Thesis
Branding and market segmentation within the international hospitality industry
- Creator
- Rights statement
- Awarding institution
- University of Strathclyde
- Date of award
- 1997
- Thesis identifier
- T9046
- Qualification Level
- Qualification Name
- Department, School or Faculty
- Abstract
- In this thesis, the main trends for segmentation and the increasing use of branding within the international hospitality industry during the past decade, are investigated by focusing specifically on some major hotel chain cases world-wide, which are currently implementing the concept of branding in order to position their products, achieve product differentiation and specific image to appeal to their target market segments. Taking into consideration the advantages that a segmented approach to marketing can bring to a hotel firm and the fact that segmentation can provide the key to profitable marketing in competitive markets, this thesis will also analyse the criteria and the needs for brand segmentation as well as the comparisons between consumer product brands and hotel product brands, since branding is a concept which has been recently transferred from consumer goods to the hotel sector. Special features of hotel brands as well as their advantages and limitations are thus considered, concentrating specifically on the structure, operation and branding policies for wider expansion and economic growth. The two main types of hotel brands are also identified, the soft hotel brands and the harder hotel brands, demonstrating the differences as well as the minimum and maximum conditions in order to classify each hotel brand respectively. Further discussion regarding the emergence of branding in the UK and European hotel industry is followed by case studies. Cases of developing new forms of tourism especially in the Asian countries are also presented, which illustrate the uses of branding by certain companies operating world-wide. The most important market segments that seem to emerge nowadays in the hotel sector and play an increasingly significant role for the development of the hotel firms are also presented. The potential growth of each market segment, particularly in the years ahead, is predicted, while recommendations on how hotel operators can successfully exploit these sources of wealth are discussed by exhibiting various statistics and estimations on how these market segments are going to evolve in the future years. Planning, programming and implementation through the concepts of segmentation and branding is further analysed so that a more specific idea of how branding can interact between hotel firms and the need of satisfying the desires of the new arising segments, can be demonstrated. The primary research measures, firstly, the brand awareness and usage of Hilton in comparison with 6 other hotel chain brands of the same category, secondly, evaluates the main services in terms of importance and excellence in order to make the business traveller, who constituted the sample, to stay or repeat usage in a Hilton hotel, and thirdly, identifies the three dimensions of price, number of facilities and quality which differentiate Hilton from the other hotel chain brands included in the study. Making a quick review of the research objectives and hypotheses related to the primary research, here is presented an indication of the approach adopted to meet these specific objectives: Regarding the first research objective, which is the assessment of the extent of brand awareness and usage of Hilton, in comparison with 6 other hotel chain brands, it is presented, especially in the second Chapter, that brand awareness is closely related to the brand name when a hotel is considering to position itself in the minds of the consumer. Reviewing the marketing theory about branding, it is further indicated that brand familiarity creates assurances of quality, which in turn favours purchase, reducing simultaneously the increased importance of price when the customer decides to purchase it. It is therefore judged necessary to measure brand awareness though it has also been indicated through previous hotel case studies that sometimes brand awareness does not necessarily require the guest to be aware of the hotel brand name. The second research objective deals with the assessment of the main reasons that the business traveller choose to stay in a Hilton Int. Further analysing this objective, it was decided to develop a set of fifteen attributes in terms of importance and excellence in order to identify the hotel services that make him select a Hilton Int. hotel. The third objective is related to product differentiation. It was thus decided to assess the importance of a set of three product features in order to differentiate Hilton among hotel brands. These product features are price, number and quality of facilities and services. In exhibiting this important consideration, it is firstly hypothesised that there is a high correlation between price and range of facilities and secondly that quality of services and facilities is related to price and range of facilities, though theory supports that quality is independent of price and range of facilities.
- Advisor / supervisor
- Schlentrich, Udo
- Resource Type
- DOI
- Funder
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