Strategies to deal with intangibility in hotel industry
The intangible nature of services makes consumers more concerned about the service providers. In order to create trust, marketers have to provide tangible evidence. The less tangible a service, the less the service marketing resembles goods marketing. Performance here can be judged only after the service is completed and consistent service level is difficult to maintain.
A hotels promotional effort must show the benefits to be derived from the service, rather than emphasizing on the service itself. The promotional strategies usually used to portray the strength of the service are (from RAMPAL GUPTA, applicable for all services)
1) Visualization – it promotes the tangible element of a service. For example, a hotel depicts the benefits of dining at its restaurant with its ads, which shows beautiful interiors, well laid facilities, etc.
2) Association– while promoting the hotel, the service is associated with a tangible person, object or place. For example: Mc Donald’s has associated itself with Ronald, the clown in order to appeal to children.
3) Physical representation – services when represented by some physical representation help in building the trust of the customers for example: restaurants dress their service providers in uniforms to emphasize visibility, reliability and cleanliness, attractive menu cards also help.
4) Documentation– documentation is sued by service providers to tangibilise their intangibles. Hotel orchid advertises the awards received by it in the recent past and emphasis its hotel as an environmentally sensitive hotel.
5) Branding– also adds tangibility to intangibles. Brand help in differentiating the service from that of its competitors in terms of name, logo, mascot and other identifying features and forms an important component of the communication mix
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