| dc.description.abstract | Tourism is one of the six key pillars for growth under Kenya’s vision 2030 and hence, this sector may be a primary means of realizing the goal of economic development of undeveloped regions. Hotel sector has a dramatic influence on tourism volumes, but can still significantly affect the path of development by putting a new area or type of product on the map. It is vital for the hotels to remain competitive and the application of internet has been found to improve business growth with internet providing the opportunities for firms to compete on equal terms. In spite of the internet’s potential businesses therefore firms engage in growth and expansion strategies that will enable them to respond to the environmental challenges in order to gain competitive advantage over their competitors, increase market share and for continued survival in the market. This study adopted a descriptive design with main focus on quantitative data. The study population focused on senior management staff at the hotels because they are mainly involved in strategy formulation this include the operations managers, the human resource managers, Customer relations manager and the information technology managers. The study utilized primary data. The researcher used closed ended questionnaires to collect information. A total of 44 usable questionnaires were obtained. The aim of this study was to examine the application of internet as a growth strategy and determine factors influencing application of internet as a growth strategy by the hotel industry at the Kenya coast. The study found out that hotels use internet to a great extent to enhance communication between their organization and stakeholders in exploring and approaching new markets .The main application being on Market development and Product development growth strategies. Internet supports hotels by taking advantage of low cost advertising, bringing new services to the market, quick and efficient expansion entry into new geographical markets. They have focused a lot on regional and international advertising but not much on establishing new distribution channels. The finding support past research that whereas firms perceive use of internet as important they do not use the internet to its full advantage for growth. The study recommends that the hotels comes up with product differentiation strategies by segmenting the customers based on their needs, size and type of business and designing products | en_US |
