Marketing Strategies and Performance of Large Hotels in Nairobi County

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to establish the relationship between marketing strategies and performance of large hotels in Nairobi. Specifically, the aim was to determine the effect of market penetration strategy, evaluate the influence of diversification strategy, establish the influence of market development strategy and determine the effect of product development on performance of large hotels in Kenya. The population comprised of all the large hotels in Nairobi registered and licensed by the Tourism Regulatory Authority. Only five and four star hotels based in Nairobi were studied. This made a total of 30 hotels. Descriptive, correlation and regression analysis were used and results presented in tables and figures. The findings obtained revealed that the most adopted penetration strategy was penetration pricing on services, the most adopted marketing strategy was making hotel brand visible to the niche market, most adopted product development strategy was existence of promotion strategies while diversification adopted to the largest extent was maintaining of strong customer relationship. On the relationship that existed between the study variables, product development strategies, market development strategies and penetration strategies had a positive relationship implying that the marketing strategies application positively influenced performance of hotels. Multiple regression analysis obtained a positive coefficient of correlation implying that product development strategies, diversification strategies, market development strategies and penetration strategies had a positive effect on organization perfomance. The study concluded that marketing strategies positively affects performance of large hotels in Nairobi. Product development strategies, diversification strategies, market development strategies and penetration strategies were concluded to be strategies adopted by the hotels and improved hotel performance. The study also established that the marketing strategies have a significant positive relation with the performance of the large hotels.The study recommends that the implementation process of these marketting strategies should be given top priority during the strategy formulation process to enhance performance of hotels.