The role of E commerce as a marketing tool in the Kenyan Hotel Industry : a case of the 5 Star Hotels in Nairobi

Abstract

E-commerce is the buying and selling of goods and services on the Internet. Despite the advantages that e commerce and the Internet in specific have, very few firms have yet to fully accommodate its use within its operations. This project focused on the place of ecommerce in Kenyan hotel industry with a case study of the 5 star hotels in Nairobi. The objectives of the study were to establish the role of e commerce as a marketing tool in the hotel industry, to determine the extent to which the use of ecommerce has been utilized in the five star hotels in Kenya and to investigate the extent to which facilities (both software and hardware) influence the utility of e commerce in the industry. In this study, primary data was collected using questionnaire method. An exploratory design was used in this study. A total number of 11 respondents from various five star hotels in Nairobi were involved in the study. The researcher used a subjective sampling to identify exhibition stalls owners that would respond to the questionnaires. The results of the study showed that most of the respondents agreed that past training had aided them in the achievement of their objectives and generally in their normal areas of work. All the respondents agreed that competition had a great impact on the adoption of new technology. The reasons advanced for this include; global markets in which these companies operated dictated the adoption of new technology and the fact that communication has really made the world small. All the respondents agreed that hotel rating in stars had no effect on determining the necessity of use of e-commerce in hotel operations.