It's not been more than 30 years since the national brands appeared in the Korean hotel business. Today branding has powerful influences on the hotel business. Despite that, however, there is a lack of study on the images of hotel brands.
Thus this st...
It's not been more than 30 years since the national brands appeared in the Korean hotel business. Today branding has powerful influences on the hotel business. Despite that, however, there is a lack of study on the images of hotel brands.
Thus this study set out to suggest the differentiation strategies with the brand identity of a hotel corporation through a concrete documentary study on brand images and an empirical study on the typology of hotel brand images.
For that purpose, the following research goals were set:
First, the study will investigate the relations between brand images and personalities along with their influencing factors by conducting a documentary study on brand building.
Second, the study will analyze the hotel brand images according to the uniqueness of the hotel business by reviewing the previous study on hotel brand images.
Third, the study will analyze and apply the measurement items and scales to typology the hotel brand images based on the previous study.
Fourth, the study will examine and analyze the typology of the hotel brand images with the subjects of clients in Seoul.
Finally, the study will offer differentiation strategies of brand identity for the hotels.
The next progress would involve identifying the types of hotel brand images based on brand personality, understanding the characteristics and differences of five hotels chosen in advance(Grand InterContinental, Shilla, Grand Hyatt, Lotte, and Sheraton Walkerhill), and examining the attributes of hotel brand images. The specific research questions were set as follows:
<Research Question 1>
What are the types of hotel brand images according to brand personality?
<Research Question 2>
What are the characteristics of each hotel according to the types of brand images?
<Research Question 3>
What are the factors to favor certain hotel brand images?
In an attempt to fulfill the research goals, a documentary study and empirical study were carried out. The books, papers, publications, and statistics home and abroad in the field of brand images, personality and marketing and hotel marketing were consulted to find the theories and methodology needed to do the theoretical research.
Using the results, the theories of the hotel brand images were systemized. The considerations and systematization led to the typology of hotel brand images, which in turn allowed for an analysis of theoretical concept models to suggest differentiation strategies of hotel brand identity. Then a scale of brand personality for the typology of brand images was used to set some mediator variables.
For the empirical study, the investigator distributed and collected the questionnaires containing an explanation of the goals and contents to the subjects for 17 days from September 5 to 21, 2006. The subjects filled out the questionnaire in the self-administered questionnaire survey method, in which they understood the goals and methods of the survey and answered the questions themselves following the directives on the questionnaire.
The collected data were analyzed using the statistics program for social science, SPSS 11.0. The methods of analysis were as follows:
First, frequency analysis was conducted to understand the demographic characteristics of the subjects.
Second, a Chi-square test was performed to examine their preference for the hotels according to their demographic characteristics. A t-test and ANOVA were also conducted to analyze the difference between the types of hotel images and major image factors. Following ANOVA, Duncan's post-test was performed to investigate the difference among the groups if there was significant difference. The analysis results were as follows:
First, Shilla scored the highest points on the reliable image, being followed by Sheraton Walkerhill, Grand Hyatt, Grand InterContinental, and Lotte, which scored the lowest points on the image. As for the growth image, Grand Hyatt scored more than Grand InterContinental. As for the sincere image, Shilla scored the highest points, and Sheraton Walkerhill scored more than Lotte. As for the interesting image, Grand Hyatt and Sheraton Walkerhill were the top leaders, followed by Lotte(4.39), while Grand InterContinental and Shilla were placed at the bottom. And for the sophisticated image, Grand Hyatt, Grand InterContinental, and Sheraton Walkerhill scored more than Shilla and Lotte.
Second, Grand InterContinental scored the most points on the sophisticated image, which was followed by the reliable image. Its points on the growth and sincere image were rather low with the interesting image at the bottom. Shilla scored the highest points on the reliable image, which was followed by the sincere image. Its points on the growth and sophisticated image were rather low, and the interesting image was lower than the others to a great degree. Grand Hyatt scored the most on the sophisticated image with relatively higher points on the reliable and growth image. But its sincere image was rather low. Lotte didn't have too high or too low images with the growth image scoring relatively more than the rest. And Sheraton Walkerhill was about the same with Lotte in that it didn't have too high or too low images, but it scored more on the reliable and sophisticated image than on the sincere and interesting image.
Third, the brand image analysis results according to preference revealed that the greatest number of the subjects(33.3%) preferred Shilla, which was followed by Grand Hyatt(23.1%), Sheraton Walkerhill(19.6%), Grand InterContinental(15.9%), and Lotte(8.1%) in the order. Those respondents that had better images of Grand InterContinental than others said they rated the overall image of the hotel high because of its good images of stability and handling of customer complaints. They also showed positive reactions to the location, staff service, and corporate image of the hotel. Those who had better images of Shilla than others said they did so because of the corporate image, history, heritage, and stability of the hotel. Those who had better images of Grand Hyatt than others answered that its favorable image derived from the stability, corporate image, history and heritage of the hotel. Those who had better images of Lotte than others said they did so because of the staff service, quality of foods and beverages, banquet halls, and stability of the hotel. Finally, those who had better images of Sheraton Walkerhill said they did so because of the stability, staff service, and quality of foods and beverages of the hotel.
The analysis results imply that there was significant difference in the image types of the five hotels. The answers about the typology of the hotel brand images describe the brand images that the clients have for each of the hotels. The results were then presented to the marketers of the hotels so that they can find the differentiated characteristics of their hotel brand images and establish their identity.
A comparison and analysis of the brand images pursued by the hotels and those actually felt by the clients will offer some results helpful in establishing the brand identity of the hotels. Since it turned out there was difference in the brand images felt by the clients in the segmented markets by age and gender, it's important for the marketers to segment the market further and come up with more active strategies to build the brand identity with.
The study, however, has the following limitations:
First, the study selected five Special First Class hotels in Seoul. More hotels should have been included in the analysis.
Second, the subjects were chosen from the Koreans living in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province, which can raise a question about external validity.
Third, there should be an analysis of influencing factors in addition to the typology of the hotel brand images.
In future there should be follow-ups on the typology of the brand images of the hotel business with its own uniqueness different from other businesses. They will have to suggest clearer hotel brand images and thus offer an alternative to building hotel brand identity by analyzing the attributes that decide the hotel brand images, expanding the subject groups, or surveying the professionals.