ABSTRACT
The importance of promotional tools on performance of businesses cannot be over emphasized, reason being that promotion is the vehicle through which information about existing and new products are made known to existing and prospective customers. Hotels and fast food operators need to adopt promotional mix strategies in order to attract and retain customer, thus improving their performance level. Few studies have been done on the relationship between promotion and performance on hotels and fast food operations in Nigeria. This study, thus, sought to look at influence of promotional tools on performance of hotel and fast food operations in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. The study adopted a descriptive research design. The target population was marketing staff of hotels and fast food operating in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. Simple random sampling technique was adopted with 180 respondents sampled, using Taro Yemene sampling size determination. The data was subjected into regression analysis using SPSS 20 version statistical software to analyze mean, standard deviation, correlation, ANOVA and coefficient. Correlation matrix was done to test the relationship existing between the variables and performance. The study established that predictive variables like sales promotion, direct marketing and public relations are positively correlated and significantly influences performance of hotels and fast food operations in Port Harcourt than the other two variables of advertising and personal selling. Thus, recommended that hotels and fast food operators should concentrate more on variables like sales promotion, direct marketing and public relation in addition, promotional budgets should be enhanced to further strengthen the impact of the adopted tools. Hence, the study concluded that proper and effective utilization of promotional tools influences performance (profitability) of hotels and fast food operations in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title Page i
Declaration ii
Certification iii
Dedication iv
Acknowledgements v
Table of Contents vi
List of Tables ix
Abstract x
CHAPTER
1: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
to the Study 1
1.2 Statement
of Problem 5
1.3
Purpose of the Study 6
1.4 Research
Questions 7
1.5 Research
Hypotheses 7
1.6 Significance of the
Study 8
1.7 Scope of the Study 9
CHAPTER
2: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURES
2.1 Conceptual Framework 10
2.1.1 Advertising 13
2.1.2 Sales promotion 17
2.1.3 Personal selling 20
2.1.4 Public relations 25
2.1.5 Direct marketing 25
2.2 Factors to Consider When Choosing Promotional
Elements 33
2.2.1 Target audience 33
2.2.2 Product life
cycle 33
2.2.3 Production
characteristics 34
2.2.4 Stages of the
buying decision 34
2.2.5 Channel
strategies 35
2.3 Theoretical Framework 40
2.3.1 Lasswell’s communication theory 40
2.3.2 AIDA theory (Aaker
and Joachimsthaler, 2000) 42
2.3.3 Hierarchy of
effects theory (Lavidge and Gary 1961) 43
2.3.4 Relationship
marketing theory (Liam Alvey, 1986) 45
2.4 Empirical Framework 47
2.5 Gap
Identification in Literature 53
2.6 Summary
of Literature Review 53
CHAPTER
3: METHODOLOGY
3.1 Research Design 55
3.2 Area of Study 56
3.3 Population for the Study 56
3.4 Sample/Sampling
Technique 57
3.5 Instrument for Data Collection 58
3.6 Validation of the Instrument 58
3.7 Reliability of the
Instrument 59
3.8 Method of Data
Collection 59
3.9 Method of Data
Analysis 59
CHAPTER
4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
4.1 Data Presentation and
Analyses 61
4.2 Test of Hypotheses 74
4.3 Summary of Findings 76
4.4
Discussion of Findings 77
CHAPTER
5: SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
5.1 Summary 81
5.2 Conclusions 82
5.3 Recommendations 83
5.4 Contribution to
Knowledge 84
References 85
LIST OF TABLES
4.1 Mean Ratings, Standard deviation and
Ranking Order Analysis on the Influence
of
Advertising on Hospitality Operations in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. 61
4.2 Mean Ratings, Standard Deviation and
Ranking Order Analysis on the
Influence of Sales Promotion on Hospitality
Operations in Port Harcourt,
Rivers State. 63
4.3 Mean Ratings, Standard Deviation and
Ranking Order Analysis on the
Influence of Personal Selling on Hospitality
Operations in Port Harcourt,
Rivers State. 65
4.4 Mean Ratings, Standard Deviation and
Ranking Order Analysis on the
Influence of Public Relation on
Hospitality Operations in Port Harcourt,
Rivers State. 67
4.5 Mean Ratings, Standard Deviation and
ranking Order Analysis on the
Influence of Direct Marketing on Hospitality
Operations in Port Harcourt,
Rivers State. 69
4.6 Correlations Matrix
4.7 ANOVA 71
4.8 Coefficients Output 72
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
The competition to attract consumers’
attention towards products or services has nowadays become indispensable in
businesses operation. Consequently, each producer needs to build a more
attractive strategy and action plan than its competitors, (Adesoga, 2015).
There has been high level of competition on business environment in the 21st
century, as a result of rapid growth in promotion and access to information
around the globe. This has made the environment very complex and consumer
preference keeps changing because of the low switching cost in the market. In
order to keep up with the competition and changing consumer needs and wants,
firms are forced to adopt effective promotional strategies to promote growth
beyond boarders, thus creating awareness and increase usage rates of their
products and services.
Promotional strategy enables firms to
attract and retain customers, thus, increasing growth in terms of return on
investments due to expanded client base (Kotler, 2007). Information and
awareness about a product for the prospective or existing customers are very
essential to every organization, be it profit or non-profit venture. Hence, for
business to make known its products to the public, it will need some level of
awareness which can be in form of promotion. Promotion however, is one
marketing mix element which raises customer awareness about a product or brand,
generate sales, and create customer loyalty (Njoku, 2003). Oftentimes, the most
important decisions marketing managers make are how they can inform prospective
customers about their products. How they can best communicate with prospective
customers and persuade them to buy their products. This however, becomes
imperative for them to map out modalities on the best possible means to inform
the public on the introduction of a new or existing product. This can only be
made possible through promotion.
Promotion is one prominent tool of
attracting consumers’ attention towards products. According to Chaharsoughi and
Yasory (2012), promotion is one of the key factors in the marketing mix and has
a key role in market success. Promotion is used to ensure that consumers are
aware of the products that organization is offering. It is the process of
establishing communication relationship between a marketer and its publics.
Marketing promotions is quite different from mass communication, in which an
organization addresses largely undifferentiated mass audience for non-
commercial purpose by such means as press editorials, radio news, and
television. Under marketing promotions, an organization would be aiming at a
deliberately differentiated audience for a commercial purpose and would employ
such means as advertising, personal selling, sales’ promotion, public relations
and direct marketing. Promotion also involves any technique, under the control
of a seller that can communicate favorable and persuasive information about the
seller’s product to existing and potential buyers, either directly or through
other means that can influence purchase decision (Dommmermuth, 2003).
Promotion, according to Brassington and
Pettitt (2012), is the direct way in which an organization communicates the
product or service to its target audiences. They further categorized the
promotional tools into five main elements namely; advertising, sales promotion,
public relations, personnel selling, and direct marketing.
The role of promotion has been redefined
into managing long term relationships with carefully selected customers,
including construction of a learning relationship where the marketer attains a
dialogue with an individual customer (Dawes and Brown 2000).
Hotel refers to an establishment providing
accommodation, meals and other services for travellers and tourists. While fast
food, on the other hand, is an establishment providing easily prepared food
served in bars and restaurants as a quick meal or to be taken away (Karen,
2010). Hotel has a primary purpose of
providing traveller with shelter, food, refreshment and similar services and
goods, offering on a commercial basis, things that are customarily furnished
within households but unavailable to people on a journey away from home. However,
fast food gives similar services except accommodation and it provides minimal
table service. Louis (2010), described hotel as a great soul that cares for the
whole universe through the ties of humanity. According to Telfa (2000), hotel
is a domestic concept, meaning that it is special, with the nature of the
sharing of drink, food and shelter to people who actually are not permanent
members of a household. Brotherton and Wood (2001) see hotel as a business
aimed at providing the visitors with accommodation, food and organizing their
leisure time.
In hotel and fast food, promotional tools
are key ingredients in marketing campaign. Promotion has contributed a lot in
boosting a better image of both major and minor hotels in every part of the
world (Ivuanyi, 2008). However, hotels use promotional tools to communicate to
the public, the type of services they render hence, considering the interest of
its customers and various publics. According to Dommmermuth, (2003) services,
promotional policies and strategies constitute elements of its promotion-mix in
hospitality industries. Thus, Hotels provide meals, drinks, attraction,
accommodation etc. to the general public or persons in transit especially
people travelling to places where they have neither their own homes nor any
relation to carter for their needs. Such persons will like to know few things
about the hotels in their transitory area. In other words, they may like to
know about available hotels, the categories of such hotels, the room and suit
rate and the type of foods served, the necessary comforts customers are
accorded-with, the game that is, both indoor and outdoor games available and
perhaps other special features that make such hotels appealing to the
sojourners in transit. These characteristics of hotels are boosted by
promotions.
In Nigeria, major hotels such as Transcorp
Hilton, Sheraton, Eko hotels and suits, Hotel Presidential, to mention but few
have made impressionable image both nationally and internationally and the
praises go to promotions that have heralded their various characteristics,
class placement status to the public generally. Without promotion, the image of
these hotels and their excellent services would not be so diffused to the
public.
Port Harcourt, being the hub of oil and
gas industries in South-South and Nigeria at large, play host to different
stars of hotels and fast food and this is why it was the center of this study
because of its strategic significance and location on oil and gas deposit.
Thus, most of them use complimentary services, a type of promotional strategy
to reward loyal customers in order to keep them. Such hotels and fast food include,
Hotel Presidential Port Harcourt, Novotel hotels, Golden Tulip hotels, Ebekennedy
hotels, Edge hotels, Genesis fast food, Hannahs fast food, The Promise fast
food, Belefull fast food, Big Treat fast food and event center etcetera. These
hotels and fast food use promotional tools to make known their existence.
Hence, such promotional tools are, advertising, sales promotion, direct selling
publicity and public relation. Hence, they strategically use them to induce and
keep both existing and prospective consumers and command their loyalty.
The study, therefore, is to determine the
influence of promotional tools on the performance of hotels and fast food operations
in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
Foskett, (1999) stresses that today’s
customers seek value from companies that provide leading-edge products,
hassle-free transactions at competitive prices and customer intimacy. Promotion
practices have changed dramatically to improve transactions and increase
customer intimacy by emphasizing long-term relationships and increasing
self-regulation.
To survive in the competitive marketing
environment, both small and large organizations need to adopt promotional mix
strategies in order to attract and retain customers hence long term
relationships and growth in terms of productivity (Reid, 2005). Increased
revenue, increased client-base and customer loyalty are measures of growth of
any organization in the competitive market (Marquardt, 2014). Unfortunately,
the issues of marketing are becoming more complicated as competition of hotel
and fast food services continues to change worldwide (Albers-Miller and
Sraughan, 2008).
Promotional strategies are underutilized
by hotels and fast food operating in Port Harcourt. Reason being that, they are
concentrating more on advertisement and sales promotion strategies leaving the other promotional strategies. This
invariably made the awareness and patronage of hotels and fast food very slim
and difficult. Thus, affecting their general performance level. Therefore,
hotel and fast food operating in Port Harcourt need to increase their level of
promotion to create more awareness on the availability of facilities and
services they offer to the public. This can be done through the use of stiff
advertising, sales promotion personal selling, public relation and direct
marketing.
Again most of the hospitality marketing
literatures have concentrated on marketing theory to the near disregard of
promotion practice and even those who have researched on promotional tools,
concentrated on individual promotional tools like advertisement, sales
promotion, public relation, direct marketing and personal selling as a separate
concept and this was majorly done in other sectors such as banking, production,
insurance etcetera.
Promotion strategies adopted by
organizations providing hospitality services remain an understudied area.
Arising from the above findings, it is evident that, there are many areas about
the promotion mix strategies on both hotel and fast food outfits that have not
been investigated by previous research studies. It is for this reason that the
study seeks to look at the effects of promotional tools on the performance
of hotels and fast food outfits in Port
Harcourt.
1.3 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The main objective of
this study is to evaluate the influence of promotional tools on hotels and fast
food operations in Port Harcourt Rivers State.
Specifically, this study seeks to:
i. Evaluate
the extent to which advertising influences performance of hotels and fast food
operations in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
ii. Assess
the extent to which sales promotion influences performance of hotels and fast
food operations in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
iii. Investigate
the extent to which personal selling influences performance of hotels and fast
food operations in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
iv. Assess
the extent to which public relation influences performance of hotels and fast
food operations in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
v. To
investigate the extent to which direct marketing influences performance of
hotels and fast food operations in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
i.
How does advertising
influence performance of hotels and fast food operations in Port Harcourt,
Rivers State?
ii.
How does sales promotion
influence performance of hotels and fast food operations in Port Harcourt,
Rivers State?
iii.
How does personal selling
influence operations hotels and fast food operations in Port Harcourt, Rivers
State?
iv.
How does public relation
influence performance of hotels and fast food operations in Port Harcourt,
Rivers State?
v.
How does direct marketing
influence performance of hotels and fast food operations in Port Harcourt,
Rivers State?
1.5 RESEARCH HYPOTHESES
Based on the research
questions above, the following hypothesis were considered for the purpose of
this study.
HO1 Advertising
does not influence the performance of hotels and fast food operations in Port Harcourt,
Rivers State.
HO2 Sales promotion does not influence the
performance of hotels and fast food operations in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
HO3 Personal selling does not influence the
performance of hotels and fast food operations in Port Harcourt, Rivers State
HO4 Public relation does not influence the
performance of hotels and fast food operations in Port Harcourt, Rivers State
HO5 Direct marketing does not influence the
performance of hotels and fast food operations in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
This study shall be of great significance
to educational institutions, hotels and fast food operators, government bodies,
researchers and students. The researcher’s motive on this intrusive research
process is to contribute his quota to the already developed work on the issue.
The study is significant as it will be
helpful in understanding the interplay of the promotional tools; hotel and fast
food operations, thereby contributing to the existing literature.
However, the research will be helpful to
the following persons in the following ways
1. To educational institutions:
it will serve as a useful reference
material to educational institutions, especially researchers who want to
undertake a study on the area of promotion and its effect on hotels and fast
food operations.
2. To hotels and fast food operators:
the study will provide the standard basis
to understand the functionalities of the various promotional tools and its
funding as well as the most appropriate one which will influence sales.
3. Government bodies: the
study will serve as a guide to government in the area of policy making,
especially as it affects the operations of hotels and fast food outfit and how
government can influence their regulatory agencies to water down the expenses.
Hence, encouraging rapid growth of the industry.
Finally, it will be valuable to
researchers as a means for further study and to build on new knowledge in
hotels and fast foods.
1.7 SCOPE
OF THE STUDY
This work focuses on the staff of the marketing
department of selected hotels with selected fast foods operating in Port
Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria.
Content
scope
This study centres solely on effects
of promotional mix on the performance of hotels and fast food operations in Port
Harcourt, Rivers State, and will be focusing on AIDA and communication
theories.
Geographical scope:
The geographical boundary of
this study will be based in Port Harcourt at the national level. And contains
all the promotional activities of hotels and fast food within the boundary of
Port Harcourt, Rivers State, South-South, Nigeria.
Study unit:
This research dwells on the
national level unit of study as it intends to investigate how promotional mix
influences performance of hotels and fast food operations in Port Harcourt,
Rivers State, South-South, Nigeria.
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