Blue Ocean strategies in hotel industry - Theory and Practice in Hospitality and Tourism Research - page 46

hotels are able to create new customer value.
Creating or adding value to hotel offerings would
beneficially reinforce revenue management and
strengthen market positions in the marketplace.
The continuous of new product offering in an
uncontested marketplace will leads to the evolu-
tion of a great number of modifications of room-
associated amenities and the development of hotel
products which in turn result in greater satisfac-
tion, acceptance and loyalty on the part of the
customers. The value characteristics of the Blue
Ocean Strategy of the selected hotels are creating
added-valued offerings for existing customers and
aligning all hotel products, services and activities
with the strategic choice of differentiation. The
innovation component in this hospitality setting
would include restructuring market segmentations,
rebranding, and reformulating pricing strategies to
capture new demand (Yang, 2012a).
On top of that, hotel operators should be
able to visualize various strategies from different
angles the visual awakening is where firm is able
to see where the company stands; visual explora-
tion in where organization visualizes how others
perceive it; visual strategy fair where firm projects
where it could be in the short and long run; and
visual communication where firm is able to draw
a map of every competitors by plotting who is the
pioneer, migrator and the settler. Identifying the
equivalent of the swimmer, snorkeler and diver
enables firm to predict which company is the true
rival and how it could differentiates it from the
snorkeler and diver. Identifying the attributes of
BOS also enable firm to reach beyond its existing
demand. This enable firm to scrutinize the three
tiers of non-customers at which the “soon to be
noncustomers is the first tier, followed by the
second tier or those who consciously refuse your
market and the third tier or those “unexplored”
noncustomers in distant market”. The attributes
also helps firm to analyze them with any or all
of the analytical tools and frameworks so as to
design strategies to save the first two tiers and to
attract the third one.
In addition to that, the sequence of BOS, which
comprises of the buyer utility, the price, the cost
and the adoption hurdles in realizing the business
idea must be strictly adhered to ensure a commer-
cially viable BOS idea. Likewise, Parvinen et al.
(2011) pointed out that linking to performance, at
the end of the day to cash flow, is governed by the
fit between the context and selected approach to
BOS. Therefore, the ability of firm to understand
the combination of right approach is vital for the
firm's performance and survival.
It is good to realize that the hotel industry will
continuously grow where market will expand,
operations will improve and hotel players will

come and go. Nevertheless, with the overabun-
dance of industries existed today namely 3D televi-
sions, Ipad, Ipod, Nanotechnology and lots more,
we could projected that in twenty years from now
there will be many unknown industries will likely
exist then. The same goes to hotel industry milieu,
nowadays we could see various types of concepts
being introduced such as green hotel, Syariah
Compliant hotel, boutique hotel and library hotel.
Just few decades ago none of these concepts have
ever existed. Perhaps in the future, let say twenty
decades from now there will be many unknown
concepts being created.

6 CONCLUSION

It is a challenge to explore the ability to create new
market space that is uncontested. This requires
firm to steer away from complacency of the cur-
rent product and service offerings and manage-
ment practices and to move ahead to strategize
by understanding the business environment and
configuration. With that, an empirical study is cru-
cial to examine the Blue Ocean Strategy tools and
framework from hotel industry perspectives. It is
also imperative to scrutinize the impact of imple-
menting Blue Ocean Strategy in hotel industry
towards hotel performances particularly the objec-
tive or financial performance.

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