Abstract

In the last few decades, the luxury hotels have become significantly dominant in China. There are many luxury five star hotels which are currently operating in China. Though, initially there were making the significant profits, but recently, a new trend is observed where it is found that their performance is declining. Considering the recent dilemma regarding the performance of luxury hotels, this research is conducted about the factors which are important for improving the performance and future development of luxury hotels. Firstly, it analyses the literature about the strategic brand management and customer relationship management and secondly it identifies the factors that can lead towards the better performance of five star hotels. Thirdly, this research explores how strategic brand management and customer relationship management could be beneficial for five star hotels. Fourthly, it explores the role of strategic brand management on the brand performance of Westin Hotels. Further to this, it examines the role of customer relationship management in the brand performance of Westin Hotels. This research is based on the qualitative research methods where both primary and secondary methods are used. In the primary research methods, interview strategy is selected and interview guide is developed which has helped to fulfil the aim and objectives of this research. Three marketing managers of Westin Hotels are interviewed in this research. In this research, it is concluded that both customer relationship management and strategic brand management are important determinant of performance and future development of five star hotels in China. Therefore, luxury hotels must improve their orientation towards these two aspects. At the end, the recommendations for future researchers are also provided.

1.Chapter One: Introduction

1.1.Introduction

The tourism in China has expanded in last few decades with the emergence of newly rich middle class. Moreover, the beginning of reform and opening resulted in expansion of tourism industry. With the ease of restrictions on the movement, the tourism industry of China experienced boom. China is known as the world’s most watched and famous outbound and inbound tourist market. However, there is a need for sustained Chinese tourism boom, there is a need for such strategies which could assure the sustained growth of Chinese tourism industry. According to Puvaneswary (2013), the third most visited country of this world is China where it had 55.98 million tourists from overseas market in 2010. It earned 45.9 billion U.S. dollars foreign exchange income which was the highest in 2010. Moreover, it had 1.61 billion domestic tourists in 2010 which had the total income of around 777.1 billion (Guodong, 2010).This shows that China’s tourism industry is crucial for its development, hence, its sustainability and good performance is quite important.

With the increased dominance of hotel chains in China, the tourism industry of China has flourished significantly. With the China’s economy reform and opening up, the dramatic changes were being observed in its tourism industry. There are various kinds of hotels that are currently working in China. The structure of tourism industry was also changed with the involvement of multinational hotel companies. With the massive inbound tourists and technology transfer, there were many indigenous hotels which entered into the hospitality industry of China. However, after the development of hospitality industry, few hotels have started to experience the slow expansion and they have become less competitive. Therefore, the good performance of such hotels has become quite suspicious. Such hotels are in continuous search of such marketing strategies which could help them to ensure their sustainable good performance (Qi, 2012). The focus of present research is on the branding strategies for good performance of such hotels whose growth has become questionable.

According to Wen (2015), currently the economy of China is undergoing major structural changes due to the tertiary industry and consumption. It has observed a declined growth in its market of real estate and fixed asset investment. This has led to the noticeable changes in the hotel industry. Now, this is the time where hotel investors are more concerned about the financial returns and they favour those hotels for investment which has growth potential. It is said by Howison and Cronaner (2012), that the hotel industry of China is going to experience the restructuration in terms of characteristics, management, investors, market segmentation and nationality.  This shows