Service Marketing for Budge Hotels --- A case study of Holiday Inn Express

1. IntroductionWhen service industry firstly turned into one of the main economic dominances, it didn't attract much attention from marketing researches (Fisk et al.,1993), as many researchers considered service as a kind of products (Edgett & Stephen, 1993). However, in today's economy it is the service sector that is becoming increasing important. Overall, service industries account for 70% of the UK GDP (Service and Relationship Marketing handout). Thus, there has been a tendency to distinguish between the marketing of physical products and the marketing of intangible service, as the two areas are really different. When purchasing good, the consumer can employ many tangible cues to judge the quality including colour, style, finish, etc, while when purchasing services, fewer tangible cues exist to help consumers make decisions. In many cases service provider's physical facilities, equipment, and personnel are the limited tangible evidence for consumers (Parasuraman et al., 1983), which is a verity for hotel industry.

"Holiday Inn" hotel in Belmont, California, USA

English: Holiday Inn Express Park Royal at North A...

Holiday inn logo

It was argued that attention to physical surroundings is expected to be more important to hotel business compared to other types of services (Verma, 2000). However, as a service organisation, hotels' service quality, reputation are still the most import for consumers' purchase decisions, as they ranked first and second determinants of Dube et al. (2000) research. Therefore, to explore hotel's service and relationship marketing strategies could be a key issue for hotel business success. In this report, one of the leading budget hotels --- Holiday Inn Express was chosen to be analysed in 1) the services they provided, 2) the marketing strategies that used to promote the services in economic downturn; and then recommendations would be provided for adjustment of service and relationship marketing.

2. ContextThe recent happened economic crisis and credit crunch in UK has affected the whole economic environment in UK, with no exception...