Corporate`s promotional tool has been shifting from advertising, sales promotion or personal selling to PR/publicity. However, a little study on hotel publicity has been conducted so far. Conceptually this study clarifies differences and similarities ...
Corporate`s promotional tool has been shifting from advertising, sales promotion or personal selling to PR/publicity. However, a little study on hotel publicity has been conducted so far. Conceptually this study clarifies differences and similarities between publicity and public relations(PR). The purpose of this study is to investigate the characteristics of hotel publicity appeared in a daily newspaper in Korea and then to suggest how to positively publicize hotels. Data was collected during the period of January-December 1999. A total of 119 usable articles were content analyzed. Study questions include: (1) among many publics related to hotels, which public was mainly focused? (2) what was the direction of the articles: positive or negative? (3) whether any differences in facilities, service, and marketing exist between deluxe hotels and budget hotels, and (4) were the newspaper articles only fact-giving or persuasive message? Customer-related topics took up a majority portion of the articles. Stories about budget hotel employees were relatively less dealt, but such stories seemed to have a persuasive power. A statistically significant difference in message direction was found between deluxe and budget hotels. Deluxe hotels gained more positive messages than budget hotels did. Finally, this article provides hotel publicity personnel with some ways to effectively launch publicity campaigns. Recommendations for future studies were prepared in terms of contents and methods.