METHODOLOGY The purpose of this study was to uncover relationship marketing and the future of customer relationship
management in Turkey’s lodging industry. A descriptive cross-sectional research design was used for this study and
a questionnaire was used to collect the data. In total, 12 hypotheses were tested in this study (H1 to H12). These 12
null hypotheses were (1) there is no significant GAP between hotel managers’ perception towards performance of
RM attributes and the importance of RM attributes; (2) there is no significant impact of hotel managers’ perception
towards performance of RM on likelihood of using RM; (3) there is no significant impact of hotel managers’
perception towards performance of RM on likelihood of recommendation RM; (4) there is no significant impact of
hotel managers’ perception towards performance of RM on likelihood of continuing use RM; (5) there is no
significant relationship between hotel managers’ likelihood of continuing use of RM and likelihood of implementing
CRM in the future; (6) there is no significant relationship between hotel managers’ familiarity with CRM and
likelihood of implementing CRM in the future; (7) there is no significant relationship between hotel managers’
perception towards RM and hotel properties’ characteristics; (8) there is no significant relationship between hotel
managers’ perception towards RM and their demographics (e.g., age, education level, gender); (9) there is no
significant relationship between importance of RM and hotel properties’ characteristics; (10) there is no significant
relationship between importance of RM and hotel managers’ demographics; (11) there is no significant relationship
between performance of RM and hotel properties’ characteristics; and (12) there is no significant relationship
between performance of RM and hotel managers’ demographics.
The data was collected through a structured-undisguised questionnaire survey and RM and CRM attributes
were derived from the published literature. An invitation letter directed the target responders to the Web page where
the online survey was hosted. The survey questionnaire was accompanied with a cover letter explaining the purpose
of the research. The questionnaire consisted of six sections. The first section included organization related questions;
the second section asked about hotel and resort hotel managers’ perception towards relationship marketing. A well
known 5-point Likert-type scale was used ranging from (1) strongly disagree to (5) strongly agree to measure their
perception toward RM; In the third section, it assessed hotel and resort hotel managers’ perception toward
importance of RM and their perception toward performance of RM. Two sets 5 point Likert-type scales were used
ranging from (1) not important at all to (5) extremely important and (1) not high at all to (5) extremely high to
measure importance and performance of RM; The fourth section was to find out hotel and resort hotel managers’
overall satisfaction level towards RM and their likelihood of using RM, recommending RM and continuing use of
RM. Two sets 5 point Likert-type scales were used ranging from (1) very dissatisfied to (5) very satisfied to measure
hotel and resort hotel managers’ overall satisfaction level towards RM, and ranging from (1) very unlikely to (5)
very likely to measure their likelihood of using RM, likelihood of recommending RM and likelihood of continuing
use of RM; The fifth section was to identify hotel and resort hotel managers’ familiarity with customer relationship
management and their likelihood of implementing CRM in the future. Again a similar two sets 5 point Likert-type
scales were used to measure hotel managers’ familiarity with CRM and to measure hotel managers’ likelihood of
implementing CRM; and the last section was to asses the hotel and the resort hotel managers’ demographic profile
such as age, gender and education level.
A convenience sampling technique was used: the 4 and 5 star hotels and resort hotels were drawn from
Antalya and its surrounding regions in the south part of Turkey. Antalya and its nearing regions are selected because
this region hosts most of the hotels and resort hotels in Turkey. The 4 and 5 star hotels are chosen because they are
known to be more customer-satisfaction driven due to the stiff competition they face both nationally and
internationally. The survey was conducted during the high tourism season (June 1, 2006 to July 15, 2006) in order to
increase the likelihood of reaching the target population in this region. The survey was made available on a website.
An e-mail invitation was sent to the mangers of hotels and resort hotels in Antalya and surrounding regions. A
reminder e-mail was sent to hotel and resort hotel managers two weeks later. In order to increase the response rate,
the results of the study were offered to be shared with the participants once the study is completed.
