Consumer engagement in the conditions of business digitization: A case study of the hotel industry in Ukraine

Abstract

Competition in the hotel industry makes it necessary to study innovative ways to preserve and increase customer base. Effective interaction with customers is evidence of hotels’ innovative activity determined by the active implementation of marketing concepts and the development of information technologies. Therefore, customer engagement involves digitalizing the “hotel-consumer” interaction process. This study aims to determine the components of digital customer engagement in the hotel industry using systematization, generalization, survey, and econometric models. The components of digital customer engagement include recognition, interest, communications, consumer experience, loyalty, and intentions of repatronage. Econometric models used the data of hotels in Kyiv (Ukraine) to prove the dependence of their income on the costs of digital consumer engagement. For financial indicators, the study surveyed hotel managers and stakeholders. The selected indicators have a significant influence on hotel income. In the case of a linear model (“Khreshchatyk” hotel), the parameters show how many units the effective feature will change when one-factor characteristic changes by one unit (assuming other factors are constant). In the case of power-law models (“Bratislava” and “Ukraine” hotels), the parameters are essentially elasticity coefficients that demonstrate the sensitivity of income changes to changes in factor characteristics. Accordingly, the coherence of implementation of all components in the digital engagement of hotel services’ consumers ensures an increase in service provision volume and hotel operations’ efficiency. AcknowledgmentThe paper shows the author’s results within the frameworks of the study, performed in 2021−2023 at Kyiv National University of Trade and Economics at the request of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, “Digital transformation of trade, economic and tourist systems in Ukraine” (state registration number 0121U112231) and “Forecasting the impact of the tourism system on the country’s economy” (state registration number 0122U001559).