ISSN No - RBS

2010 and 2020 respectively whichcalls for substantial improvement inthe growth of infrastructure to keeppace with growing rise of domesticand overseas tourists in India in nearfuture. Better road connectivity,evolving lifestyles, and positiveperception of brand Indiacommunicate positive signs for thetourism and hotel industry of India.By the year 2020, we shall needaround 6.6 million hotel rooms to tapthe likely future growth potential andit is expected that the budget and midmarkethotel segment will witnesshuge growth and expansion while theluxury segment will continue toperform extremely well(www.iloveindia.com).the number ofForeign Tourist Arrivals (FTAS) inIndia during the month of October2010 were 4.87 lakh as compared to4.46 lakh during the month of October2009 and 4.50 lakh in October 2008(timesofindia.indiatimes.com) whichis expected to double the number ofbranded hotel rooms from 100,000 bythe year 2013. Leading the pack ofglobal hotel chains, which would addover 300 hotel properties at anestimated 55,000 rooms in India bythe year 2013(www.ibef.org). Besides,favorable demographics and rapideconomic growth point out favourablytowards a long-term secular uptrendin the domestic demand for hotels forbusiness and leisure in India in a nearfuture. It shall bring aboutopportunities in all price and valuechain segments due to the shortage ofhotel rooms which truly justifies plansfor increasing to total number of hotelrooms to a figure of 200,000 by theyear 2011 (www.tourismindia.com).Rising business and leisure travel tosmaller cities such as Udaipur,Thiruvananthapuram, Bhubaneswar,Pune, Kochi and Chandigarh, haveincreased demand for quality hotelrooms in these cities. The hospitalitychains are expected to increase theirpresence in smaller cities to leveragethis opportunity. Further, they arelikely to plan a suitable project mix inform of more budget/business hotelscompared to luxury hotels for thesecities.It calls for preparing an effectivecustomer database that shall allow acompany to understand bettercustomers’ needs particularly theirrelationship needs better than thecompetitors. It shall also include dataabout the current and past attitude,state/trend of business from customer,market shares, profitability, etc. Thedata about customers’ needs,attitudes and behaviour shall enablehotels to identify today’s keycustomers to maintain relationship ,develop relationship with tomorrow’scustomers, and calculate the revenuethat is generated from the customer ,and estimate own future investmentopportunities.Selected References:• Berry, l. L. (1983), ‘relationship marketingof services : growing interest, emergingperspectives’, journal of the academy ofmarketing science, vol. 23, no. 4, pp. 236-245.• Bounds, g., Yorks, l., Adams, m., & Ranney,g. 1994. Beyond total quality management:toward the emerging paradigm. New York:McGraw-hill.• Bowen, D. E., & Schneider, b. (1988)services marketing and management:implications for organizational behavior.Research in organizational behavior, vol.10: 43-80. Greenwich, ct: jai press.[ 184 ] Rai Management Journal