E-Marketing and the Hotel Industry

Abstract

In today's world, as online consumers become more price sensitive, less brand loyal and more sophisticated, e-Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and e-marketing becomes a strategic necessity for attracting and increasing consumer's patronage. This manuscript traces the evolution of e-marketing and demonstrates the relationship between the Web Presence Index (WPI) of the hospitality sector across a set of hotels. Here WPI of a particular hotel brand is a function of the total web presence across the Website, FaceBook Page, YouTube, Twitter and MakeMyTrip.com. Subsequently, a positive relationship is visible between the Web Presence Index (WPI) for each hotel and further, it's Alexa traffic volume indicates the total online user traffic. This manuscript demonstrates the web presence of hotels through WPI, Alexa, traffic volume, and their weighted calculated score on the basis of the above parameters. The Web Presence Index is indicative of the usability, credibility and persuasiveness of a consumer in the context of hotel websites. It further depicts how hotels can build better relations with customers by recognizing their needs, preferences, complaints and so on.