French hotels, English tourists. Web content to attract the English-speaking consumer
Authors
Tropea, Alexandra
Issue Date
2014
Degree
MA Marketing
Publisher
Dublin Business School
Rights holder
Rights
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Abstract
Purpose – Through this Masters dissertation, the researcher aims to understand the use of English in tourism, and the importance of tourism in France. More specifically, the researcher aims to determine whether English can help French hotel managers better cater to English speaking guests, and boost sales. Methodology ‐ Through the literature review the researcher gained an enormous amount of knowledge regarding the global tourism industry, the tourism industry of France, the use of online travel booking outlets, and English as the language of e‐commerce. Also, the researcher conducted a survey to which 120 respondents answered questions regarding tourism and the French tourism industry. Findings – Through social media, online advertising, and the development of websites, hotels can better promote their services to English speaking tourists who are willing to book directly with hotels. This achieves a direct line of communication, cuts out the 3rd party intermediary retailer, and the hotel is able to profit more and provide a better service to the customer. Limitations ‐ The questionnaire was administered through Facebook and direct mail that may lead to limitations on the demographics of those who answered. However, the aim was to reach an English speaking market and all those who answered the questionnaire originated from countries where English is the first language. Also, another limitation could be that of the level of experience the researcher has with collecting primary data, as they have never done so prior to this course. Practical implications ‐ Outcomes and implications for practice resulting from this dissertation are that French hotels wanting to attract more English speaking tourists must reform their current advertising, sales, and promotional scheme to generate profit. By continuing to generate all their English‐speaking customers via 3rd party intermediaries, they are losing out profits that are being spent in high commissions to the 3rd party retailers. Value of paper ‐ This dissertation aims to add value to anyone in the tourism industry seeking to draw in Anglophone tourists. Author keywords: Copywriting, webmarketing, France, North America, anglophone, English, content, online, social media, marketing, tourism, hotel, traveling, Europe