Application Research On CRM In Hotel Industry

CRM, or customer relationship management, is a collective reflection of the"customer-oriented" operation concept. It is a result of increasingly intensified marketcompetition and more individualized customer demands. Based on moderninformation technologies, it addresses the weaknesses of traditional marketingmethods and promotes the interactive and mutual-benefiting relations betweenbusinesses and their clients. It is mainly implemented in telecommunications, retail,financial service and a number of other sectors.In spite of being one of the first sectors to open to foreign investment, China'shospitality industry is disturbed by a fact that no one can afford to neglect, i.e., lowefficiency. After arriving at a certain stage in their development, most hotels are nolonger able to further improve their sales, service quality and the enthusiasm of theiremployees. As a result, their customer bases are eroded and their profits decline. Inthese circumstances, it is inevitable to introduce CRM into the hospitality industry.In this paper, the evolution of CRM and its role in business management is firstexplained. With regard to client resources acquisition, such issues as how toeffectively integrate client resources through the CRM system and how to obtain andallow internal-sharing of client information to the maximum extent are discussed. Interms of client resources utilization, an analytical CRM model is adopted to explorefurther utilization of client resources. Then, based on the case study of ShangdongLinyi Ronghua Hotel, the SWOT method is used to analyze the operationalenvironment of the hotel and explain the inevitability of its introduction of CRM. Inthe meantime, through the reengineering of its client segmentation and businessprocesses, guidance is provided for the hotel to develop its market and operationstrategies, heighten its automated and individualized service standard, maintain andenhance its client loyalty and improve its performance.Experience accumulated during the CRM implementation process at the hotel issummarized and vulnerabilities of the current CRM system and impacts of e-businessare pointed out in this paper, in the hope that it could be of referential value toenterprises planning to implement CRM systems, particularly those in travel andservice industry.