Accelerating the growth of a business by integrating online marketing with existing offline activities: the case study of selected hotels in sunyani municipality.
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Date
2012-06
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KNUST
Abstract
Developments in information technology have changed the manner in which competitive advantages are achieved today and with customers becoming increasingly sophisticated and gradually moving towards the internet, it has become necessary for marketers to reach out to this new market segment whilst ensuring that the offline customers are also well catered for. This study therefore aimed at investigating how growth within the hospitality industry can be accelerated by integrating online marketing with existing offline activities. Given the exploratory nature of this study, data was collected quantitatively using questionnaire and qualitatively using interview. In all, fifty (50) customers from five selected hotels within Sunyani Municipality were issued a questionnaire and five managers from these selected hotels were also interviewed. The study revealed that hotels within Sunyanimarket their services offline with few online activities. However, the online marketing comes with tremendous benefits. Based on the findings, the study established that both online and offline marketing activities were important in terms of accelerating business growth as far as hotels in Sunyani are concerned.From this study, the following recommendations were made: hotels should blend the two marketing activities for the time being and slowly shift attention to online marketing activities considering the enormous benefit the study outlined.
Description
A Dissertation submitted to KNUST School of Business in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of Master of Business Administration Degree