Experiential Marketing: A Research on Hotel Businesses

Abstract

Purpose – In today's fast-paced competition, the changing of customers' wishes and expectations lead enterprises to offer different services. In such a situation, businesses have also preferred the way of differentiation in their marketing activities in order to stand out against their competitors. One of these marketing activities is experiential marketing. Tourism enterprises that figured out the importance of experiential marketing are also striving for marketing activities aimed at providing a unique unique experience. Therefore, with this research, it is aimed to determine the experience dimensions offered to customers in 4- and 5-star hotel transactions in Ankara and to investigate the effect of experience dimensions on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Design/methodology/approach – The universe of the research consists of domestic and foreign customers staying in 4- and 5-star hotel establishments located in Ankara. In the research, a survey was conducted for the guests of 56 hotel establishments during check-out. BM SPSS 28 and R program (R Core Team, 2023) were used to evaluate the data obtained in the research. Mann-Whitney U, Shapiro-Wilk, Kruskal-Wallis H, Dunn tests and path analysis techniques were used in the analysis of the research. Findings – As a result of the research, it was determined that aesthetic, entertainment, ergonomics, social interaction, social satisfaction and education dimensions of customer experience dimensions have a statistically significant effect on customer satisfaction. Again, it has been revealed that aesthetic, ergonomics, alturistics, social interaction, social satisfaction and education dimensions from customer experience dimensions have a statistically significant effect on customer loyalty. Discussion – To gain customer loyalty, businesses should focus on customer expectations and aim to ensure customer satisfaction. Since the path coefficients of the statistically significant aesthetics, entertainment, ergonomics, social impact, social satisfaction and education dimensions are positive; It is predicted that as individuals' scores on aesthetics, entertainment, ergonomics, social impact, social satisfaction and education levels increase, the customer satisfaction level will also increase.