Relationship between third-party agent marketing strategies and financial performance of hospitality sector

Abstract

The main motive of the said study was to investigate the role of third-party agent marketing strategies and financial performance of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s hospitality sector (hotels). For the said purpose, a structured questionnaire is used to collect the data from respondents (hotels’ managers). The analysis was performed on the sample of 305 5-star, 4-star, and 3-star hotels. The study likely explored how these explanatory variables (number of review (NbRev), valence of review (ValRev) and consumer rating (ConsRat)) contribute to shaping consumer behavior and the effectiveness of marketing strategies in hospitality. Financial performance was measured through revenue per available room (RevPar). Correlation and t-test were used to measure the significance of marketing strategies on the financial performance of the hotel industry. The findings of the current study have shown the acceptable association of variables. While test of significance results have shown statistically significance relationship, the coefficient further assessed to get the influence of the explanatory variables on the criterion variable (financial performance). The results show that NbRev has a significant positive impact on revenue per available room (Beta = .173, t-value = 3.161, and sig-value=.002). The study also indicated that ValRev is statistically significant, and it has a positive impact on dependent variable (Beta = .212, t-value = 3.819, and sig-value = .000). The ConsRat is also found statistically significant with positive impact on the criterion variable (Beta = .253, t-value = 4.453, and sig-value = .000). The study found and concluded that online travel agency marketing strategies play a vital role in uplifting financial performance.