Hospitality Branding

by Chekitan S. Dev

Published 1 January 2012

In recent years the brand has moved squarely into the spotlight as the key to success in the hospitality industry. Business strategy once began with marketing and incorporated branding as one of its elements; today the brand drives marketing within the larger hospitality enterprise. Not only has it become the chief means of attracting customers, it has, more broadly, become the chief organizing principle for most hospitality organizations. The never-ending quest for market share follows trend after trend, from offering ever more elaborate and sophisticated amenities to the use of social media as a marketing tool—all driven by the preeminence of the brand.

Chekitan S. Dev’s award-winning research has appeared in leading journals including Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, Journal of Marketing, and Harvard Business Review. He is the recipient of several major hospitality research and teaching awards. A former corporate executive with Oberoi Hotels & Resorts, he has served corporate, government, education, advisory, and private equity clients in more than forty countries as consultant, seminar leader, keynote speaker and expert witness. Hospitality Branding brings together the most important insights from the author’s many years of research and experience, all in a single, affordably priced volume (available in both print and eBook formats). Skillfully blending the knowledge of recent history, the wisdom of cutting-edge research, and promise of future trends, this book offers hospitality organizations the advice they need to survive and thrive in today’s competitive global business environment.


The second volume of Hospitality Branding brings together new insights and case studies that reflect evolutions in the study of hospitality branding. In recent years, the brand has become preeminent as the key to success. Previously, business strategy started with marketing and incorporated branding as one of its elements; today the brand drives marketing within the larger hospitality enterprise and has become the chief organizing principle for most hospitality organizations. Chekitan S. Dev shows how the urgent battle for market share among brands requires savvy industry leaders to carefully assess social trends and consumer behaviors before implementing ever more elaborate and sophisticated amenities or deploying social media as marketing tools.

Combining Dev's own insights into what works (and what doesn't) in promoting hospitality brands with the hard-earned wisdom of global hospitality leaders, Hospitality Branding, Volume 2 presents widely applicable case studies and candid conversations to assist hospitality organizations in surviving, evolving, and thriving in today's competitive global business ecosystem.