A study on creating a competitive advantage at Namibia wildlife resorts through customer relationship management
This study focused on examining the creation of competitive advantage at Namibia Wildlife Resorts through customer relationship management. The purpose of this proposed study is to investigate the extent to which the practice of customer care relationships contributes to occupancy levels in the travel and tourism industry with specific reference to Namibia Wildlife Resorts. The overall objective of the proposed study is to understand how customer relationship management strategy, as a marketing intervention, can be used to maintain and create relationships in order to improve occupancy. Specifically, the study aims to investigate the impact of customer relationship management and occupancy in the travel and tourism industry, particularly NWR. The study also aims to find out the perception of NWR management and staff on how they see the relationship between CRM and occupancy. The research adopted the qualitative approach and is explorative in nature. Collected data was analyzed by reading through the interviews and discussion transcripts and identifying main themes that emerged. The researcher also looked at similarities and differences in different sets of data to see what different groups or key informants have said. All in all, the information collected was summarized and synthesized to obtain the results of the study. The major findings that emerged from the research are that NWR does not have a performance management system; a clear strategy of handling customer needs. The major recommendation for this study is that; the NWR should introduce performance management system so as to appraise employees. It also emerged that NWR should establish a clear strategy of handling customer needs. Overall, it is satisfying to know that a good CRM strategy can create a competitive advantage in the marketplace because the research results prove that the relationship between CRM and occupancy does exist. Due to the limited literature available on CRM in the tourism industry, the researcher had to rely on the CRM concept in general and also relied on the research results especially on occupancy related information. In addition, there are vacancies within the top management level and thus middle management and supervisory level employees were included.
Compatitive advantage, Namibia, Wildlife resorts, Customer relationship management
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