Microsoft Word 2007 ichrie conference Proceedings Final-Final 06-06-07. doc

 
2007 Annual International CHRIE Conference & Exposition 
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what is given up for what is received,” (Rust, Lemon, & Narayandas, 2004, p.24). Research in the area of 
customer’s perceived value has defined three key drivers of value to include: convenience, price and quality (Gale, 
1994; Parasuraman, 1997; Woodruff, 1997; Zeithaml, 1988). Convenience is a term used by consumers to express 
their perception of value. Sometimes convenience may mean location (proximity of the grocery store from where 
one lives) while others may perceive convenience as easy access or contact (such as email, fax, or phone). Some 
people view convenience as more important than price or quality. Companies compete with price in many different 
ways. Rust, Zeithaml, and Lemon (2002) refer to three ways of price differentiation: 1) offer discounts and sales, 2) 
offer the “everyday low prices,” or 3) offer payment plans to reposition the price at a future time. Selecting the right 
pricing strategies is critical because price is not always the most important attribute of the customer’s perception of 
value. For example, in Lockyer’s (2000, 2002) studies he found that ‘price’ or ‘room rate’ was not rated highly by 
potential guests as a decision for selecting accommodations. The concept of quality has been used in marketing as a 
deferential tool between one company and another company and/or between one service and another service.
In recent years, there has been some confusion and debate between brand equity and customer equity. 
According to Amber, Bhattacharya, Edell, Keller, Lemon, and Mittal (2002) some business trade publications posit 
that “brand” should be the main focus of firms while other posit that firms should do everything possible to increase 
and sustain their customer equity position. In the current study, brand is a construct of customer equity and for some 
customers brand is what drives an increase in customer equity. Brand equity is defined as; “the customer’s 
subjective view of the organization and/or convention center and its offerings (perception of brand awareness, 
attitude toward the brand) (Rust, Zeithaml, Lemon, 2002). A customer’s perceptions of a brand tend to be emotional 
and subjective. According to Keller (1993), customers who associate with a particular brand have positive brand 
equity, meaning they respond more to marketing activities when a brand is mentioned.
The field of marketing has taken a change in both theory and practice toward relationship marketing 
(Morgan & Hunt, 1994). The basic principle behind relationship marketing is the creation and maintenance of a long 
term relationship between customers and a company. In the past, many businesses survived through transactional 
relationships. Currently, businesses understand to be competitive in the market, they must go beyond the 
transactional relationship and understand the needs of their customers and create a relationship that will exist beyond 
the transaction. The advances in technology have certainly played an important role in the implementation of 
systems which help manage customer information.
To date, a customer equity approach has not been applied to the convention industry. This study makes the 
initial investigation into the actionable drivers of customer equity related to the convention industry. For the 
purpose of this study, show managers are considered the primary customers of the convention center.