Sustainability as social marketing
by Bill Quain; Cliff Whithem; Michael S. Scales; Kristen Comose
International Journal of Qualitative Research in Services (IJQRS), Vol. 2, No. 3, 2016

Abstract: The purpose of this research is to illustrate a practical application of social marketing in the hotel industry. Specifically, this study demonstrated how common problem-solving techniques could be combined to help a resort hotel's executive staff members to create and implement a sustainability program that would benefit the hotel, the institution that owns it and the community as a whole. As a for-profit hospitality organisation, all strategies and plans were evaluated for their impact on the bottom line as well. Three distinct tools were combined including: question brainstorming; mind mapping; and six hat decision tactics to achieve results that included a series of recommendations for first-step implementation of a viable sustainability plan that would attract more customers and improve revenues. While social marketing has both evolving theoretical and practical applications, nearly all successful marketing programs have outcomes centring around effectiveness and sustainability. From both researchers and practitioner perspectives, this study focused on creating a model that would help a group of hotel executives to quickly and effectively develop programs that would improve the social good and deliver better profits at the same time.

Online publication date: Sat, 04-Mar-2017

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