International Product and Promotion Strategies of Hotels - the Case of Finnish Hotel Industry

Abstract

Services are becoming more and more important in international business. Especially, international tourism and travel industry is increasingly growing sector of international trade for many countries. The accommodation sector forms a very important part of this international tourism. In last decades, the debate in the field of international marketing has been concentrated on standardisation versus adaptation of marketing mix elements in foreign markets. There can be found, however, only limited amount of studies concerning international marketing of services, and even less studies which investigate inward internationalisation of service companies. The aim of this study was, therefore, to investigate what kind of international product and promotion strategies hotels use in case of inbound tourism, and the reasons behind these strategic choices.

The theoretical framework of the study is built by investigating the literature and researches about the elements of service product and promotion strategies. After this, the focus is on international strategic possibilities according to these two elements of marketing mix, and on the debate between standardisation versus adaptation of product and promotion for international customers. Finally, the factors behind the strategic choices are analysed. The study was conducted by using qualitative approach. The data collection was carried out by using case study –method. Five hotel companies were selected in to the study; three international hotel chains and two independent hotels.

In the analysis of the results, four different strategies were identified; geocentric, polycentric, dual focus, and ethnocentric strategy. It was recognised, that usually the adaptation is more common in product strategies, and the promotion is very much the same for all customers. Only some differences were found between domestic versus international customers. The major factor affecting adaptation is the two main customer segments, business and leisure travellers. Business travellers’ needs are considered to be the same worldwide. Other factors are similar to previous studies. However, Finnish hotels have a lot of unused potential for developing their international service product and promotion strategies further to lure new customers with variable backgrounds.