Antecedents of eCRM Success for Hotel Industry

Abstract

This study aims to examine the antecedent success factors of hotel eCRM implementation by utilizing a word cloud approach to evaluate online reviews and an in depth interviews to study both customer and organizational perspectives. For the customer perspective, Word Cloud technique was adopted to analyze 12,446 online comments of the top 10 hotels in Chiang Mai, Thailand that were rated and posted through TripAdvisor.com. Whereas, 10 hoteliers from the same selected hotels were interviewed regarding their hotel's CRM implementation via Web 2.0 and social media technologies the results revealed some common features through identification of antecedents of successful eCRM implementation, which leads to increased customer satisfaction, guest loyalty and competitive advantage in todays' digital environment therefore, this article suggests some implications for hotel industry managerial staff to increase successful eCRM implementation the antecedent factors are grouped in an organizational perspective: including organizational readiness, customer service, knowledge management, technology support and social media. Moreover, the importance factors for a customer perspective are quality of guestroom, staff skills, hotel facilities, restaurant service and booking process.