ABSTRACT

Prior to examining internal marketing (IM) in the hospitality and tourism industry, there is first a need to set this focus within the wider context of marketing and examine other elements of an organization's performance that shape how IM can be used. In the hospitality and tourism business environment, the marketing function concentrates upon the external customers rather than internal customers. Marketing and advertising campaigns, for example, are constructed after considerable market research to segment and target whom the marketing message is aimed at. Companies also have large and normally well-resourced marketing and sales departments to relate to external customers. As explained elsewhere in this book, there is now a level of sophistication in marketing to external customers that is aided by the use of computer technology that allows huge amounts of data to be stored and analyzed to ensure that marketing campaigns reach the desired market effectively. An important element of this marketing effort has been the increasing use of relationship marketing that has an IM component that uses organizational culture and values as the center of operations and strategy to link the organization to the customer (Sin et al., 2006).