Market orientation and business performance: evidence from the hotel industry in Germany

While researchers have explored the relationship between market orientation and business performance in different organisations, such studies in the hotel service segment are scarce. Using Slater and Narver’s (1994a) scale of market orientation, this study investigates the potential impact of the three components of market orientation (i.e. customer orientation, competition orientation and inter-functional coordination) on various performance indicators. Data for this study were collected through a survey questionnaire of 236 German hotels. The findings provide a new insight by exploring how different factors impact upon the performance of the hotel segment. Overall, the regression analysis suggests that the owners and managers in the hotel industry who implement a market orientation enjoy higher business performance (i.e. profit goal attainment, sales goal achievement, and return on investment realisation and improvements in market share). In the light of existing literature, the implications of our findings for hotel managers and owners, this study’s limitations and future research directions are addressed in this paper.