Sensory marketing influence on customer lifetime value of the hotel industry - Theory and Practice in Hospitality and Tourism Research - page 119

(Reichheld, 1992).It has been proven that a 5%
increase in customer retention yields 85% more
profits in service industry (Reichheld & Sasser,
1990). Moreover, retention and conservation of
existing customers costs less than requiring of new
customers ( Reichheld, 2001).
If customers' experience at a destination is
understood as a product (e.g. visiting a hotel), the
level of loyalty can be reflected in their behavioural
intention to revisit the destination and intention
to recommend visiting the hotel to relatives and
friends (Oppermann, 2000). It is good to mention
that customer loyalty will make the higher costs of
services will still be paid by loyal customers; it will
bring positive word-of-mouth as the best market-
ing agent and it will save money for the organiza-
tion because retaining customers are less expensive
than acquiring new customers (Gee, Coates &
Nicholson, 2008).

are more likely to react to their experiences. Hotels'
guests who stay in a particular hotel and who come
back to stay insinuate their direct experiences and
it will address elements of physical environment
and service substance that indicate their satisfac-
tion or dissatisfaction. As sensory marketing needs
the marketers to expand specific strategies that are
capable of elevating customer perception, it would
be interesting to understand how this translates to
the creation of CLV.
This paper illustrates the relevance of sensory
marketing in the context of the service industry.
The proposed study therefore hopes to address the
link between SM and CLV and therefore contrib-
utes not only to the body of knowledge relating to
the theories of SM and CLV but also to the applied
scenario where practitioners, specifically hotels
operators can benefit from the understanding of
how customers or hotel patrons expressed their
experiences during their hotel stay.

2.3 Word Of Mouth (WOM) communication
Another element of CLV is the tendency of word-
of-mouth (WOM) communication among custom-
ers. Word of mouth communication serves as a
customer to customer (c2c) channel to convey infor-
mation (Arndt, 1967; Bansal & Voyer, 2000).Word
of mouth begins from loyal customers who are
committed to a destination or service (Derbaix &
Vanhamme, 2003).Word of mouth is the greatest
influential communication in the hotel industry and
it acts as an alternative source of information to help
others (friends and relatives) to make decisions.

4 CONCLUSION

Even though the literature has built on the possi-
bility of associating SM and CLV, there is still a
requirement to recognize how these constructs are
operationalized in the research setting. Additional
assessment is perhaps needed to understand fur-
ther the procedure of CLV and how this can be
interpreted into outstanding information to the
academics and the practitioners. Furthermore,
understanding of SM also has to be improved if
more inferences are to be realized to address related
issues of consumer behaviour.

2.4 Revisit intention
Customer's repeat purchase in the hotel industry
is known as revisit intention and it is also linked
to customers' satisfaction with initial purchase
(Sirgy & Tyagi, 1986).The qualification of destina-
tion effects on tourists' intention to recommend
and come back again to the same destination or
place (Kozak & Rimmington, 2000) will act as an
influencing factor for attracting revisits. Intention
of customers is in relation to their satisfaction. If
they are satisfied they will repurchase and revisit
a destination (Oliver & Swan, 1989). Moreover,
when the tourists have enjoyable and unforgettable
experiences, they are more likely to plan and return
in the future. As a result, satisfaction has a signifi-
cant effect on planning for the next visit.

REFERENCES

Arndt, Johan. 1967. Role of Product-Related Conversa-
tions in the Diffusion of a New Product. Journal of
Marketing Research (JMR) 4(3).
Bansal, Harvir S & Voyer, Peter A. 2000. Word-of-mouth
processes within a services purchase decision context.
Journal of service research 3(2): 166-177.
Bohari, Abdul Manaf, Rainis, Ruslan & Marimuthu,
Malliga. 2011. Customer Lifetime Value Model in
Perspective of Firm and Customer: Practical Issues
and Limitation on Prospecting Profitable Customers
of Hypermarket Business. International Journal of
Business and Management 6(8): p161.
Bruner, Gordon C. 1990. Music, mood, and marketing.
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Choi, Tat Y & Chu, Raymond. 2001. Determinants of
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Hong Kong hotel industry. International Journal of
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Davies, Barry J, Kooijman, Dion & Ward, Philippa. 2003.
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nal of Marketing Management 19(5-6): 611-627.

3 DISCUSSION

Thus far, the amalgamation of literature appears
to point to the realization on the probability of
relating SM and CLV in a setting where customers