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This chapter investigates the effect of customer orientation and CRM organization on hotel financial performance. A model of enhancing hotel financial performance through customer satisfaction practices was tested. Customer satisfaction was hypothesized to be a mediator in the relationships between customer orientation and CRM organization and the result being financial performance. The sample consisted of 54 hotels that was made up of three 5-star, fifteen 4-star, and thirty-six 3-star hotels in Ghana. A quantitative deductive approach was employed to gather data using cross-sectional survey, which was analyzed using PLS-SEM to check the validity, reliability and factor loading of the data. The findings revealed that, CRM organization enhances customer satisfaction and financial performance of hotels. Also, customer orientation showed significant positively related to customer satisfaction in the hotels. Surprisingly, the effects of CRM organization and customer orientation on financial performance through customer satisfaction were insignificant. Thus, customer satisfaction failed to mediate the effect of CRM organization and customer orientation on the financial performance of hotels. This suggests that though an effective CRM organization enhances customer satisfaction, it directly affects the financial performance of hotels. The outcomes have useful implications for CRM implementation on hotel financial performance in Ghana.

The term ‘strategy’ is one of the most frequently used terms in business, and its application in marketing is particularly common. Company strategy, market strategy, marketing strategy, sales strategy, promotion strategy, distribution strategy, low pricing strategy – it would take a long time to list all of them. Although this term is so commonly in use, its definition is not as straightforward and it can be interpreted in different ways. In comparison with tactical decisions, strategy is much more significant for an organisation as it brings long-lasting consequences. It is implemented by higher level managers on a regular basis, and it is based on external, often subjective information, so decisions – especially at the time they are made – are difficult to evaluate.

Taking into consideration the fact that strategy refers to a long-term rather than a short-term period, strategic decisions serve as the basis for undertaking operational activities. However, marketing refers to the market and the competition. It is possible to claim that marketing strategy is trying to find an answer to the question to which path an organisation should follow in order to achieve its goals and objectives. If, for example, a company has a goal to generate a profit of PLN 1 million by selling 100,000 pieces of a product, the market strategy should answer at least the following two questions:

1. Who will be our target group, for example, who will purchase the 100,000 pieces of the product?

2. Why is it us from whom a potential buyer should purchase the product?

Who will be our target group, for example, who will purchase the 100,000 pieces of the product?

Why is it us from whom a potential buyer should purchase the product?

The target market will be defined if a reply to the first question is provided. The second question identifies the foundations of competitive advantage. These two issues, that is, target market and competitive advantage are the strategic marketing issues. You cannot change your target group unexpectedly while competitive advantage is the basis for changing decisions regarding prices, promotions and sales.

This chapter describes the measures of marketing activities which refer to strategic aspects and testify a company’s market position – the measures of the performance of target groups and competitive advantage. Readers’ attention should be also focused on the indices that are less popular in Poland and, therefore, may be underestimated. It seems that some of them, for example, the index of marketing resources allocation and the marketing risk index, provide a lot of valuable information and, at the same time, make it possible to show the value of marketing investments. Their wider use in the near future is only a matter of time.

This chapter investigates the relationship between product innovation and firm performance. We apply a logistic regression to predict product innovation using a number of explanatory variables of which firm growth is of principal interest. We study the relationship at two different time periods using two comparable questionnaire surveys. These are combined with accounting statistics and labor market data. We find that firms which are experiencing high growth rates also are more likely to have been product innovating. We also find support for the user-producer theorem and that Schumpeter may have been right in his hypotheses concerning firm size and innovative activities.

This study examines a cross section of the Spanish retailing branch on the adoption and use of Social Media tools, identifying users and nonusers and their impact on management experiences. The use of 2.0 technologies has also been analyzed based on company size.

An online survey among 90 Spanish retailers provides a number of interesting insights in the adoption rates, the facilitating and disruptive factors in the adoption process, the types of applications used by retailers, and their experiences from them. Prior to filling in the online questionnaires, the recipients were contacted by phone and were informed about the study. A Chi-square analysis has been carried out to contrast the suggested research questions.

Retailers using Social Media as part of their marketing strategy use most social applications for customer-related purposes and see clear benefits in improving customer relations, market communication, improving their after-sales services, and obtaining customer feedback and customer information. Although many differences do not exist between large, medium, and small companies, it is remarkable that large companies use social web tools as branding and small companies as customer service.

The main problem of this study has been the low recruitment of answers by retailers.

Customers are using such technologies in overwhelming numbers and a substantial part of the customer generated content in Social Media is about brands, businesses, and products. Having a good idea about the customer dialog online can provide businesses with very valuable information and help them understand market trends but also identify potential areas of danger and problems.

The adoption of Social Media tools is a topic much studied from demand perspective. Nevertheless, the application to business and, specifically, retailing sector is less analyzed. With this study we pretend to improve this research line from offer perspective.

This study focuses on the factors that determine the readiness of hotels to implement customer relationship management (CRM) in hotels within the context of Ghana. The sample consisted of 292 employees (restaurant managers, customer service officers, customer relations' officers, and marketing managers) from 3- to 5-star hotels. The study adopted a quantitative deductive approach to collected data using cross-sectional survey, which was analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The findings revealed that management change initiatives and culture have significant impact on organizational readiness to implement CRM in hotels, specifically Ghana. Also, the organizational culture partly mediates management change initiatives and organizational readiness to implement CRM activities. On the other hand, use of technology proved not to mediate management change initiatives and organizational readiness as the relationship proved not to be significant. Also, culture and use of technology have not mediated management change initiatives and organizational readiness as the indirect path proved not to be significant. The outcomes have useful implications for CRM adoption by hotel managers.

Purpose: The scope of this research is to conduct a study on the perceived effectiveness of developments in InsurTech, by determining online use integration in the Maltese insurance market.

Methodology: To do this, the authors employed a self-administered questionnaire to which 471 participants responded on a 5-point Likert scale. We subjected the data collected from this questionnaire to statistical analysis, specifically, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and multiple linear analysis using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 26.

Results: EFA loaded best on five factors of insurance customers’ perceived effectiveness, which make up the effectiveness model (EM), namely ‘Factor 1 – Internal Process Enhancement’, ‘Factor 2 – Cost-Efficiencies’; ‘Factor 3 – Time-Sensitive Conditions’, ‘Factor 4 – The Contemporary Use of Artificial Intelligence and Marketing in Relation to Customer Service’ and ‘Factor 5 – Customer Relations and Application of InsurTech in Communication’. Moreover, multiple linear regression results show that the perceived effectiveness dimension – EM is statistically significantly related to online use in Malta.

Practical implications: Therefore, it can be argued that the Maltese insurance sector is well prepared to meet the obligations and requirements of the European Green Deal. Findings shed light on the preparedness of the Maltese insurance market to accept innovative green proposals to go online with processes.

COVID-19 literally stopped the recent unprecedented tourism growth in its tracks with airline groundings, restaurant closures, business suspensions, hotel evacuations, and mandatory travel bans. What has come in the aftermath is a realization that tourism will see shifts in employment styles and function, pricing, customer behaviors, and successful products due to new desires among travelers for alternate tourism experiences that provide authentic, low-density settings while ensuring public health and safety. This is of particular importance to Caribbean Small Island Developing States (SIDS) due to their high dependence on tourism for economic stimulation and quality of life. This chapter presents findings from a survey of 30 resort tourism sites across the United States to highlight the impacts of COVID-19 on general operations, employee and customer relations, and coping strategies during the pandemic. Additionally, this chapter draws on other recent COVID-19 research to summarize significant impacts to tourism during the pandemic with a particular focus on how this will impact SIDS. Finally, this chapter presents a series of new navigational aids for SIDS to provide guidance for tourism planning and management among these unique and sensitive island nations.

Introduction – In today’s intense competitive environment, businesses that want to have a sustainable competitive advantage must put the customer at the centre of all their activities and create customer loyalty by offering products and services that will provide customer satisfaction. One of the key elements of ensuring customer satisfaction is the effective handling of customer complaints, which is defined as the customers expressing their dissatisfaction with unmet expectations and unsatisfied needs verbally or in writing. The concept of a complaint as a response of customers’ dissatisfaction with the products and services they experience is an invaluable feedback mechanism for businesses to resolve issues relating to their products and services.

Aim – The aim of this chapter is to emphasise the importance of the concept of complaint as an important part of customer relations management and an effective marketing tool for the tourism sector. As a service sub-sector, the simultaneous production and consumption of services in the tourism sector ensures customer satisfaction more than concrete products, due to their inseparable nature. For this reason, handling, evaluating and finalising customer complaints has an important function and value in providing the necessary information for tourism enterprises to become aware of their deficiencies and mistakes. Complaint management has started to play an even more critical role for the tourism industry in preventing customer losses due to dissatisfaction, especially considering the shrinkage in demand in the sector due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Method – Firstly the concept of complaint and the importance of complaints for businesses were explained, customer complaint behaviour and the factors affecting this behaviour were examined in detail, the concept of online complaint was mentioned and the subject was evaluated in terms of tourism businesses.

Results – While the effective management and resolution of complaints should be seen as a goal by every tourism business, it is vital that they understand customer complaint behaviours, the factors affecting this behaviour and how complaints should be managed in a way that will result in favour of the business.

Conclusion – A complaint management process that enables customers to easily report their complaints to businesses and produces solutions as soon as possible will positively affect customer satisfaction. In this context, in order to reduce the negative effects on tourism enterprises, especially through the pandemic, business need to have clear and easy-to-access procedures, provide a quick response, show reliability and consistency in providing a solution, keeping the complainant informed of progress, have employees who can communicate with empathy and courtesy, have enough employees to deal with the situation, and adopt proactive approaches to prevent complaints rather than reducing the volume of complaints.

Originality/Value – This research contributes to the literature in terms of complaining behaviour, examining the factors affecting this behaviour and emphasising the importance of the concept of complaints in the tourism sector. In addition, the research is important in terms of examining the contributions of an effective complaint management system in reducing the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the tourism sector, which is one of the sectors mostly affected on a global scale.