Gaining competitive advantage is a major challenge for companies operating in the contemporary ever-changing business environment. Most companies feel that understanding the customer is important. Therefore, it is necessary that they develop a marketing concept to increase their customer orientation as well as their goal orientation (McDaniel Jr. and Gates, 1996; and Lancaster and Massingham, 2001). An understanding of their competitors’ objectives, strengths and weaknesses is important for developing and implementing competitive marketing strategies—strategies that strongly position the company against competitors and give it the greatest possible competitive advantage (Cravens, 2000). The competitive advantage (or an edge over competitors in terms of better financial return on investment and superior long-term overall performance) that most companies strive to seek must be significant and sustainable.
Companies of all sizes around the globe are in a constant struggle to build their competitive capabilities to strengthen their competitive position and outperform their rivals. They are consistently exploring effective marketing strategies to improve their performance and widen their market share. This competition is more evident in the services sector which is rapidly growing in all industrialized and newly developing countries (Lovelock et al., 1999; and Zeithaml and Bitner, 2000). The present study examines the competitive marketing strategies used by a sample of hotels from the Emirates of Dubai and Sharjah companies who occupy different competitive positions in the hospitality industry as ‘market leaders’, ‘market challengers’, and ‘market followers’.
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