Customer relationship management research in tourism and hospitality: a state-of-the-art

Abstract

Purpose: This study aimed to provide a critical review of the evolution of customer relationship management (CRM) research in the hospitality and tourism field.Design/methodology/approach: The study conducted a thorough systematical literature review by collecting papers from 14 leading tourism and hospitality journals. The examination of the literature is first based on the evolution of CRM notion and its definitions. Next, CRM studies in the literature that are related to hospitality and tourism were assessed based on their timelines and themes. Thirdly, the studies were classified based on CRM components and its impacts on firms' performances. Findings:The literature review provided an in-depth understanding on the progress of CRM based on the selected topics and suggests a redesigned research agenda for scholars, graduate students, and practitioners. Implications:This study provides new and meaningful avenues for further research in CRM in hospitality and tourism area.Originality/value: CRM has a key role in business performance and increased customer satisfaction and retention, specifically in the context of the service industry. To date, scholars have produced an abundant number of CRM related studies in tourism and hospitality journals. In this study, the progress of CRM research conducted in the tourism and hospitality sector is critically reviewed. . Despite the growing interest of researchers in studying CRM, there is still very little research that focuses on evolution and state-of-the-art aspects of CRM in the H&T field. Having identified this in the field, the main purpose of this study is to assess the progress of CRM. The paper proceeds as follows. We first examined the evolution of the definition of CRM. Next, CRM studies in the literature that are related to H&T were assessed based on their timelines and themes. Thirdly, the studies were classified based on the three CRM components namely people, process and technology and CRM impacts on firms' performances. Finally, future research topics and methods are discussed.

The role of family firm image perception in host-guest value co-creation of hospitality firms

“…Co-creation offers benefits such as increased loyalty and satisfaction towards the service and the provider (Grissemann & Stokburger-Sauer, 2012;Mathis, Kim, Uysal, Sirgy, & Prebensen, 2016). Especially for repeat guests, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) offers tools for value co-creation and plays a key role in increased customer satisfaction and retention (Rahimi, Köseoglu, Ersoy, & Okumus, 2017). Value co-creation introduces a new perspective in service innovation, conferring a prominent role to firms' customers in the innovation processes (Ottenbacher, 2007;Santos-Vijande, López-Sánchez, & Pascual-Fernández, 2015).…”

Theoretically encompassing B2C relationships in the hospitality industry

“…These approaches could also be related to other social science fields, which have laid the foundations to establish models that describe customer behaviour from a more technologyor personality-related perspective. Furthermore, from a managerial point of view, it is important to look into the possible differences between actual activity and customers' perception of the same (Rahimi et al, 2017), determined by the technology used or by personality characteristics. An understanding of these discrepancies could provide companies with accurate information as to the consequent relation between a company's actions and their customers' behavioural responses, as may be the case with the imbalanced use of mobile services, compared to online usage, especially in current times of continuance connection.…”

“…Building favourable, long-lasting relationships with customers leads to customer loyalty. This is clearly supported by Relationship Marketing and Customer Relationship Management, which help vendors to get closer to their customers through communication and information and services, including marketing, management and aspects of information technology (Rahimi, Köseoglu, Ersoy & Okumus, 2017). Researchers emphasise that, over the past decade, e-commerce and the internet have led to new opportunities in relationship customisation for creating and maintaining connections with the customer, especially in an environment such as the hospitality service industry, where customers face intangibility and high implication when purchasing (Zhang, Li, Wang & Wang, 2016).…”

Research note: customer experience management in cruise pre-consumption

“…Although relating to the evolution and state-of-the art aspects of CXM, it is noted that there is very little research in the hospitality and tourism field, (Rahimi et al, 2017;Ritchie, Tung & Ritchie, 2011). This research note highlights the need to focus this new approach to the cruise industry because of the experiential nature and intangibility of this sector.…”