Pamela A. Weaver and Heung Chul Oh
The American business traveller is a very important customer in thelodging industry. Because of this it is essential that the lodgingindustry understands the expectations and…
Abstract
The American business traveller is a very important customer in the lodging industry. Because of this it is essential that the lodging industry understands the expectations and demographic make‐up of this group of individuals. Presents the responses of 433 American business travellers obtained from a national survey. Divides the respondents into two categories: the frequent business traveller who was away from home on at least ten overnight business trips, and the infrequent business traveller who was away from home overnight less than ten times (at least once). Gives a demographic profile of the total sample of business travellers, frequent business travellers and infrequent business travellers. Compares the same three groups with regard to how important a total of 56 services and amenities that may be provided by a lodge are in selecting lodging accommodation.
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Mohita Maggon and Harish Chaudhry
The purpose of this paper is to examine the interrelationships among the extracted constructs of customer satisfaction (CS), knowledge about customer relationship management (CRM…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the interrelationships among the extracted constructs of customer satisfaction (CS), knowledge about customer relationship management (CRM) program, customer attitude and their effect on relationship share (RS). The study also attempts to find if moderating role of gender exists among these constructs.
Design/methodology/approach
A conceptual framework is developed based on previous studies. In order to address a lack of comprehensive evaluation of B2C relationships in Indian hotels, this study extracted the dimensions of CRM in hotels and used them in the structural model. The conceptual model is tested using structural equation modeling approach through maximum likelihood estimation technique. A sample of 305 domestic travelers was used to test the hypothesized relationships among the constructs.
Findings
The findings indicate that CS and willingness to engage (CWER) in the relationship are major predictors of RS. Besides, CS indirectly affects RS through customer’s attitude toward the hotel. The results of the study also show that customer willingness to engage in the relationship is dependent on attitude of customer toward firm which is further dependent on knowledge about CRM program. One more notable finding of the study states that gender plays a moderating role between CS and customer willingness to engage in the relationship.
Practical implications
In addition to contributing toward academic knowledge, the findings of the present study will help the practitioners to better design CRM program and reap its maximum benefits.
Originality/value
The current study has considered new dimensions of CRM like customer’s knowledge of CRM and this is the first study to capture responses of Indian travelers in relation with various constructs. This is the first study to test the moderating effect of gender between various constructs.
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Fei Du, Feng Yang, Liang Liang and Mingming Yang
This study aims to analyze the tradeoff between two potential marketing strategies for service providers, namely, market segmentation on the basis of reservation lead time and…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to analyze the tradeoff between two potential marketing strategies for service providers, namely, market segmentation on the basis of reservation lead time and cooperation with third parties.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper proposes an optimization model to describe market segmentation strategy after cooperating with third parties by taking hotels for example.
Findings
The results show that the profitability of adopting two strategies simultaneously is lower than that with market segmentation alone under some cases, which is relevant with attributes of travel agencies, such as switch rate and market share.
Research limitations/implications
This study indicates that cooperation with third parties has a negative impact on profitability of hotels using market segmentation in some cases. However, randomness of demand, customer loyalty and existence of cancellation should be considered in further research.
Practical implications
In an e-commerce era, hotels with market segmentation based on reservation lead time, are not required to cooperate with third parties under a number of situations (e.g. high switch rates and small market sizes of travel agencies). In addition, hotels should revise the segmentation strategy based on the change rate of potential demand of individual customers. Furthermore, hotels should enhance customer loyalty, strengthen cooperation with travel agencies that possess large market shares or small switch rates.
Originality/value
The study preliminarily formulates the optimal market segmentation strategy on the basis of reservation lead time after cooperating with third parties, which contributes to the revenue management.