Effect of Integrated Marketing Communication on Marketing Performance: The Difference between Chain Hotels and Independent Hotels in Vietnam.

This paper aims to explore the effect of integrated marketing communication (IMC) on marketing performance in hospitality industry. From firm-wide approach, IMC is viewed more broadly with its integration throughout the organization, not only integration of mass media elements to produce a consistent message. This approach has improved IMC measurements, but many studies have neglected the roles of controlling of the IMC process, the difference in the impacts of IMC on marketing performance between chain hotels and independent hotels has not been examined and evaluated. This paper completes measurement scales and evaluates the effects of IMC on marketing performance in the hospitality industry by using primary data collected from 198 managers of various levels from 4-to-5-star hotels in Hanoi - the capital of Vietnam, including chain hotels and independent hotels. The research findings reveal IMC factors that have an effect on overall marketing performance (including sales-related performance and brand-related performance) and the difference in their effect on 2 groups of hotels. Specifically, with chain hotels, 5 factors affecting the marketing performance in declining order are interactivity, controlling, consistent communication, planning and organizational infrastructure while with independent hotels, the factors with effects in declining order are controlling, planning, consistent communication, interactivity and organizational infrastructure. The study provides some recommendations regarding the IMC process to improve the sales-related performance and brand-related performance of chain hotels and independent hotels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]