1. Introduction
1.1 Background
A budget hotel is an establishment which is offering rooms to its customers at lower tariff rates than the industry norms and proposing limited facilities and services (Rogerson, 2013). Budget hotels had become a real trend over these past few years resulting in the expansion of specialized international groups such as Ibis Budget, Best Western, etc. These chains capitalized on international marketing locations such as China and Malaysia (Chan & Ni, 2011). In the same way, these brands also established and quickly expanded their network in Switzerland as did, for example, Ibis which has opened 44 hotels in the country whose 12 are in the region of Geneva (Ibis Hotels, 2016). This expansion would not have been …show more content…
However, it appears that no study has been conducted regarding the efficiency of marketing strategies in the particular area of Geneva.
Furthermore, this study will aim a very specific and limited sample group: domestic tourists or Swiss people travelling in Switzerland. The other investigations about budget hotels’ travellers were focusing on other local bigger populations or on international tourism (Peng, Zhao, & Mattila, 2015; Ren, Zhang, et al., 2015; Zhang et al., 2013).
Then, according to Hochgraefe, Faulk and Vieregge (2012), the needs and behaviors of Swiss domestic travellers are distinctive from the ones of the travellers belonging to budget hotel’s segmentation. Indeed, Swiss travellers choose a property according to their perceived meaning of the hotel brand in line with the representation they want to communicate with their social environment. Swiss leisure travellers do not perceive hotels as a commodity, but more as a reward or a pleasure. Indeed, the national culture of “individualism” (Tajeddini & Trueman, 2012) of Swiss citizens is contrasting with the socially interactive personality of budget travellers (Obenour, 2004). This particularity also constitutes an interesting item of concern as the studies led about budget hotels’ success and expansion are concerning countries that are mostly considered as “collectivists” as China or Malaysia (The Hofstede Centre, 2016a,
1.1 Background
A budget hotel is an establishment which is offering rooms to its customers at lower tariff rates than the industry norms and proposing limited facilities and services (Rogerson, 2013). Budget hotels had become a real trend over these past few years resulting in the expansion of specialized international groups such as Ibis Budget, Best Western, etc. These chains capitalized on international marketing locations such as China and Malaysia (Chan & Ni, 2011). In the same way, these brands also established and quickly expanded their network in Switzerland as did, for example, Ibis which has opened 44 hotels in the country whose 12 are in the region of Geneva (Ibis Hotels, 2016). This expansion would not have been …show more content…
However, it appears that no study has been conducted regarding the efficiency of marketing strategies in the particular area of Geneva.
Furthermore, this study will aim a very specific and limited sample group: domestic tourists or Swiss people travelling in Switzerland. The other investigations about budget hotels’ travellers were focusing on other local bigger populations or on international tourism (Peng, Zhao, & Mattila, 2015; Ren, Zhang, et al., 2015; Zhang et al., 2013).
Then, according to Hochgraefe, Faulk and Vieregge (2012), the needs and behaviors of Swiss domestic travellers are distinctive from the ones of the travellers belonging to budget hotel’s segmentation. Indeed, Swiss travellers choose a property according to their perceived meaning of the hotel brand in line with the representation they want to communicate with their social environment. Swiss leisure travellers do not perceive hotels as a commodity, but more as a reward or a pleasure. Indeed, the national culture of “individualism” (Tajeddini & Trueman, 2012) of Swiss citizens is contrasting with the socially interactive personality of budget travellers (Obenour, 2004). This particularity also constitutes an interesting item of concern as the studies led about budget hotels’ success and expansion are concerning countries that are mostly considered as “collectivists” as China or Malaysia (The Hofstede Centre, 2016a,