Assessing impact of internal marketing on business performance

Abstract

Objectives of the dissertation1. To understand how DMOs (Destination Management Organization) internally market themselves.2. To develop and standardize the measures to evaluate internal marketing in case of destinations.3. To analyse and understand the relationship between internal marketing and destination performance.4. To recommend to destination managers and planners ways and means to improve destination performance (for internal customers).MethodologyThe quantitative part of the study in this research involved the collection of primary data from the stakeholders (i.e. restaurateur and hotelier, civil authorities, tour guide and escort, public and private monument authorities, employees of tourism authorities, travel agencies/ tour operator, event managers and merchandisers) at destination in selected states of India. For this purpose, data were collected from the four states (Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi) out of the top 11 states of touristic activities in India according to the Ministry of Tourism, India.The study has utilised some forms of qualitative research also. Hence, case studies have taken place in the thesis; those are about Atithi Devo Bhava and Malaysian Hospitality.A structured questionnaire was developed to measure the effect of internal marketing on destination performance. At the beginning of the questionnaire the role of stakeholder was asked for preparing a respondent profile and segregating them on the basis of the nature of their role in the tourism industry. Section A had 1 question, which represented the 13 internal marketing dimensions. This section asked how important were each of the 13 variables. This section was, therefore, about stakeholders' expectations from DMOs. Section B also had 1 question about overall destination performance. Section C, had 12 questions which attempted to measure actual performance of internal marketing effects at the chosen destinations. This section was about the stakeholders' experience through DMOs during the routine operations of the business. Section D comprised of 6 questions of 8 variables, which measured destination performance.Statistical tools were used to evaluate corelations between internal marketing variables and measures of destination performance. All the statistical tools were applied through statistical software packages IBM's SPSS 21.0, AMOS 21.0, and spreadsheet software package Microsoft's Excel 2013.Internal consistency of measures was established through item to total correlation on each section of instrument, separately. Cronbach Alpha (a) and split-half reliability coefficients were computed.Face validity of all the three measures was ensured while selecting the statements for the measures. Content validity was established through the introduction of measures to a panel of judges consisting of experts in the area of specialization from the academics and professional field. The content validity was reconfirmed through factor analysis also.Paired-sample t-test has been applied to check the gap between expectations and experience of stakeholders from DMOs at a destination. One way ANOVA has been applied to evaluate the significance of difference between the states and stakeholders on certain parameters of variables. Ranking of variables has been done on the basis of their mean score and standard deviation for identifying the most important ones.The cause and effect relationships of all the variables were established separately through Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). Relationships between dependent and independent variables have been established through simple linear regression (one dependent and independent) through AMOS. The relationships were also established for each of the cells in the research design with simple regression. Z-test was computed to evaluate the significance of difference between the various categories of stakeholders and states on the basis of the mean scores for all the variables. …