A study on the effectiveness of Relationship Marketing on Customer Loyalty during COVID in 5-star hotels in Pune: Exploring the Impact of Relationship Marketing Strategies on Customer Loyalty in 5-star Hotels during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The hotel industry in India and worldwide has been drastically affected due to the COVID-19pandemic. Businesses had to be shut down because the revenue generation had been greatly impacted.However, when the first wave of the pandemic subsided and things seemed to be going back to normal,the businesses could see a ray of hope for their existence. Even so, the new normal was a lot differentthan the ―pre-pandemic normal‖. A lot of changes had to be made in order to attract the customer andensure them their safety and only by doing so the customers could be retained and the business couldflourish.For the hotel industry, safety and hygiene has had to be put as the priority above everything elsebecause no customer would want to go a hotel which did not follow the safety norms. But just thechanges in the safety and hygiene protocols were not enough to attract the customer. The hotels havehad to change their marketing approach too. For any business, and especially for the hotelindustry,customer loyalty is the key to success in the overly competitive market environment. One of thekey components that helps gain customer loyalty is relationship marketing.This paper is going to analyze the changes in the relationship marketing strategies, the importance ofthose strategies, and the effectiveness of those on customer loyalty during the pandemic