Small and family businesses as service brands: an empirical analysis in the hotel industry
by Mike Peters, Joerg Frehse
International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business (IJESB), Vol. 12, No. 1, 2011

Abstract: The authors hypothesise that small and family businesses can create a powerful branding with an emotional-added value which serves as a competitive advantage. In the first phase of a long-term research project, it was analysed as to whether small and family-managed hotels especially located in the Alpine region display typical brand characteristics. The purpose of the first empirical step is to examine whether hotel guests perceive entrepreneurial families and family firms as service brands. Qualitative in-depth interviews with hotels guests have been carried out in Tyrolean small and family businesses. The results show that tourists do perceive individual managed hotels as a brand particularly because of the personal relationship between entrepreneurial family and employees on one side and the customer on the other side.

Online publication date: Sat, 11-Oct-2014

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