Marketing Hospitality Industry in an Era of Crisis

Abstract

The article examines and evaluates Greek hotels' marketing strategies during recession. It focuses on the investigation of hospitality practices during crisis, marketing strategies and innovation, development of competitive advantage, use of information technology (IT) for marketing, and the influential links between them. It also examines the impacts of accommodation category and geographical type of hotel. The research is based on a nationwide e-mail survey to hospitality managers/owners (N = 914). The results reveal the significant effort put into production cost minimisation, the direct effect of this on marketing strategies, the strong enterprising focus on marketing innovation, and the impact of the use of IT for marketing purposes, whilst the accommodation category has a greater impact on the examined constructs than does geographical type. The conceptualisation adopted provides recommendations for hospitality owners and managers along with a better understanding of the aspects contributing to hospitality marketing in a period of recession and political instability.