Customer Retention in Hospitality Industry - Case Study

Research Project

Table of Contents
Title:.................................................................................................................................................3
Chapter 1- Introduction....................................................................................................................3
Background.................................................................................................................................3
Statement of research problem....................................................................................................3
Research aim...............................................................................................................................3
Objectives of research.................................................................................................................3
Research Questions.....................................................................................................................4
Purpose and scope of research ...................................................................................................4
Rationale for selection of topic...................................................................................................4
Research specification.................................................................................................................4
Chapter 2: Literature Review...........................................................................................................5
Analyse the conception of social media......................................................................................5
Identify affirmative and pessimist influence of social media on customer base of Premier Inn.
.....................................................................................................................................................5
Determine impact of social media for improving customer retention for Premier Inn...............6
Identify measures for obviate antagonistic influence of social on brand image of Premier Inn.6
Chapter 3: Research Methodology...................................................................................................8
Research Design..........................................................................................................................8
Research approach......................................................................................................................8
Quantitative data:........................................................................................................................8
Data collection methods..............................................................................................................9
Chapter 4: Data Findings, Analysis and Discussion......................................................................11
Chapter 5: Conclusion, Recommendations and anticipated Limitations.......................................19
Reflection..................................................................................................................................19
Recommendations.....................................................................................................................19
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................19
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................21
1

Title:
“To determine role of social media in attraction as well as retention of customers of
hospitality industry for longer frame to time” A case study on Premier Inn.
Chapter 1- Introduction
Background
Social media refers to interactional computer mediated technologies which benefits in
creating along with sharing of ideas, information, interests in career and various others.
Organisations makes use of social media for carrying out communication with their potential
customers. It acts a marketing tool that assist business to improvise performance of organisation
on the whole within market (Ahmad, Musa, 2016). Some of the social media tools are used by
firms are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. This study is carried out on Premier Inn
which was founded by Whitebread in 1987. It is headquartered in Dunstable, United Kingdom
and is largest hotel brand of UK. They have more than 72,000 rooms in around 785 hotels.
Statement of research problem
At present scenario, Premier Inn is going through reduction in sales. With respect to this,
management of marketing team is supposed to carry out a trenchant research through which
existent customers can be retained as well as attract new by assistance of social media. This will
might aid them to intensify their sales.
Research aim
The aim of research is “To determine role of social media in attraction as well as
retention of customers of hospitality industry for longer frame to time” A case study on Premier
Inn.
Objectives of research
 To analyse the conception of social media.
 To identify affirmative and pessimistic influence of social media on customer base of
Premier Inn.
 To determine impact of social media for improving customer retention for Premier Inn.
 To identify measures for obviate antagonistic influence of social on brand image of
Premier Inn.
2

Research Questions
 Define the conception of social media?
 What are the affirmative and pessimistic consequence of social media on customer base
of Premier Inn?
 What is the impact of social media on customer retention for Premier Inn?
 Evaluate measures for obviation of antagonistic impact of social media on brand image of
Premier Inn?
Purpose and scope of research
The major purpose of carrying out this research is to improvise understanding of social
media on marketing team so that by its usage organisation can retain as well as improvise sales
in a desired manner. Scope of this research is to render broad understanding of concept of social
media to hospitality industry so that their performance can have significant impact.
Rationale for selection of topic
The reason for selection of this research topic is that at present scenario this topic is
feasible and most of the people are addicted to these mediums (Anitha, 2016). By enhancing the
knowledge associated with this concept, organisations will be able to retain their existing
customers as well as attract more number towards services furnished by them. Through analysis
and making use of social media organisation can increase their profitability like by posting
details about themselves and what they are furnishing along with benefits or services provided by
them, etc. will lead people to know about them. As people are open to social media they would
like to visit Premier Inn, if they are satisfied with services being offered by them.
Research specification
The research comprises of various sections which have collectively contributed in
attainment of feasible research results. At the beginning, it includes background of research, aim,
questions and objectives associated with this. After conceptualization of effectual overview of
research, researcher will further deal with detailed information related with literature review
section. It is based on research question and they have been designed as per view point of author.
After this research methodology is provided along with their significance in an appropriate
manner. It also comprises of timescale and description associated with resources that are needed
by researcher for carrying out research in effectual manner. The factors which contribute in
3

process of selection of research project is the need of social medium is enhancing and it will
provide organization with an enhanced approach to increase their sales.
Research Time Line
4

Chapter 2: Literature Review
Analyse the conception of social media.
According to Margaret (2019), social media refers to collection of online
communications channels which is used for interaction with people, sharing of content, videos,
pictures and many more. In other words, it refers to combination of websites and application
which includes forums, micro blogging, social networking, wikis etc. Social media interactive
technology which helps in creating connection among people. This helps in communication and
sharing information, ideas, views between people.
Now a days Social media plays an important role within a business. It facilitates in
developing social networks by connecting more and more people. This is internet-based
application which is used in many forms of activities which includes photos sharing, blogging,
social games, micro blogs, social bookmarking, video sharing social networking, business
networks and so on. This will aid Premier Inn to have appropriate number of customers which
will lead to attract them. Some of the popular social media applications are YouTube, Google+,
Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, LinkedIn, We chat, Telegram, Twitter, Quora, Snapchat, Pinterest
and many more. Now a days social media is playing an important and significant role for each
and every business. As this helps in helps in communicating with customers, interaction on
websites, e-commerce also helps in marketing and promotion for their products and services of
the organization.
Identify affirmative and pessimist influence of social media on customer base of Premier Inn.
According to Laudon (2016), social media is very useful tool for organization which
helps in marketing and branding of their products and services of there organizations and also
useful for targeting the market as well as the customer. It makes easy for user to express their
views about the product and services but it can be positive as well as negative. As social media
has affirmative influence on the business, as this helps the business in growth and creating the
brand which creates the positive brand identity for this the management of the the Hotel Premier
Inn can use various platforms like Instagram,Facebook etc. Social media also improves the brand
loyalty and awareness as it focuses on marketing, branding and awareness of product and
services of the hotel Premier Inn (Laudon, 2016). Social media is an effective and inexpensive
tool of marketing as it save cost of print media and also take less time in promotion. This is
5

inexpensive way of marketing and promotion of the business, which helps in targeting right
audience with the right targeted advertisement. social media also play role as the customer
service and customer support for the users. This also helps the hotel in boosting the sales as it
increase the awareness about the product and services they are providing. The management of
Premier Inn can hire the candidates whit the help of some job portals like LinkedIn, Monster,
Shine.com and many more.
The most major dis-advantage of social media for business is hacking, that hacker can
easily hacked the user data and destroy the privacy which can make the financial loss to user as
well as the organization. The addiction of social media is very bad which can disturb user life as
well. As this also waste user time that could be utilized in productive activity. On social media
the user can up lode the feed back for their product and services of the organization as that can
be positive as well as negative which this direct impact on brand and sale of their business
(Ledford and Gast, 2018).
Determine impact of social media for improving customer retention for Premier Inn.
According to Flick (2015), by opting for social media platform overall effectiveness of
organisation can be enhanced in terms of retention of customers as well as attracting new. In
context of hospitality industry of UK, it can be said that Hotels or any other organisation tends to
retain their customers which will lead to enhancement is sustainability within market in an
effectual way. For an example, Management of Premier Inn makes use of social media platform
for interacting with existent customers for acknowledging their experiences with hotel services.
This communication will lead organisation to develop affirmative relationship with existent
customers for longer frame of time. Organisation can make the use of social media platform for
making people aware about their services. Along with this, review given by them on their social
media pages will lead to them to improvise their services according to needs of customers and
provide them better experience next time they visit their place (Flick, 2015). As a result, it can
be said that social media will lead to improvisation of retention of customer within Hospitality
sector.
Identify measures for obviate antagonistic influence of social on brand image of Premier Inn.
According to Kumar (2019), social media has also has some pessimist effect on the
business which can destroy the brand image of the business. For the hotel Premier Inn it is
typical to being active on social media by 24/7 but if the management starts monitoring and
6

give the proper feedback on their social media websites, blogs, reviews of customer actively, it
will directly helps the organization in reducing all the negative accepts. It also helps in
understanding the effectiveness of the campaigns on several social media channels like Facebook
Insights, Google+, Twitter and many more. Social media reduces the privacy and the
confidentiality of data, as it can be hacked by hackers which reduces the brand image of the
company (Kumar, 2019). For the organisation it is typical to track the misleading and the
negative comments as it is destroying the the image, for overcoming from this situation the
management of Primer Inn should hire the ethical hackers for its IT department. This also
reduces the face to face communication between the employee and company. Time is very
important for each and every business as premier Hotel has time value as the social media is free
cost but consume times. As company is using the social media employees and the customer
represents the brand image of the company.
The management of the Premier Hotel find hard to keep and eye on every employee and
customer working about their hotel services feedback and also they can not control the
employees form being the company spokesperson (Lovelock and Patterson, 2015). For solution
of this issue, the Premier Hotel should hire and designated team or person to handle its
communications. As social media helps in promotion, branding, customer satisfaction and
support, the user can raise their complaint on the website, social media as this will results in
reduction of customer's buying interest.
7

Chapter 3: Research Methodology
Research Design
This can be explained as plan of procedure including desired set of steps which are
followed to carrying out the study in proper way. It can be divided into two categorise like
inductive and deductive research approach in which favourable one option can be used.
However, deductive research approach involves the formulation of hypothesis for particular
investigation whereas inductive approach do not consist expression of hypothesis. Moreover, the
present report will use inductive research approach for analysing role of social media to attract
and retain the customers.
Research design
The research approach refers to an effective set of processes and techniques utilized by
investigator to make combination of several elements in logical way. It can be divided into three
categories such as descriptive, exploratory and experimental in which suitable one can be applied
to particular study. Initially, descriptive research design can be used for providing proper
description about specific condition, behavior and subject for collecting entire data related to
specific topic. However, exploratory research design is known as an appropriate technique to
understand specific problem properly to achieve conclusive results. Moreover, experimental
research design is helpful to understand the relation of cause and effects if particular research
problem. The given study will focus on descriptive research design to evaluate roles of social
media in attracting and retaining customers.
Qualitative research
It is a method of observation by which data is collected. This research helps in
understanding reasons, views, opinions, for developing the solutions for quantitative approach.
Some data collection methods are focused groups, individual interviews observation (Brannen,
2017).
Quantitative data:
It is a statistical tool, which is used to collect and analyze numerical and mathematical
data with the assistance of questionnaire, survey, online survey , online websites, case studies,
experiments and many more.
8

Inductive approach: In this secondary data is used for qualitative data collection which
creates a direct link among objects of research which will assist in attainment of raw data.
Deductive approach: It basically denotes consideration of theories. Observations are
carried by testing of possibilities (Bresler and Stake, 2017).
In present research, the researcher is making use of inductive research for data collection.
Along with this, investigation is dependent on qualitative research design that comprises of
secondary data collection of work. Entire data is analyzed by journals as well as previous
experience of research expertise.
Data collection methods
It refers to manner in which information is collected from selected respondents for
attaining required results. Data collection methods are divided into primary as well as secondary
primary (Dwivedi, Kapoor and Chen, 2015). Primary data are collected for the first time, by
interacting with people. This give accurate result but it consumes time as well as needs huge cost
in data collection. Primary data can be collected by questionnaire, survey, face to face interview,
observations and many more. Secondary data refers to data which is already issued or published
earlier by some one else. As this save time as well as cost of researcher for collection of data.
The sources of secondary data are news paper, magazines, journals, websites, books and many
more. In existing research, researcher is utilizing both primary and secondary methods of data
collection for collecting reliable as well as accurate data within given time frame. In this research
questionnaire has been used for collection of data.
Questionnaire: It denotes set of questions which are designed by researcher for
collecting information from chosen respondents. Further, these questionnaires are completed by
the respondents which will assist in future analysis (Fletcher, 2017).
Same size: It denotes entire number of respondents which are chosen by researcher from
entire population. With respect to present study, investigator has taken into consideration 50
respondents from the population. Here, population denotes stakeholders (key employees,
premium customers as well as top executives of Premier Inn) of Premier Inn Hotel so that
effective as well as efficient information can be attained from them in effectual way.
Questionnaire
9

Q 1) Do you know about concept of social media?
a) Yes
b) No
Q 2) Do you think that by utilisation of social media, sales performance of Premier Inn can be
improvised?
a) Yes
b) No
Q 3) As per your conceptualisation, will social media assist in retention of customers' of
Premier Inn?
a) Agree
b) Disagree
Q 4) How social media will impact customer's choices for opting for services rendered by
Premier Inn Hotel?
a) Wide range of alternatives
b) Reviews from existent customers
c) Access to services becomes easy
Q 5) What is major asset of social media for Premier Inn as per your thought?
a) Effectual customer relationship management
b) Development of relationship
c) Promotions of services rendered by hotel.
Q 6) What are pessimistic consequences of utilization of social media for Premier Inn Hotel?
a) Pessimistic publicity
b) Deceptive claims
c) Gossips
Q 7) What are various measures for obviating pessimistic consequences of social medium on
10

brand image for Premier Inn?
a) Formulating social media conformity strategies
b) Monitoring of negative as well as misleading comments
c) Press release
Q 8) Do you think social media have ability influence customers for making purchase?
a) Agree
b) Disagree
Q 9) Furnish recommendations for Premier Inn through which they can improvise sustainability
of customer's in effectual manner.
11

Chapter 4: Data Findings, Analysis and Discussion
Theme 1: Conception of social media
Q 1) Do you know about concept of social media? Frequency
a) Yes 45
b) No 5
Interpretation: Social media is defined as internet based tool for sharing as well as
explicating information between diverse human beings. With respect to organization, they
12
45
5
a) Yes
b) No

communicate services or products which are delivered by them to their customers. As per the
graph shown above, it is found that 45 respondents have agreed that they possess knowledge
about this concept as almost everyone have seen the promotional advertisement on social media.
On the other hand, according to 5 respondents they do not know this due to the fact that they
hardly use any technological tool for carrying out interaction in their social scale. As a result,
they did not agreed to question raised to them about awareness of social media.
13

Theme 2: Usage of social media for promoting services offered by Premier Inn to enhance
their performance.
Q 2) Do you think that by utilisation of social media, sales
performance of Premier Inn can be improvised?
Frequency
a) Yes 35
b) No 15
Interpretation: Social media tools aids business organization for improvising approach
to make people aware about services being provided to them. This will create enhancement in
sales performance of organization. In context of Premier Inn, it has found been that organization
is making is use of social media for attracting maximal number of customers. From above graph,
it has been found that 35 respondents says that there will be affirmative impact on the
performance as they are checking out details by the usage of social media pages. But 15
respondents feels that in social media maximum of the posts are fake.
14
35
15
a) Yes
b) No

15

Theme 3: Social media will aid to retain customer's of Premier Inn
Q 3) As per your conceptualisation, will social media assist in
retention of customers' of Premier Inn?
Frequency
a) Agree 43
b) Disagree 7
Interpretation: As per 43 respondents, have agreed on this but 7 has denied. The reason
behind this is that customer care executive of Premier Inn can communicate easily with their
customers via usage of social media. This will lead to build up affirmative relation with them.
But 7 people think that customers can be only retained if enhanced quality services are provided
to them.
16
43
7
a) Agree
b) Disagree

Theme 4: Impact of social media in influencing customers choices for opting for peculiar
services.
Q 4) How social media will impact customer's choices for opting
for services rendered by Premier Inn Hotel?
Frequency
a) Wide range of alternatives 8
b) Reviews from existent customers 20
c) Easy access to services 22
Interpretation: As per the graph, it has been found that 8 people considers that there are
wide options for attracting the customers for going for buying peculiar services. As per 20
respondents, reviews from existing customers will assist them to attract customers. But 22 people
thinks that ease to access within different services will lead to attract more number of customers
to services furnished by them.
17
8
20
22 a) Wide range of alternatives
b) Reviews from existent
customers
c) Easy access to services

Theme 5: Primary vantage of social media for Premier Inn
Q 5) What is major asset of social media for Premier Inn as per
your thought?
Frequency
a) Effectual customer relationship management 18
b) Development of inter business relationship 10
c) Promotions of services rendered by hotel. 22
Interpretation: Social media has wide range of affirmatives for an organization. Some
of them are developing relationship with customers,effective customer relationship and
promoting services. From above it can be interpreted that 18 respondents think that effectual
customer relationship can be developed by regular interactions on social media. As per 10
persons, it will lead to establishment of inter business relationship among different people who
are working with Premier Inn like their suppliers. Along with this, 22 respondents thinks that by
this they can carry out promotions through which maximum number of people will come to
know about services offered by them.
18
18
10
22 a) Effectual customer
relationship management
b) Development of inter
business relationship
c) Promotions of services
rendered by hotel.

Theme 6: Perverse consequences associated with utilization of social media for Premier Inn
Q 6) What are pessimistic consequences of utilization of social
media for Premier Inn Hotel?
Frequency
a) Pessimistic publicity 12
b) Deceptive claims 8
c) Gossips 30
Interpretation: Every technology possess certain antagonistic impacts on business. It
has been found that there are various negative impacts of social media, they are deceptive claims,
pessimistic publicity and gossips. As per 12 respondents, negative publicity creates a pessimistic
impact on brand image of Premier Inn Hotel. 8 people feels that deceptive claims is other factor
which can hamper loyalty of customers. The major factor which has been found from
interpretation is gossips, 30 respondents agree on this as word to mouth creates a worst impact
on Hotel if it is negative.
19
12
8 30
a) Pessimistic publicity
b) Deceptive claims
c) Gossips

Theme 7: Standards for obviating antagonistic impinging of social media on brand image
of Premier Inn
Q 7) What are various measures for obviating pessimistic
consequences of social medium on brand image for Premier Inn?
Frequency
a) Formulating social media conformity strategies 14
b) Monitoring of negative as well as misleading comments 10
c) Press release 26
Interpretation: There are different measures which can be taken by organization for
getting over impact of pessimistic issues that influence operations of Premier Inn. Some of the
measures which can be taken by Premier Inn are formulation of strategies, press release and
tracking misleading comments. As per above graph, it can be interpreted that 14 respondents are
responsible for thinking formulation of strategies to intensify brand image within market. On the
other hand 10 people think that, it is essential for an organization to monitor misleading
comments which are made by individuals on social media pages. 26 people think that press
release is a best way through which organization can improvise brand image in an enhanced
manner.
20
14
10
26
a) Formulating social media
conformity strategies
b) Monitoring of negative as
well as misleading comments
c) Press release

Theme 8: Capabilities of social media to sway customers for making purchases
Q 8) Do you think social media have ability influence customers
for making purchase?
Frequency
a) Agree 42
b) Disagree 8
Interpretation: From above graph, it can be interpreted that social media has the
capability for determining the interests of customers for opting for services which are being
offered by Premier Inn. As per 42 respondents, they have agreed to the given statement as they
felt that it is true. But on the other hand 8 people disagreed on this as per them customers opt for
services only if there past experience was effectual.
21
42
8
a) Agree
b) Disagree

Chapter 5: Conclusion, Recommendations and anticipated Limitations
Reflection
Through entire journey of research, I have gone through different aspects which have
affirmative as well as pessimistic impact. From integral experinece, I have improvised
communication skills while carrying out this research as I have interacted with wide range of
people for collection of data. This also brought confidence in me and eliminated fear or
hesitation of interacting with any alternative individual. Along with this, the research on Premier
Inn has enahnced my skills and knowledge on hospitality industry. With respect to future, it will
assist me to have a career opportunity in the same field and even in hospitality industry as I
think, I have acquired braod range of knowledge with respect to this. With respect to this, the
grown skills will lead to carry out research in future in more enhanced as well as effectual
manner.
Recommendations
With respect to entire investigation, it has been suggested to Premier Inn Hotel to follow
certain things by which they can attract as well as retain customers in an effectual manner
towards services of hotel. Some recommendations are shown below:
 It is recommended to management to deliver high quality services to their csutomers so
that they can be satisfied by services offered to them.
 It is suggested to Premier Inn to emphasise on developemnt of soft skills in between
employees by which they can interact with their customers in friendly manner and
address their problems firmly. By this, they will be able to gain the loyalty of their
customers for longer duration of time.
 Along with this, management can opt for loyalty progarms as they contributes in
influencing interests of customers for organisation in an effectual way. This will lead to
enhanecment of sales of Premier Inn Hotel in an appropriate manner within small inetrval
of time.
Conclusion
From above research, it can be concluded that social media is an effectual marketing tool
which will contribute within promotion of services as well as products of organisation in an
effectual way. Within this research both primary and secondary sources of data collection are
22

used for attainemnt of research in an appropriate manner and also in given duartion of time.
Apart from this, it also leads to attainment of authenticated information. In addition to this, social
media tools will assist entire hospitality industry to improve their customer retention within work
place which will lead to enhanced productivity as well as profitability along with improvement in
brand image.
23

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Ahmad, N .S., Musa, R. 2016. The impact of social media content marketing (SMCM) towards
brand health. Procedia Economics and Finance. 37. pp.331-336.
Anitha, J., 2016. Role of Organisational Culture and Employee Commitment in Employee
Retention. ASBM Journal of Management. 9(1).
Berger, J. M., 2015. The metronome of apocalyptic time: Social media as carrier wave for
millenarian contagion. Perspectives on Terrorism. 9(4). pp.61-71.
Bowie, D., Buttle, F., Brookes, M. 2016. Hospitality marketing. Routledge.
Brannen, J., 2017. Mixing methods: Qualitative and quantitative research. Routledge.
Bresler, L. and Stake, R. E., 2017. Qualitative research methodology in music education.
In Critical Essays in Music Education (pp. 113-128). Routledge.
Dwivedi, Y. K., Kapoor, K. K. and Chen, H., 2015. Social media marketing and advertising. The
Marketing Review. 15(3). pp.289-309.
Fletcher, A. J., 2017. Applying critical realism in qualitative research: methodology meets
method. International Journal of Social Research Methodology. 20(2). pp.181-194.
Flick, U., 2015. Introducing research methodology: A beginner's guide to doing a research
project. Sage.
Haider, M., Rasli, A., Akhtar, C. S. 2015. The impact of human resource practices on employee
retention in the telecom sector. International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues.
5(1S). pp.63-69.
Irwin, R. L. and Springgay, S., 2017. A/r/tography as practice-based research. In Arts Education
and Curriculum Studies(pp. 162-178). Routledge.
Jin, J., L i, Y., Zhong, X. and Zhai, L., 2015. Why users contribute knowledge to online
communities: An empirical study of an online social Q&A community. Information &
management. 52(7). pp.840-849.
Kumar, R., 2019. Research methodology: A step-by-step guide for beginners. Sage Publications
Limited.
Kumar, V. and Pansari, A., 2016. Competitive advantage through engagement. Journal of
Marketing Research. 53(4).pp.497-514.
Laudon, K. C. 2016. Management information system. Pearson Education India.
Ledford, J. R. and Gast, D. L., 2018. Single case research methodology: Applications in special
education and behavioral sciences. Routledge.
Lovelock, C. and Patterson, P., 2015. Services marketing. Pearson Australia.
Mackey, A. and Gass, S. M., 2015. Second language research: Methodology and design.
Routledge.
Parker, G. G., Van Alstyne, M. W.2016. Platform revolution: How networked markets are
transforming the economyand how to make them work for you. WW Norton &
Company.
Saeidi, S. P. 2015. How does corporate social responsibility contribute to firm financial
performance? The mediating role of competitive advantage, reputation, and customer
satisfaction. Journal of business research. 68(2). pp.341-350.
Silverman, D. ed., 2016. Qualitative research. Sage.
Yen, C. L. A. 2015. Hotel attribute performance, WOM motivations, and media
choice. International Journal of Hospitality Management. 46. pp.79-88.
24