The Role of Positioning Strategy:

The Case of Star Category Hotel in Dire Dawa City Administration, Ethiopia

Abstract

This research examines the role of positioning strategy in the context of star category hotels in Dire Dawa Administration, Ethiopia. The study has conducted considering five-star category hotels in the city. A mixed-methods strategy is used to accomplish these goals, combining both qualitative and quantitative research techniques. Comprehensive interviews are carried out with hotel managers and industry specialists to obtain a deeper understanding of the frequently utilized positioning tactics. The hotelier need to focus on broadening positioning strategy types, regular review and update, implementing digital positioning, interacting with guest integrating positioning strategy with website content, search engine optimization, initiate online loyalty program, and manage reputation online and creation of social media alert system. The result indicates that currently only five hotels have made a bit effort to produce positioning strategy policy but even employees are not aware of it. The common practice is to adopt implicit positioning strategy like pricing, accessibility, attractiveness, security and range of service. From both customer and employees perspectives sample hotel has relative good status in affordability and value for money, safety and security system, location and accessibility. Besides, other strategy like image, unique product, digital positioning, segmentation, branch flexibility and competitive positioning has neglected. The brand attribute achieved are also examined based on data gathered from customer response, annual sale and revenue, hotel profile and review site. The finding has revealed that the mean value of hotel those adopted positioning strategy is higher than those which have not implemented the strategy across all comparative variable. The correlation test also indicates positive relation between positioning strategy and sample brand attribute or performance.