استراتژی های بازاریابی هتل در زمان های آشفته : تجزیه و تحلیل مسیر تصمیمات استراتژیک

The hotel industry has been hit hard by the economic recession. Given the economic challenges facing businesses have not been seen since the Great Depression, hotel executives are making unstructured or first-time decisions, responding to the current business climate. Using McCracken's (1988) long interview method, four Pacific Asia hotel executives provide insights of how two major hotel chains develop new strategies in these turbulent times. To provide structure to these insights, Mintzberg, Raisinghani, and Théorêt's (1976) unstructured strategic decision making model provides a template to map problems or opportunities and alternative development and selection.

The World Tourism Organization projected a decline in international tourism for 2009 due to the global economic recession (WTO, 2009). Although projections for Asia were better, the region experienced negative growth (− 3%) for the last six months of 2008. A combination of events related to the global financial crises—fluctuating oil prices, increasing inflation, and extreme market volatility—created an unhealthy economic environment affecting tourism and hotel industries (see Lomann, 2008). Despite economic conditions not seen since the Great Depression, the hotel industry's outlook remains positive suggesting adaptation to the turbulent business environment. What are the keys to their relative success? This paper examines the strategic marketing decision making process of hotel executives in Asia over the last year. Employing McCracken's (1988) long interview method, personal, face-to-face interviews of executives provide insights on the strategic marketing process as international hotel chains adapted to the dynamic changes occurring in Asia, particularly Japan, China, and Singapore. To provide structure to these insights, path analysis maps the unstructured decisions. Mintzberg, Raisinghani, and Théorêt's (1976) unstructured strategic decision making model provides a template for showing problems or opportunities, alternatives development, and alterative selection. During the last two turbulent years, the hotel industry adapted promotional methods, adjusted product offerings, and created new alliances. These changes resulted in more customers and provide compelling evidence that the hotel industry is prepared for a year of positive growth in 2011. This study's findings support qualitative methodology's importance to understanding business decision making. This study offers unique insights for building theory and collecting interpretative data to study strategy formation for multinational hotel chains.

Cause mapping helps understand complex, lagged, relationships having feedback loops occurring among interacting individuals and organizations (Woodside, 2010, p. 352). Critics note the limited number of feedback loops, a tendency to use mapping to over-simplify a situation's complexity, assumptions that alternatives have equal certainty, and a lack of time delays integration into the processes (Woodside, 2006). Despite these shortcomings, the empirical testing of cause mapping supports the technique's validity (see Gladwin, 1989). Adapting Mintzberg et al.'s (1976) unstructured strategic decision making model, interviews of hotel executives provide insights on their marketing strategy formulation. Path analysis shows how these companies adapted strategies to changing environmental conditions. These companies adapted their marketing strategies to minimize the lost revenues due to the economic recession. The interviews provide important insights on the decision making process of these companies. All four executives recognized the importance of maintaining brand image. While some cost cutting was done, care was taken not to reduce service quality. The customer behavior changed considerably. Large businesses engaging in international travel virtually vanished. The customer mix changed to leisure travel and some small and medium size businesses. Each person interviewed recognized that a buyer's market existed, and customers expected more for their money. Bundling services was the preferred approach to adding value. Price cutting was avoided because the executives expressed concern that the hotels would have difficulty raising prices in the future. Both companies recognized different approaches were needed to promote their brands. Domestic travel increased and both companies adapted by providing incentives either through loyalty programs or service bundling. A noticeable shift from Japanese to Chinese international leisure travel has occurred. Both companies also note the importance of online travel agents (e.g., Expedia, C-Trip, and Ikyu) to drive business to their hotels. Perhaps the most surprising change is the reduction or elimination of traditional promotional methods. Online advertising and promotions seem to fit the customer mix better. Companies like new media because measuring the results is much easier. Online activity becomes a double-edged sword for these companies. Customers also have immediate access to global audiences if their experience does not meet expectations. Both hotel chains have created systems to monitor online blog postings by customers. Both hotel chain A and B executives are optimistic for next year. Asia is viewed as a high growth region and both companies have aggressive expansion plans. Hotel chain B expects to open 30 to 40 hotels in Asia this year (Yong, 2010) and A has 58 hotels under construction (Trampert, 2010). This year is considered a transitional year and the world outside North America will drive the economy out of this recession (Yong, 2010).