MARKETING FOR THE HOTEL SECTOR

Abstract

Hotels sire a specialized category of real estate. Interest in hotel investments has been growing in the Republic within recent years, especially at present when the hotel sector is doing seemingly well after a strong revival. This makes the hotel industry one of the fastest growing industries. Futhermore, the industry plays an important role in Singapore's economy through its cess contribution. Unfortunately relatively few studies have been done on hotels in comparison to the other aspects of real estate studies, even though they are a part of the latter. Most research studies were mainly on topics relating to offices, shopping centres, residential properties, condominiums and industrial establishments. Those limited number of studies made on hotels focus only on areas such as feasibility studies, locational studies, forecasting studies, and maintenance management studies. Marketing studies of this segment of real estate property have not been attempted so far. Hence, in this academic exercise, the author attempted to obtain a clearer picture of how this part of the real estate sector function, specifically focusing on the marketing management aspect. In addition, it provides a literature review of the latest development in the field of marketing applicable to the hotel sector so as to highlight new directions and thinking for marketing hotel property.