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This paper aims to suggest an empirically based typology of hotels according to their marketing information systems (MrkIS) configurations. The study seeks to examine major antecedents of the effectiveness of MrkIS and their influence on the adoption of specific marketing applications. Finally, this paper seeks to expand the general understanding of the relationship between the effectiveness of a hotel's MrkIS and that hotel's overall effectiveness, compared with that of others from the suggested typology.

The paper collected empirical data from a sample of 254 luxury and five‐star Greek hotels. They conducted a cluster analysis in order to define various clusters of hotels based on their use of specific marketing applications. They considered the role of basic antecedents – namely the hotel's degree of market orientation adoption, system quality, the quality of the information that the MrkIS produce, and support service quality – examining their influence on the MrkIS configuration in use. In addition, the paper considers the relationship between MrkIS effectiveness and overall hotel effectiveness as evidenced throughout the different clusters.

The study offers insights that can help hoteliers to analyse realistically the potential benefits of MrkIS for their businesses. Toward this end, the paper identifies three specific types of hotels: the “transactional‐oriented”, the “sales‐oriented”, and the “market‐oriented”.

The results of the study may not be broadly applicable due to differences in national context, hotel category, and other characteristics – a fact that suggests future research opportunities.

Based on the current results, a hotel might better evaluate its existing MrkIS and be prepared to maximise the opportunities offered by the full utilisation of these systems.

The scarcity of empirical evidence with regard to MrkIS utilisation in the lodging industry makes this kind of study essential. The results of the paper expand the general knowledge about hotels' MrkIS adoption, its antecedents, its effectiveness and hotels' overall effectiveness. The results provide an integrated picture of the utilisation of these systems.

This paper aims to investigate the consumer responses associated with crises in the hotel industry. More precisely, the current research explores the factors that affect consumer attitudes (i.e. impressions, perceived social responsibility, and future purchases) during a hotel crisis.

An experiment was conducted relying on four factors: the hotel's reputation, the extent of the crisis, external effects from regulatory agencies, and press and organisational response. Respondents were randomly assigned to 36 treatment groups (three levels of crisis extent×two levels of hotel corporate reputation×two levels of external effects×three levels of hotel response). Scenarios were developed, each describing one of the 36 treatments.

The results revealed that reputation, external effects and organisational response significantly influenced consumers. Specifically, consumers were more likely to have a positive impression of a hotel in crisis, to perceive the hotel as being more socially responsible, and to revisit the hotel when it was highly reputed, accepted responsibility, and was viewed favourably by the media. The extent of the crisis was found to be an insignificant factor.

Hotel managers could incorporate the results of this study into their crisis management plans. As consumer attitudes are explored, the hotel might begin to achieve more effective crisis management strategies.

There is a lack of research investigating hotel crisis management from the customer's perspective. By adopting effective crisis management practices, hotel managers could reduce the negative outcomes of crises such as fires.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the most important characteristics of the religious package tour as perceived by consumers who travel to the Holy Land and to examine the marketing components that play an important role for pilgrims.

In‐depth interviews were conducted with Greek Orthodox travellers who were about to leave for a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Content analysis was used in order to analyse the transcribed interviews.

Results show that regarding the product mix, hotel ratings and extra benefits are considered of minor importance by the interviewed travellers. However, the tour guide and the trip's schedule and program are the most important factors that influence consumer decisions regarding the purchase of a specific tourism product. In addition, the travel agent's reputation for organising religious trips plays a crucial role. Alternatively, price does not seem to influence travellers to sacred places.

Travel agents that offer tour packages to pilgrims, as well as tourism companies wishing to promote pilgrimages can take into consideration these findings in order to design effective marketing plans.

Although tour packages for pilgrims are profitable, only few studies have focused on this type of traveller. As travel for religious purposes increases, the design of an effective marketing plan may help to further develop the market for pilgrimages.

Although many authors argue that practising marketing internally facilitates the implementation of the market orientation concept, systematic empirical research to explore the validity of the argument remains surprisingly scarce. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to investigate empirically the relationship between market orientation (MO) and internal‐market orientation (IMO) as well as their joint effect on customer satisfaction.

The findings ground on data collected from dyads of financial services providers and their customers. The former provided the information pertaining to the company's degree of MO and IMO adoption as well as on perceived employee value, while the latter were asked about perceived customer value, perceived service quality and their satisfaction with their provider. In total 127 dyads are employed in the analysis.

The findings show that MO and IMO are two inter‐related concepts, probably falling under the marketing philosophy umbrella. Through MO adoption, customer perceived value and customer perceived quality of the service increase. Through IMO adoption, the company improves the level of employee perceived value, which also results in higher levels of customer perceived service quality. Interestingly enough, IMO adoption is also found to have a direct impact on customer perceived service quality.

The major implication from the study is that adopting a market orientation does help improve customer satisfaction but this objective is better served when developing a more holistic view of marketing and trying to simultaneously offer value to other company stakeholders, such as the employees. The major limitation of the study is the focus on services. When it comes to manufactured goods, customers receive significant value from the tangible parts of the product and consequently further investigation is required before any generalization can be made on the basis of the strength of the relationships that this study reveals.

The most significant implication for practitioners is the need to strike the right balance between the company's internal and external orientation. To achieve this, companies have to invest in integrating the marketing and the human resource functions, in much the same manner in which they attempt to integrate marketing with other company functions that also influence customers' experiences.

This is the first empirical study to investigate the inter‐relationship and the joint effect of two well established notions, i.e. that between MO and IMO, and thus offers the required support to normative arguments regarding the need to sustain a balance between the company's external and internal focus.

To design and empirically validate an instrument for measuring the effectiveness of a marketing intelligence system (MkIS).

A thorough review of the literature of IS in general and MkIS in particular was the foundation for a new conceptualisation of MkIS effectiveness, which was developed into a measuring instrument for experimental application to data collected by a pre‐tested postal questionnaire from 254 five‐star hotels in Greece.

Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis show that the proposed measuring instrument meets acceptable criteria of reliability and validity. The effectiveness of MkIS is found to comprise both internal and external components, related on the one hand to the extent to which the user organization improves functional effectiveness and corporate climate and on the other to its adaptability to market conditions and its customer responsiveness. The instrument is capable of integrating these into a holistic measure.

The single‐industry, single‐country sample limits the scope for generalization. Future research should address this through replication in different contexts.

A validated measure of the effectiveness of MkIS has important implications for both users and providers. Conceptually, it permits improved understanding of the components of effectiveness. Pragmatically, it provides an assessment of the effectiveness of existing or new systems.

Until now, there has been no empirically validated instrument integrating the several dimensions of MkIS effectiveness.

This research seeks to accomplish two objectives: to extend the test of the functional relationship between store image attributes and customer satisfaction in the market environment of Greece; and to investigate the stability of the structural relationships between store image attributes and customer satisfaction across different customer groups.

The literature concerning major store image attributes was systematically reviewed. After assessing the construct validity of the store image attributes based on confirmatory factor analysis, a path model specifying the relationships between store image attributes and customer satisfaction was estimated. A multigroup analysis was conducted to test the invariance of structural paths between store image attributes and customer satisfaction for different customer profiles.

On appraising the store customer's personal variables four specific types of buyers, namely, the Typical, the Unstable, the Social, and the Occasional, were identified. While four of the six considered store attributes appear to be significant determinants of customer satisfaction, when examined for the degree of invariance between the four groups only Pricing and Products‐related attributes were equally significant in all four groups.

The results of the study may vary with national context, size, strategic position of supermarkets, and other customer personal variables (i.e. lifestyle) suggesting future research opportunities.

The results facilitate the comprehension of the role that specific store attributes have on the satisfaction of store visitors with different profiles. In addition, the results expand the retail manager's knowledge on consumer behaviour, with rational motives (product and price‐related).

The results expand one's knowledge on this relationship, propounding interesting empirical evidence of the model invariance among different consumer profiles.