This dissertation offers in-depth research on the effects of Hotel Chain Management on the hotel industry and is offered for the fulfillment of a Master’s Degree in Management. The author of this dissertation will carry out in-depth research to find out the marketing strategies that are being employed by the hotel managers in a bid to increasing their clientele which will, in turn, translate to an increase in the profit margins that may be experienced by the hotels.
This dissertation will research how the use of social media, as a marketing tool, has been employed by the hotel managers in a bid to marketing the products and services that the hotels may be offering. In addition to that, the dissertation will offer research on the marketing approaches that have been employed by the hotel managers in a bid to making sure that there is an increase in the clientele which will then translate to an increase in the profit margins that the hotels may experience.
To come up with a research sample that is to be used in the dissertation, the author of this dissertation employed the use of questionnaires that were distributed to employees of two different hotels across North America and Western Europe to find out the views that were held by the employees about the use of the social media, as a marketing tool, in the marketing of products and services that are offered by the hotels.
This dissertation will also employ other research methodologies in trying to understand the effects of the technological advancements in the marketing of products and services in the hotel industry. The research methodologies employed will specifically focus on social medial, as a marketing tool, being employed by the hotel managers in a bid to increasing the clientele base which will then have a positive effect on the profit margins that the hotels may experience.
On the other hand, the author of this dissertation will focus on the marketing strategy approaches that have been used by the hotel managers in a bid to understanding further how the use of technological advancement has affected the marketing of products and services that are offered by the hotels regardless of the economic crisis that is looming on the world. This dissertation will also focus on the marking strategies that are employed by the hotel managers in a bid to providing product differentiation that will go a long way in the increase of the clientele base. This will then translate to an increase in the profit margins that may be experienced by the hotel.
This dissertation will focus on costs that are incurred by the hotels in a bid to marketing their products and how these costs can be reduced through the use of social media, as one of the marketing tools, which is found to be cheap and very efficient in terms of clients being able to raise any questions about the products and services that are offered by any given hotel. In addition to that, this dissertation will carry out a literature review to find out any other researches that have been carried out recently about the marketing strategies that have been employed by the hotel managers in a bid to being able to market the products and services offered by the hotel.
The literature review will also focus on other marketing strategies that have been employed by the hotel managers in a bid to being able to increase the clientele base which will then translate to an increase in the profit margins to be experienced by the specific hotels through the marketing of the products and services they offer.
Hotel Chain Management refers to the management strategies that have been put in place by hotel managers in a bid to increasing the profit margins that may be experienced by the hotels (Dorne 2008, p. 15). In addition to that, it refers to the different marketing strategies that have been employed by the hotel managers. The hotel managers must be able to consider the different factors that affect the market to be able to successfully market the products and services offered by the hotels (Xu 2007, p. 14). They must be able to use the advancements in technology, as one of the marketing strategies, to market the products and services offered by the same hotels.
This is all in a bid to increasing the profit margins that will be experienced by the hotels (Li 2007, p. 2). On the other hand, the use of modern marketing approaches may be employed by the managers to increase the clientele base which will then have a positive impact on the profit margins that may be experienced by the hotels through the sales of the products and services that may be offered by the same hotels (Li 2007, p. 6).
The objective of this research is to analyze the use of social media as a marketing strategy that is employed by the hotel managers in a bid to being able to market the products and services that the hotels may be offering. The author of this research will also analyze the modern approaches that have been employed by the managers in the hotels and how these approaches that have been employed, affect the hotel industry.
This research employs interpretivism philosophy, induction approach, and case study as research strategies that are employed by the hotel managers in a bid to understanding further the effect of social media on the hotel industry in terms of the hotel managers being able to market the products and services offered by the same hotels (Lockwood 2002, p. 45). The author of this dissertation employs the use of questionnaires as a research method. The use of this research method allows the identification of both the similarities as well as the differences that are exhibited by the answers of the questionnaires by the respondents.
The author of this dissertation uses employees from the marketing and strategic departments from two different hotels that are located in North America and Western Europe. The questionnaires are distributed to the employees of the two different hotels of which they are expected to give responses and returned to the author of this dissertation. The responses given in the questionnaires that will be used by the author of this dissertation is the analysis of data.
Research conclusion shows that the hotel managers have employed the use of marketing and social media as ways in which they would be able to market the products and services that are offered by the hotels. This is clear from the responses that were given in the questionnaires that were distributed to employees in the two different hotels in North America and Western Europe. To be precise, there were a total of 50 respondents from two different hotels in North America and Western Europe from the marketing and strategic departments. These questionnaires were structured in a Likert format. In an effort towards increasing the authenticity and support of the survey results, secondary resources such as print articles as well as literature were used alongside the primary data collected from the questionnaires.
In recent years, an economic crisis has swept over the world, leaving its influences on business, the public, governmental organizations, and agencies as well as the hotel industry (Xu 2007, p. 14). Struggling to be survivors of the financial depression, many hotels adopted the use of new forms of marketing strategies in a bid to being able to market their products and services. The hotels also employed the use of technological advancements, as one of the marketing strategies, in a bid to strengthen their competitive competence (Wisner 2011, p. 22). A major technological advancement that has been used repeatedly by the hotel managers is the use of social media, as one of the marketing tools, which has been at the forefront in helping the managers to market the products and services that are offered by the different hotels across the world (Hugos 2011, p. 28).
Some of the social media that have been used by the managers to market the products and services that the hotels may be offering include Facebook, Twitter, and Google among others. Market analysts have recommended the use of these social media tools in that through the use of these tools, the hotel management will incur little cost in terms of the price that is used to market the products and services (Rutherford 2010, p. 68).
The hotels will also communicate with guests and thus have a very good opportunity to be able to market the products and services that they may be offering to their clients. On the other hand, the use of social media, as a marketing tool, allows the clients to air complaints publicly about the products and services that the hotels may be offering. This may have an added advantage to the big hotels that protect their reputation yet may hurt the small hotels.
The market analysts have continued to say that, the use of social media, as a marketing tool, would be very efficient in that a recent survey conducted over the internet has shown that over 5 million users can access the use of social media for one way or the other daily which when exploited may be very profitable for the hotel industry in terms of being able to market the products and services that the hotels may be offering (Brotherton 2008, p. 57).
In the past, the hotel industry did not have ways by which the products and services that they offer were marketed but since the introduction of social media, the hotel managers have been able to market their product differentiations which has been a major milestone in the marketing of the products and services offered by the hotels (Wisner 2011, p. 22). This research will offer details as to how the hotel managers have been able to employ the use of social media as a marketing strategy and how this has affected the hotel industry in terms of being able to market the products and services that are offered by the said hotels.
The author of this dissertation will employ the use of questionnaires in a bid to finding out the effects that the use of social media and other marketing strategies has had on the profit margins that are currently being experienced by the hotels in that the hotels can increase in terms of the clientele which will then translate to an increase in the profit that the hotels are experiencing.
On the other hand, the hotel managers have been able to market their products and services through expos that have been organized in a bid to helping the hotel industry market their product differentiations (Müller 2005, p. 72).
The expos have had a major impact on the profit margins that are experienced by the hotels in that the hotels have been able to increase their clientele which is a major factor in the determination of the profit margins that the hotels may experience. The hotel managers have also employed the use of other marketing approaches in terms of strategic management. This has had a positive effect on the profits that are experienced by the hotels in that hotels have been able to increase their clientele which has in turn translated to the increase that is being experienced by the hotels in the profit margins (Pyo 2002, p. 56).
References
Brotherton, B 2008, The Sage Handbook of Hospitality Management, Sage, New York.
Dorne, R 2008, Service Chain Management: Technology Innovation for the Service, John Wiley and Sons, London.
Hugos, M 2011, Essentials of Hotel Chain Management, Cengage Learning, Oklahoma.
Li, L 2007, Hotel Chain Management: Concepts, Techniques and Practices, Chicago University Press, Chicago.
Lockwood, A 2002, The Management of Hotel Operations, Oxford University Press, London.
Müller, M 2005, Research Methodologies in Hotel Chain Management, Sage, New York.
Pyo, S 2002, Knowledge Management in Hospitality and Tourism, Cengage Learning, Oklahoma.
Rutherford, G 2010, Hotel Management and Operations, Oxford University Press, London.
Wisner, J 2011, Principles of Hotel Chain Management: A Balanced Approach, Harvard University Press, London.
Xu, M 2007, Managing Strategic Intelligence: Techniques and Technologies, John Wiley and Sons, London.