A Study on the Attitudes of Front Office Managers towards Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in Small Accommodation Enterprises: Sample of Silifke

Abstract

The survival of accommodation businesses depends on the continuity of room occupancy and customer continuity. This depends on effective communication and customer relationship management (CRM). The majority of accommodation businesses worldwide are small accommodation businesses, and especially after the pandemic (COVID-19), demand for small accommodation businesses is increasing rapidly. One of the departments where communication with guests is most intense in accommodation businesses is the front office department. Therefore, the purpose of the study is to investigate the attitudes of front office managers in small accommodation businesses towards CRM. The survey technique, which is frequently used in quantitative research, was applied in the study. In total, a survey was conducted with the front office managers of 93 small accommodation businesses by one-on-one interviews, as some of the 113 small accommodation businesses did not want to conduct a survey for various reasons. The obtained data were evaluated with the help of the SPSS statistical package program, and descriptive statistics, t-test and ANOVA tests were applied during the analyzes. The research has shown that in some small hotels there is no front office manager or officer, this task is mostly undertaken by the hotel manager, hotel owner or receptionists, in general in small hotels there is not enough budget allocated for CRM applications and technology is not given enough importance in relations with customers. In addition, the research has also shown that the attitudes of the participants towards customer relations do not differ according to their gender and age, but they differ according to their level of education, foreign language proficiency, duties and tourism education.