ABSTRACT
Much of the hospitality and tourism marketing literature implies that the sector represents one more facet of the service industry. Indeed principles adapted from manufacturing and product marketing are applied to redefine marketing issues through the prism of product, place, price and promotion, by adding people, processes and place in service contexts (Parasuraman et al., 1991; Palmer, 2001). In this framework, marketing strategies and tactics in hospitality and tourism are principally concerned with adjusting each of these elements to provide a competitive offer to customers (Kotler, 2003). The same concepts apply, therefore, to marketing to hotel and restaurant customers, as those apply to marketing to laundry or financial service customers (Lovelock, 1999).
