demographic segmentation, they can provide the luxurious amenities, quality service, convenience, and products that the affluent require. This is a common practice for five star hotels.
The hoteliers can decide to attract various groups of customers at different times of the seasons depending on the activities that are common at the time. Marketing segmentation helps meet this purpose. For instance, the hoteliers can use the behavioral segmentation to perform a needs analysis of the customers during holidays occasions such as Valentine’s Day. To attract couples during such a holiday, the hotels can prepare packages that meet the needs of the customers on such a holiday. Hotels that offer such packages on such a holiday tend to attract more customers from the particular market segment compared to other hotels. This is because there is valued addition in the products, services, and amenities that the hotel offer (Kotler & Armstrong, 2004).
Relationship marketing
Relationship marketing is yet another marketing strategy that hoteliers use. The use of the relationship marketing strategy is in recognition of the fact that marketing should not be entirely attracting new customers. The retention of customers is also an important part of marketing and an influencing factor on the bottom lines of any business (Narteh et al., 2013). Middleton et al., (2009) argues that relationship marketing recognizes the fact that the long-term engagement with a customer is valuable to a business through repeat business.
Relationship marketing builds on the understanding of the needs of the customers and the resolve to build on delivering those needs so as to retain the customer, and hopefully get them to recommend the hotel to others. The viability of relationship marketing as a marketing strategy is dependent on several factors, among them the quality of the services, products, and amenities that hotels offer (Naderian & Baharun, 2015). The likelihood of customers to be loyal to a business are high when the services, products, and amenities offered are of high quality (Naderian & Baharun, 2015). Hoteliers will deliver more value to their loyal customers to keep them coming back (Luck & Lancaster, 2003; Kotler & Armstrong, 2004).
This is a common marketing strategy for business hotels. Business hotels offer services to corporate clients. For instance, such clients might need to offer seminars, trainings, and other team building activities. Business hotels can prepare packages for the corporate clients that add value so that they can get the repeat business, especially if the events are periodic. Residential hotels also use relationship marketing to attract customers as well as retain them. For instance, residential hotels that are situated in proximity to sports stadia can prepare packages for the away teams in terms of accommodation, meals, and shuttle services. Through value addition, such residential hotels offer accommodation services to several away teams that come to play in the close sports stadia.
Electronic marketing
Lončarić & Radetić (2015) argue that electronic marketing is now gaining impetus in the hotel industry. Marketing is done through the use of information communication technology channels. One of the channels through which electronic marketing was achieved through the use of hotel websites. The hotels would create a website through which they could interact with their customers. This is still a common practice in the hotel industry, although it is complemented through other electronic channels.
The interaction between the customer and the hotelier through the website can either be active or passive. The passive communication takes place when the hotelier posts material on the website for the customer to read at their convenience. Active communication entails the communication between the hoteliers and the customers through interactive live chats. Through the live chats and the passive communication, the hoteliers can guide the customers into accessing the information they require.
El-Gohary (2012) also argues that electronic marketing is not just done using the websites. Five other tools that are used by hoteliers as marketing channels include intranet marketing, email marketing, extranet marketing, internet marketing, and mobile marketing. Using these tools, the hoteliers can reach a variety of consumers and communicate to them the products, services, and amenities they offer, and the value that they can offer to the consumers.
Social media marketing is a particular niche that hoteliers have also explored to attract new clients into their businesses. Al-Msallam & Alhaddad (2016) argue that the social media platforms offer the hotel industry an affordable platform where the players can sell their brand to the millions of subscribers. For instance, many hotels create Facebook pages where they can engage with their members in an interactive way. Al-Msallam & Alhaddad (2016) attribute the participation of the members to hedonic, social, functional, and psychological benefits.
Hoteliers also exploit other websites that give them exposure. For instance, websites such as Yelp, MySpace, and TripAdivsor feature reviews of various hotels. The reviews are both objective and subjective. They offer the customers information on the services, products and amenities that are offered in different hotels, their classification using the five-star system and the value that the products, services, and amenities offer the customers. These websites also feature the reviews that are written by other customers who have been served in the hotels. The reviews offer fast hand experience of the quality of services in the hotel. Depending on the reviews given, the hotels can either benefit or lose their competitive advantage (Gaurav, 2012).
Methodology
Research Design
The study will adopt a qualitative study approach. The qualitative research methodology is appropriate for this study because it allows the researcher to collect both subjective and objective data. One of the research objectives is to determine the perceptions of the hoteliers on the effectiveness of the various marketing strategies. This information may not necessarily be objective. Additionally, the qualitative research methodology allows for the collection of in-depth data that can be used to inform an understanding of the issues under study (Saunders, Lewis & Thornbill, 2009).
Participants
The study population is the hoteliers. The operational definition of hoteliers are the managers who are responsible for the daily running of the hotel. For purposes of the study, the middle level managers will not be sampled because they may not have the influence on the policies on marketing. Instead, the managers with executive powers will be sampled. Alternatively, marketing managers can be sampled in the place of executive managers, a provision that considers the fact that the executive managers might be unavailable.
The sampling of the participants will be done purposively. The purposive sampling is appropriate for this study because the desired participants need to possess certain characteristics to take part in the study. Additionally, there is no requirement for representativeness of the sample because it is not a study of the entire population and there is no need for generalization. The number of participants who will be used for the qualitative study will be ten.
Data Collection and Data Collection Instruments
The data will be collected through two methods. The first method is the semi structured interviews. The semi structured interview guides will be administered to the ten participants by the researchers. The semi structured interviews are important for the data collection exercise because they offer the researcher the structure and guidance of a structured questionnaire as well as the leeway to probe for more in-depth answers as well as authority to ask questions that may not necessarily be in the interview guide, but are important to answering the research questions. The information collected from the semi structured interview will contribute to answering the research questions (Hogan, Dolan & Donnelly, 2009).
Another group of ten hoteliers will be included in a focus group discussion. The focus group discussion allows the peers in the hotel industry to exchange ideas on the marketing strategies while the researcher takes notes. The researcher will be the moderator in the focus group discussion. This means that the researcher will lead the discussion by offering prompts as well probing form more information where there is a need (Hogan, Dolan & Donnelly, 2009).
The participants to which the semi structured questionnaire was administered cannot be used in focus group discussions. The researcher will need to selected another group of ten managers using the purposive sampling method and the other methods of the inclusion and exclusion criteria to take part in the focus group discussion. The data during the interviews and the focus group discussion will be recorded using an audio recorder. The researcher will also take explanatory notes to augment the recorded data (Hogan, Dolan & Donnelly, 2009).
Data Analysis
The analysis of data is an important part of the study. It is in the data analysis that the researcher will manipulate the data collected to derive meanings from the respondents of the participants. The data analysis method to be used is thematic analysis. The recorded data will be transcribed to allow entry into the data analysis platform. The analysis of the data will be done using the nVivo data analysis software (Bazeley & Jackson, 2013). The data will be coded to generate a reasonable number of themes as per the data collected.
Ethical Considerations
The researcher will receive an approval from the Institutional Review Board before the study starts. The researcher will also seek an informed consent from the participants before the study begins. The researcher will inform the participants the aim of the study, what is required of them, the safeguards that will be taken to ensure anonymity and confidentiality. This is especially important because the hoteliers may not want to divulge some information regarding their choices and strategies.
Research Project Schedule
References
Al-Msallam, S. and Alhaddad, A. (2016). The Effects of Social Media Marketing in the Hotel Industry: Conceptual Model for Development of an Effective Online Community. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305263474_The_Effects_of_Social_Media_Ma rketing_in_the_Hotel_Industry_Conceptual_Model_for_Development_of_an_Effective_ Online_Community
Bazeley, P. and Jackson, K. (2013). Qualitative Data Analysis with NVivo. New York. SAGE.
El-Gohary, H. (2012). Factors affecting E-Marketing adoption and implementation in tourism firms: An empirical investigation of Egyptian small tourism organizations. Tourism Management. 33(5): 1256–1269.
Gaurav, S. (2012). Analyzing the Effects of Social Media on the Hospitality Industry. UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones. Paper 1346.Saunders, M., Lewis, P. & Thornbill, A. (2009). Research methods for business students. FT Prentice Hall.
Hogan, J., Dolan, P. & Donnelly, P. (2009). Approaches to qualitative research – theory and practical application: A guide for dissertations students. Oak Tree Press.
Kotler, P. & Armstrong, G. (2004). Principles of marketing. United States. Pearson education Inc.
Lončarić, D. and Radetić, N. (2015). The implementation of e-marketing in the hotel industry. Zbornik Veleučilišta u Rijeci, 3(1):15-26.
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Lynn, M. (2011). Segmenting and targeting your market: Strategies and limitations. Retrieved from http://scholarship.sha.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1238&context=articles
Middleton, V., Fyall, A., Morgan, M. & Rachhod, A. (2009). Marketing in travel and tourism. Great Britain. Elsevier Ltd.
Narteh, D., Agbemabiese, G., Kodua, P., Braimah, M. (2013). Relationship Marketing and Customer Loyalty: Evidence from the Ghanaian Luxury Hotel Industry. Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management. 22(4):407-436.
Prasanna, K. (2013). Marketing Strategies for Standalone Hotels: With Reference to Mayur Aaditya Resort, Dharwad, India. Research Journal of Management. 2(5): 14-19.
