Title: The effect of e-marketing in hotel sector in Greece

Authors: Irene Samanta, Panagiotis Kyriazopoulos

Addresses: Business Administration, Graduate Technological Education Institute of Piraeus, 250 Thivon Ave., Athens, 12244, Greece. ' Business Administration, Graduate Technological Education Institute of Piraeus, 250 Thivon Ave., Athens, 12244, Greece

Abstract: In a global environment, organisations are forced to redesign and to re-evaluate their processes and their workforce. Firms have to take into consideration the importance of the transition through which the organisation has to pass in its evolution from traditional marketing to e-marketing. The Greek hotel industry in the last decade has shown an economic boom: newly-established enterprises have increased the numbers of international visitors and have realised economies of scale that make tourism an important source of wealth and development. The purpose of this research is to identify the impact of business process improvement in the area of e-marketing in the hotel industry. The research identifies the barriers which block organisational change effort. A sample of 30 hotels in the city of Athens was used. This paper presents a SWOT analysis of the hotel sector, identifying the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that firms faced in the process of change. The results have shown that the majority of firms use the e-marketing concept to improve their communication strategy and reach market segments.

Keywords: hotel industry; tourism; hospitality industry; e-commerce; electronic commerce; e-marketing; electronic marketing; e-business; electronic business; Greece; international tourists; economies of scale; business process improvement; organisational change; barriers; Athens; SWOT analysis; strengths; weaknesses; opportunities; communication strategies; market segmentation; business re-evaluation; workforce; knowledge; learning.

DOI: 10.1504/IJKL.2009.031511

International Journal of Knowledge and Learning, 2009 Vol.5 No.5/6, pp.490 - 504

Published online: 08 Feb 2010 *

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