Segmentation Strategies for Hospitality Managers

Book excerpt: Get the competitive edge in a fierce market! Effective market segmentation approaches can show a company which customer group is most profitable and how to best serve their needs. Segmentation Strategies for Hospitality Managers: Target Marketing for Competitive Advantage is a marketing primer whose time has come, teaching segmentation approaches that can make a difference where it really counts—the bottom line. Introductory to intermediate level hospitality managers and students are provided with easy-to-follow explanations and effective learning exercises that will help them grasp segmentation concepts and strategies quickly. Unlike other hospitality marketing textbooks out there, this book persistently focuses specifically on segmentation and positioning strategies. Segmentation Strategies for Hospitality Managers effectively tells how to best use the integrated resources of a hospitality firm to gain and maintain the competitive edge. Examples are taken from the hotel, restaurant, and airline industries to give a well-rounded view of the industry’s practical and productive use of segmentation strategies. The text explains advantages and limitations of various segmentation strategies such as relationship or niche marketing to help assist managers in their own future decision-making process. Detailed chapter summaries and challenging end-of-chapter exercises further reinforce each chapter’s concepts and approaches. Extensive references, several illustrative figures and tables, and specific case examples from various hospitality sectors are included. Topics in Segmentation Strategies for Hospitality Managers include: positioning strategy niche marketing relationship marketing marketing trends technology’s impact on the hospitality industry special issues in segmentation strategy (including integration of segmentation strategy with branding, yield management, and IT strategy) and more! Segmentation Strategies for Hospitality Managers is a resource certain to be used again and again and is perfect for hospitality managers, marketing and hospitality educators, hospitality and travel and tourism students, and business school students world wide.