Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Practices in the Selected Four Star Hotels in Addis Abeba, Ethiopia the Hotels Relationship with Travel and Tour agent Organizations
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Date
2014-05
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
In recent years, CRM has received enormous attention and many companies are spending huge finance to incorporate the system. On the other side, many academicians have tried to address the issue from different angles in pursuit of developing effective and efficient CRM systems. Thus, CRM has been expanded to include an integrated perspective on marketing, sales, customer service, channel management, logistics and technology for engaging in customer satisfaction, and practitioners are interested in all aspects of interactions with customers to maintain a long-term profitable relationship with them. Similarly with regard to CRM in hotels, like many industries and sectors, the hotel industry is also experiencing increasing globalization, competition, higher customer turnover, higher customer acquisition costs and rising customer expectations. As the result, customers are becoming more price sensitive, less brand loyal, and more sophisticated. Thus, considering CRM has become a strategic necessity for many hotels in order to sustain and rip higher profit of the industry. Accordingly, the objective of this study is to explore and examine the Operational and Analytical CRM related practices of the selected four star hotels emphasizing their relationship with travel and tour agent organizations. Both primary and secondary data were collected from both groups i.e the hotels and the travel and tour agent organizations. Hence, interviews were conducted and interviewer administered questionnaires were used as primary data collection means. Findings indicate all the selected four star hotels adoption of CRM concept and practices since their establishment. Further the study indicate the degree of operational and analytical CRM contributions towards the hotels effective CRM practices, indicating the need for revising the assisting IT technologies to utilize them to their fullest capacities and also the hotels performance in promoting all their offers
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marketing, sales, Customer Service