ASSESSMENT ON THE PRACTICE OF RELATIONSHIP MARKETINGIN SHERATON ADDIS HOTEL

Abstract

This study assesses the practices of relationship marketing in the hotel Industry with special emphasis of Sheraton Addis. In recent times, relationship marketing has been viewed to be critical to the success of business organizations. Thepractices of relationship marketing in real world context have not been matured due to the lack of knowledge and principles of subject matter. These compelled many practitioners to face problem of not only to gain customers but also to keep them. For this reasons, the point of deviating the practices of relationship marketing from what the theories says is central concern. Thus, the objective of this study is to assess the practice of relationship marketing in the context of hotel industry specifically Sheraton Addis with view to draw lessons to other businesses in hospitality industry.For the purpose of this study data was collected from 106 gusts of the hotel during the time of data collection through convenience sampling technique. Both primary and secondary data collection instruments were used to collect data.Questionnaires along with interviews were used for the purpose of data collection. The findings from thesurvey examined the resident guest‟s position on the importance level of variables constructed and their perception of RM practice. In addition, interview conducted with the representative of marketing department deputy director of Sheraton Addis and examined the awareness of RM concepts and systems employed for the actualization of RM on the ground. The majority of the respondents typically suggested that RM practices of the Hotel require improvement on communication ability of staff, duration of services and mainly the hotel need to have gym. The study also reveals that there is no independent organizational structure for RM. Rather the Hotel employed other divisions of marketing department for running relationship marketing.