Relationship marketing practices and customer loyalty in hotel industry in Tanzania

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate the, link between Relationship marketing (RM) practices and customer loyalty in the hotel industry in Tanzania, and researcher sampled some five and four star hotels in Dar es Salaam region. The study examined how RM attributes influence on customer loyalty, leading to continued flow of customers and subsequently translating to improved sales. The study revealed that with evolution of relational marketing, traditional conventional marketing will be insufficient for business to business transaction, business to consumers and any other business transaction. The five point Likert scale were used to measure RM and customer loyalty attributes and their understanding of the concept RM. Reliability and validity of the scale were briefly described to provide readers the back ground for data analysis, and subsequently, Cronbach’s Alpha was used to test reliability and validity Results have implications to policy makers, general hospitality stakeholders and to potential investors into the hospitality business. It is recommended that there is need to develop and implement corrective plan, which could involve actions to enhance RM awareness to employees, and institute visible endorsement to top management, then to frontline staff adjusting to the companies reward and recognition system and use of recovery strategies to eliminate customer defections.