ABSTRACT

This study examined the evaluation of the marketing strategies used in hospitality establishments in south-East Nigeria. Specifically the  work identified the marketing strategies used in hospitality establishment/industry, ascertain the application of identified marketing strategies in the hospitality establishments, examine the influence of applied marketing strategies on the level of patronage in the hospitality establishments, the influence of applied marketing strategies on profit margin of hospitality establishments, the influence of applied marketing strategies on the sustainability of hospitality establishments in study area and to determine the way forward. To achieve the objectives of the study survey research design was adopted. The study was guided by six research questions and three hypothesis. The study adopted primary data through the use of structured questionnaire. The population of this study is 4539 principal staff drawn from 965 registered hotels in south east Nigeria. The sample size of 367 was determined using statistical formula derived by Yamane (1964). Stratified sampling technique was adopted in this study. The hotels were group into strata. This involved grouping the hotels into star rating (1 star, 2star, 3star, 4star and 5star). However, the allocation of questionnaire is based on proportion of the population which involves 34.5%, 34.87%, 23.5%, 5.2% and 2% for 1 star, 2star, 3star, 4star and 5star respectively. Therefore, the sample size is (367 staff) 127, 128, 86, 19 and 7 for 1star, 2star, 3star, 4star and 5star respectively. Frequencies, percentages and mean was used to analyze the research questions while multiple regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses.  The study revealed that social media, advertising, customer relationship management, quality product/service, availability of sales promotion, price discount, location public relation and maintenance are the major marketing strategies used in hospitality establishments. The findings also revealed that marketing strategies have significant influence on the level of patronage, profit margin and sustainability in the hospitality establishments. The study recommends that Hospitality establishments should endeavour to employ the use of marketing strategies to enhance better performance and good competitive advantage. Hospitality establishments should concentrate more of their resources on the four basic variables identified to have contributed most to their performance which are, price, promotion, place/location, quality of product/service and maintenance.