Marketing of Tourism and Hospitality Products: Study of the Impact of Celebrity Endorsed Advertisements on Hospitality Products and Services

Abstract

Tourism and hospitality industry like any other industry tries to put across its all the efforts for profit maximization and overall market leadership. Current Hospitality and Tourism industry is characterized by cut throat competition, new emerging markets, new opportunities, new challenges etc. Marketing of Tourism and Hospitality products require better strategies and techniques in the fast passed environment. In current scenario marketing strategies with faster response time is preferred by the marketers which has led to evolution of advertising and electronic media making the recent marketing tool very effective but only for the short term because in longer run these strategies don't sustain the organization mission and vision. The research methodology adopted is based on the secondary data from the reliable sources along with well structured interviews and personal observations. For studying the effect of celebrity endorsed hospitality products and services around 40 guests were interviewed and 400 questionnaires distributed in Gujarat especially in hotels of Ahmadabad, Rajkot, Baroda and Surat. Out of all the 400 questionnaires distributed the well completed questionnaires ratio was 35% i.e. 140. The present study was conducted on the guests staying in hotels of Ahmadabad, Rajkot, Baroda and Surat to know the impact of various marketing techniques affecting the choice of the guests. The study attempts to find out the effect of celebrity endorsed hospitality products and services and also to estimate the amplitude of profitability which might be feasible due celebrity endorsement. The study tries to understand the reasons of tourism upsurge in Gujarat due to recent promotional campaign and celebrity endorsement of Gujarat tourism by actor Amitabh Bacchan. The results revealed that celebrity endorsements also played a vital role in introducing either a faded away product or to generate curiosity and interest up to a fair extent in the Indian context as the domestic Tourism and Hospitality is a major pie in the overall Indian tourism and Hospitality. Study also tries to understand the other marketing styles in hospitality industry especially celebrity endorsed advertisements. Electronic Media like different websites, social networking sites like face book, twitter, advertising; sales promotion and the most recently flash marketing or mob marketing has evolved as marketing tools of modern society. The dire need of the moment in Indian or state tourism and hospitality industry is to reach to the world and showcase its true potential.