Customer Relationship Management in Hotels: Scale Development and Validation

Abstract

Purpose: This study aims to develop a measurement scale for customer relationship management (CRM) practices in the hotel industry. Though many studies have been interested in CRM, much of the discussions involve backstage CRM practices focusing on organisational activities. As a result, the prevailing scales consider CRM implementations instead of the practices experienced by customers due to such implementations. Methodology: This study developed and validated a scale that measures CRM practices experienced by travellers in hotels. The scale development process was conducted as stipulated by Hinkins (1998) and DeVellis (2003). The pilot testing was done with a sample of 111 leisure travellers who visited the same international destination three or more times during the past five years. The final survey was conducted using a sample of 400 respondents. Findings: Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) generated a two-factor solution. However, the scale validation process carried out through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) resulted in a one-factor solution to measure hotels' CRM practices and identified five key factors that can measure CRM in a hotel based on the scale development. Originality: This study considers that CRM practices that customers experience better evaluate CRM in general and validate a scale to identify and measure such practices in the hotel sector from the customer's perspective.