Routledge Handbook of Hospitality Marketing

Dogan Gursoy

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781315445502
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Hospitality, Travel & Tourism Industry
• Index: Business

This handbook analyzes the main issues in the field of hospitality marketing by focusing on past, present and future challenges and trends from a multidisciplinary global perspective. The book uniquely combines both theoretical and practical approaches in debating some of the most important marketing issues faced by the hospitality industry.

Parts I and II define and examine the main hospitality marketing concepts and methodologies. Part III offers a comprehensive review of the development of hospitality marketing over the years. The remaining parts (IV–IX) address key cutting-edge marketing issues such as innovation in hospitality, sustainability, social media, peer-to-peer applications, Web 3.0 etc. in a wide variety of hospitality settings. In addition, this book provides a platform for debate and critical evaluation that enables the reader to learn from the industry's past mistakes as well as future opportunities.

The handbook is international in its constitution as it attempts to examine marketing issues, challenges and trends globally, drawing on the knowledge of experts from around the world. Because of the nature of hospitality, which often makes it inseparable from other industries such as tourism, events, sports and even retail, the book has a multidisciplinary approach that will appeal to these disciplines as well as others including management, human resources, technology, consumer behavior and anthropology.

Part I

Hospitality marketing concepts

1

Hospitality marketing

A historical perspective

S. Emre Dilek and Serhat Harman

Introduction

The aim of marketing activities is to create customer value and unique customer experiences. This is also true of marketing activities in the hospitality industry (Maier and Prusty, 2016). Hospitality marketing should be undertaken professionally, depending on the different characteristics of the hospitality industry. Thus, marketing managers in the hospitality industry must understand the nature of hospitality marketing, including from a historical perspective.

Marketing is thought to have become an academic discipline in the first half of the twentieth century (Bartels, 1988). Marketing services had emerged as a sub-field of the marketing of physical goods by the 1980s (Kozak and Andreu, 2006). Academic interest in the marketing of hospitality and tourism services had developed by the end of the 1980s. Today, successful hospitality marketing is a vital force within the hospitality industry and also impacts on tourism destinations.

Following the second half of the twentieth century, studies focusing on hospitality marketing and hospitality marketing practices have begun to appear. The development of hospitality marketing should first be analyzed by situating the appearance and evolution of the discipline of marketing within its historical context (Enrique Bigné, 1996; Kozak and Andreu, 2006).

This chapter consists of two main parts. In the first part, the nature of hospitality, and the definitions and characteristics of hospitality marketing are presented. Hospitality marketing mix is then explained. In the second part of the chapter, a periodization is suggested and a discussion of the historical perspectives of hospitality marketing is presented based on the suggested periodization.

Hospitality marketing

Tourism is a complex phenomenon and consists of different sub-sectors. Tourism is the total system of all the people and organizations that collaborate in order to provide touristic experiences to travellers, who each travel for different purposes and stay overnight at destinations. Hospitality is one of the major components of the tourism system (Goeldner and Ritchie, 2009, p. 154). The hospitality industry covers both the food services sector and the accommodation/lodging sector. Satisfying the basic needs of travellers, such as providing meals and a safe bed/room, was initially the major aim of early hospitality providers. In contemporary society, however, hospitality is more than this; it also includes providing unique experiences to guests and creating value for customers. Thus, hospitality marketing covers all marketing efforts made in order to create unique value and experiences for guests. Before examining historical perspectives of hospitality marketing, we should define the nature of hospitality and the characteristics of hospitality marketing.

Nature of hospitality

The word ‘hospitality’ in English refers to accommodation and food services (Oh and Pizam 2008, p. 4). However, brief studies such as those by King (1995), Jones (1996), Lashley (2000) and Oh and Pizam (2008) indicate that the term hospitality has a deeper meaning and refers to more than just accommodation and food services. According to Lashley (2000), hospitality has three domains; these are social, private and commercial domains. The private domain refers to the learning of the behaviours of being a host and of being a guest, and the mutual understanding of the other party’s needs and wants (Oh and Pizam, 2008). The social domain also refers to the mutual understanding of the social and cultural values of both sides (guest and host); in other words, converting strangers into friends (Selwyn, 2000; Oh and Pizam, 2008). The commercial domain covers all types of economic relationships between the host and the guest (Lashley, 2000).

King’s (1995) seminal work entitled “What is hospitality?” provides a deep and clear understanding of the term. King (1995) points out that hospitality has four main characteristics. These are: it is conferred by a host on a guest who is on a trip away from home; the host and guest come together in an interactive manner; it includes both tangible and intangible factors; the host provides security, and psychological and physiological comfort.

The historical roots of hospitality date back to ancient times. For example, there are references in ancient Greek and Roman sources to the mobility of soldiers and traders, and their need for a safe place to sleep and eat. There are also Bible references to the old nature of hospitality, shaped by travellers staying overnight in inns (Weissinger, 2000). In the nineteenth century, the introduction of the railroads had a significant impact on commercial accommodation. By the twentieth century, various types of accommodation facilities were part of the hospitality industry, including motels and luxury hotels (Weissinger, 2000).

It is possible to say that today, the scope of the hospitality industry is limitless. For example, in 2016 Euromonitor International forecasted US$550 billion of revenue for the European hospitality industry (Statista, 2016). Another report by the American Hotel and Lodging Association indicated that in 2015, the US lodging sector created 1.9 million jobs, generated US$176 billion in 2015, and is comprised of nearly 5 million guestrooms (AHLA, 2016).

Definition of marketing

Marketing deals with customers more than any other business function. Customers’ needs and wants are key to the philosophy of marketing. Different marketing associations and scholars use different definitions of marketing. For example, Kotler and Armstrong (2014, p. 27) define marketing as “the process by which companies create value for customers and build strong customer relationships in order to capture value from customers in return”. According to Middleton et al. (2009, p. 24), on the other hand, marketing is the process of achieving voluntary exchanges between two parties (buyer and seller), while marketing management includes all the decisions for the facilitating of this exchange process. Furthermore, the American Marketing Association (AMA) defines marketing as “the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large” (AMA, 2016); this definition was approved by AMA in 2013. Each of these marketing definitions have a point in common; the term ‘customer value’.

Before a customer buys a product or service, there are some costs that the customer faces by choosing a specific product or service, as well as some benefits. Customer value is a concept that is strongly related to the perceived costs and benefits of a product or service. According to Kotler and Armstrong (2014, p. 35), customer value is the “customer’s evaluation of the difference between all the benefits and the costs of a marketing offer relative to those competing”. It is clear, therefore, that in order to create customer value, the company must first understand what customers really want and how they can satisfy these wants before their competitors do.

What is hospitality marketing?

The historical roots of modern marketing theory go back to the first half of the twentieth century (Middleton, 2000). In the early days of marketing theory, marketing scholars and their studies focused on the sales and distribution of consumer goods. With the development of the world economy, and the service industry in particular, however, marketing studies began to focus on how to facilitate the exchange of services. Lovelock and Wright (1999, p. 5) define a service as “an act or performance offered by one party to another”. The service production process can occur alongside the provision of physical goods and the service performance can be intangible. Others define a service as an intangible product that is sold or purchased in the marketplace (Reid and Bojanic, 2006, p. 9). When talking about hospitality marketing, marketing efforts should be expanded to include the marketing of services, which in turn requires a number of different marketing implications and an extensive marketing mix. Kotler, Bowen and Makens (2014, p. 13) point out that hospitality marketing includes the marketing of tangible products, services and experiences. This means that, in the hospitality industry, understanding customer experiences and the social, physiological and personal domains underlying the formation of such experiences is very important (Tresidder, 2015). Thus, there is a need for the definition of hospitality marketing to include a customer experience domain. We can therefore define hospitality marketing as the process by which hospitality companies create value for customers and memorable customer experiences, and build strong customer relationships in order to capture value from customers in return. This means that hospitality marketing efforts must focus on very different aspects of marketing practices.

Hospitality marketing studies cover various topics adapted from marketing theory. Line and Runyan’s (2012) work examined hospitality marketing articles published in scholarly journals. Their findings indicate that the main research topics found in hospitality marketing journals are the marketing environment, consumer perceptions and characteristics, marketing functions management, planning and strategies, electronic marketing, public relations, internal marketing, demand and pricing, and marketing research. Similarly, Oh, Kim and Shin’s (2004) study indicates that the most widely researched topics are the marketing environment, consumer behaviour, marketing functions, and marketing research. Nunkoo, Gursoy and Ramkissoon (2013) analyzed recent developments in hospitality marketing journals. They found that the main topics or themes are consumer behaviour in restaurants, tourist behaviour, website management/social media/technology adoption, festivals, events, exhibitions, destination management and marketing, hospitality finance and revenue management, and human resources, among other topics.

Every year, millions of people travel for different purposes, including pleasure, business, visiting friends and relatives, and so on. When people are away from home and staying overnight in their target destinations, they have needs and wants that are more than simply their basic needs and wants, such as food and accommodation. A traveller or guest needs to be comfortable, as they would in their own home, and to have memorable experiences. Here, therefore, it can be said that hospitality marketing deals with the customer’s needs and wants when they are away from home. Indeed, in this very dynamic and increasingly fragmented market, hospitality marketing efforts are particularly vital for hospitality business owners.

Characteristics of hospitality marketing

Dealing with a mixture of physical goods, services and experiences means that a number of characteristics are broug...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• Introduction
• Part I Hospitality marketing concepts
• Part II Hospitality marketing methodologies
• Part III Hospitality marketing approaches, functions and strategies
• Part IV Hospitality consumer behavior
• Part V Impact of culture on hospitality marketing
• Part VI Sustainability and the environment
• Part VII Innovation in hospitality marketing
• Part VIII Internet and technology
• Part IX Future of hospitality marketing: Trends and analysis
• Index