Anatolia – An International Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Research, 2015

Vol. 26, No. 1, 32–44, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13032917.2014.902767

E-CRM in tourism exploiting emerging information and

communication technologies
George Mastorakis*, Nikolaos Trihas1, Emmanouil Perakakis2 and Ioannis Kopanakis3

Department of Business Administration, Technological Educational Institute of Crete, Lakonia,

Agios Nikolaos, Crete, Greece
(Received 19 May 2013; final version received 6 March 2014)

This paper proposes a novel electronic customer relationship management (e-CRM)

model based on the convergence among interactive digital television and multimedia
networks. This model enables for the design of effective advertising strategies in
tourism industry, by exploiting data mining methods such as predictive visual
analytics. The e-marketing system that is created based on the proposed model, is used
to optimally display the collected data, revealing customers’ preferences to e-marketers
through emerging user-friendly interfaces. The applicability and usefulness of the
system were tested, by interviewing a sample of hotel marketing managers. The
findings provide useful practical implications and highlight the need for the adoption of
e-CRM concepts with focus at establishing high quality relationships among customers
and stakeholders in tourism industry.
Keywords: e-customer relationship management; marketing data analysis;
e-marketing strategies in tourism; interactive digital television; multimedia networks

Introduction
Travel and tourism industry is one of the most progressive industries in information and
communication technologies (ICT) exploitation, providing an ideal context to investigate
the influence of sophisticated customer relationship management (CRM) systems in
marketing. Such technologies provide new business opportunities in establishing,
enhancing and commercializing customers’ relationships, to optimally understand and
fulfill their requests (Buhalis, 2003). The success in such cases depends on quick response
to rapidly change customers’ needs through the exploitation of ICT, towards delivering the
appropriate products to targeted market segments (Soteriades, Aivalis, & Varvaressos,
2004). In addition, advances in interactive digital television (iDTV) and web technologies
are vital to improve the collection of data, regarding customers’ personal preferences and
facilitate their efficient analysis. On the other hand, Internet Protocol Multimedia
Subsystem (IMS) is an emerging technology, which can be incorporated in future mobile
networks and iDTV systems, towards supporting the efficient collection of customers’
personal data (e.g. personal profiles data).
In this respect, this paper proposes a novel electronic CRM (e-CRM) model,
elaborating on the convergence of IMS with iDTV systems to enable for an efficient data
analysis in tourism industry. As CRM relies upon customers’ information, the systems that
is created based on the proposed model facilitates tourism enterprises and organizations to
track customers’ preferences and subsequently provides them superior added value via
customized services. As a result, marketers are able to base much more cost effective

*Corresponding author. Email: gmastorakis@staff.teicrete.gr

q 2014 Taylor & Francis

 Anatolia – An International Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Research 33

marketing decisions on a detailed knowledge of the behavior and preferences, regarding

their existing or potential customers. Towards enabling for an efficient information
analysis and processing, data mining methods are proposed, such as predictive visual
analytics to optimally predict future purchasing patterns. Finally, the model usefulness and
applicability in the hospitality industry are illustrated by gathering data from Greek hotels.
In this context and according to this introduction, next section elaborates on a literature
review related with e-CRM in tourism and emerging ICT. After this literature review, the
next section is dedicated to present the proposed e-CRM model based on technology
convergence, elaborating on user-friendly web technologies interfaces and issues related
with the implementation to collect survey information. The innovation of this model is based
on the exploitation of the digital TV as a network to deploy e-CRM systems in comparison to
previously published research approaches that are based on the use of social media platforms
and the exploitation of the enterprises websites to support e-CRM capabilities. The
methodology and results sections then follow and finally this paper is concluded, by
highlighting implications of the research and challenges for further investigation.

Literature review
CRM has been exploited in management and marketing as a paradigm, enabling
organizations to establish efficient relationship with customers, by a better understanding of
their needs. CRM is defined in Buttle (2009) as “ . . . the core business strategy that integrates
internal processes and functions, and external networks, to create and deliver value to
targeted customers at a profit” (p. 15). CRM is also defined as the approach that involves the
process to identify, attract, develop and maintain successful customer relationships over
time for increasing retention of profitable customers (Sigala, 2011). According to Sigala
(2005), CRM is important in the tourism industry, mainly for two reasons. Firstly, tourists
become more price sensitive, less brand devoted and more sophisticated. Secondly, tourism
industry is experiencing globalization, competition, rising customer purchase costs, as well
as increasing customers’ expectations. This means that tourism organizations competi-
tiveness is highly related with the capability to fulfill effectively customers’ needs
(Sigala, 2005). The key to success lies in the quick and accurate identification of consumer’s
needs and in reaching potential clients with comprehensive, personalized and up-to-date
products and services that satisfy those needs (Buhalis & O’Connor, 2006; Buhalis & Zoge,
2007; Soteriades & Avgeli, 2007). Tourism companies have therefore to adopt CRM
systems, towards providing improved services, in order to meet customers’ requirements
and attract new ones, by establishing fixed interactive relationships (Wu & Lu, 2012).
With the emergence of the Internet and continued advances in ICT, CRM has entered a
new era (Luck & Lancaster, 2003). When CRM activities and techniques are delivered via
Internet based media (e.g. e-mail, forums), e-CRM is then applied (Sigala, 2011). The
great advancement in ICT has provided tremendous resources for facilitating the
fulfillment of e-CRM. e-CRM includes sophisticated, enterprise-wide data storage,
segmentation and analytics (e.g., data warehouses and data mining), personalization (e.g.,
recommender systems) and integrated multichannel communication subsystems (Chen,
Chen, & Kazman, 2007). These information technologies allow companies to track and
manage customer profitability, behavior and satisfaction at a reasonable cost. Moreover,
the fast growing Internet network and communication technologies provide services such
as e-mail, online interaction and personal website to become an important resource for a
company to achieve one-on-one relationship, customer value analysis and mass
customization (Wu & Hung, 2009).
34 G. Mastorakis et al.

Racherla and Hu (2008) suggest that e-CRM enables high connectivity between the
firm and its customers through various electronic channels, thus providing a platform for
sustainable and profitable long-term relationships. Recognizing the potential of e-CRM as
a strategy for increasing customer satisfaction and service, online sales, customer loyalty
and retention, more and more organizations are rushing to implement a website and take a
‘‘build it and they will come” attitude, failing to achieve e-CRM’s goal (Racherla & Hu,
2008; Wu & Hung, 2009). Sigala (2006) agrees that although e-CRM is one of the fastest
growing management approaches being widely adopted, the deployment of e-CRM
applications has not always delivered the expected results. In fact, there are major
challenges for companies wishing to implement an e-CRM strategy.
One of the reasons for unsatisfactory outcomes according to Wu and Hung (2009) is
focusing solely on technological aspect rather than on marketing aspect for the use of
marketing personnel. Racherla and Hu (2008) suggest that to be successful, e-CRM
initiatives should be viewed as more than the implementation of an IT system. At the same
time, IT considerations cannot be ignored. Sigala (2011) advocates that e-CRM must not
be viewed as an IT application, but rather as a combination of hardware, software,
humanware, processes, applications and management commitment aiming at attracting
and keeping economically valuable clients and at enhancing marketing effectiveness
through creating and delivering maximum value to customers. e-CRM is mainly about
aligning business processes with strategies aiming to create customer value and that are
supported with ICT (Sigala, 2011).
The literature regarding the adoption of e-CRM by tourism enterprises is gradually
rising, focusing mainly on the hospitality industry. Luck and Lancaster (2003) explored
the degree to which UK based hotel groups had exploited e-CRM. Their findings showed
that on the Internet, hotel groups used their relationship with the customers to provide
rather than gather information. The majority of the hotel groups had only embraced a few
elements of e-CRM, failing to take advantage of the many opportunities that e-CRM
provides. Another research by Samanta (2009) in the Greek hotel sector delivered similar
results. She investigated the extent to which Greek hotels have developed e-CRM. Her
results showed that hotel managers have understood the importance of using electronic
channels instead of traditional ones to implement their marketing strategies. Moreover,
e-CRM systems have assisted them to manage more effectively their reservations and
serve their customers as fast and as effective as possible. However, they did not seem to
apply many of the relationship marketing strategies to emphasize customer retention and
continual satisfaction because of difficulties in staff training.
The recent surge of interest in social media has led researchers to investigate the possible
exploitation of such networks for e-CRM purposes. For example, Bygstad and Presthus (2012)
found that although social media resolve some shortcomings of traditional CRM, they cannot
replace such systems but serve as a complementary solution. These online communities
give companies the opportunity to protect their reputation, enhance their brand (Prohaska &
Costello, 2012), interact with consumers and, most important, listen and learn from their
experience, as well as ideas about product improvements (Fagerstrøm & Ghinea, 2010).
Finally, there is a growing body of research that focus on examining e-CRM dimensions
and features on hotel websites (Bai, Hu, & Jang, 2007; Hamid, Cheng, & Akhir, 2011).

Emerging ICT
An integrated marketing communication strategy has to employ more than one
communication medium, exploiting emerging ICT systems and interactive media, which
 Anatolia – An International Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Research 35

are more effective to distribute messages to targeted customers’ groups. Interactive media
moves customers from passive to active participants and increases their involvement with
the multimedia content provided, allowing information to be presented in more visually
pleasing and entertaining ways (Schweda, 2005). In addition, sources that deliver
messages to customers are classified in three categories; planned sources (e.g. traditional
forms of communication like advertising), unplanned sources (e.g. chat rooms, blogs,
comments and behavior of employees) and unconsidered sources (e.g. distribution
channels, technical support services).
In this framework, technological achievements have already changed to some degree
the most discussed and common in use mean of communication and advertising. One
evolutionary technological development is iDTV, where tele-viewers are invited to move
into a more interactive television world, visit Web sites, as well as additional Internet
based applications. Despite the nature of required interaction by advertisers, either offline
(not linear and deferred reaction to a received message even through a different medium),
or online (which means that a message incites for a simultaneous correspondence from the
viewer and simultaneous data exchange with the service provider), the interaction in iDTV
systems enables the messages from the enterprises to become more personalized.
In addition, the new digital channels offer opportunities for tourism companies to reach
niche markets, by placing advertising messages in travel programs or related subjects. A
number of companies, such as Thomas Cook, have their own digital TV channels, from
which customers can watch films of destinations and then make their bookings via
interactive connections (Middleton, Fyall, Morgan, & Ranchhod, 2009).
In a general context, systems that are based on interactive marketing have been
implemented to allow large enterprises, establishing fixed relationship together with their
customers and offer multiple choices to fulfil their needs (Chaffey & Smith, 2008). The
extent to which a company has adapted digital communication as a strategy varies, mainly
due to their different orientation, mission, budget and the importance they attribute to the
online and two-way communication platforms. However, one of the great advantages that
this interaction offers is the development of either online or offline communities around
the products of company. These communities offer important benefits, such as better
segmentation through the appropriate management of the input data created by the
communities, the overall view of stakeholders, end users and media intermediates, low
cost of immediate distribution and increased world-of-mouth.
In addition, even though first digital TV networks were mainly used to transmit non-real
time services, emerging communication systems and sophisticated services require full
interactivity, as well as optimum multimedia content quality. Taking into account that
requirements regarding the support of interactive multimedia services are estimated to
increase during forthcoming years, the transition to a common Internet infrastructure for
new applications provision seems to be a vital trend. Towards satisfying such requirements,
several systems have been proposed, like the IMS. IMS was firstly standardized to connect
the gap among traditional networks and web based technological solutions, as well as to
support network operators providing new multimedia services.

CRM model based on technology convergence

Interactive communication is vital for an effective e-marketing process, allowing real
requests of customers to be effectively met. Emerging technological advances can be the
mean, towards permitting interactive communication among enterprises with their
consumers. This process enables for a more effective collaboration and a fixed relationship
36 G. Mastorakis et al.

to exist among both parties, resulting for a company as a part of its marketing strategy to
incorporate new technological systems and allow customers to directly report their
requirements or personal preferences. Another part of such an e-marketing strategy is to
effectively analyze collected data that is stored in the database. Analysis results could
define the basis for new models targeting to better recognize real customers’ requests.
In this framework, new systems based on iDTV and ICT can be vital, towards effectively
enhancing the procedure of collecting and analyzing marketing related data in tourism.
New CRM models may also enable customers’ collaboration with company, by utilizing
digital media and allowing the use of straight response communication to establish a fixed
relationship. In addition, the exploitation of interactive channels, based on interactivity
models (de Carvalho Reis & de Lira Gondim, 2011; European Telecommunications
Standards Institute, 1997), is crucial to enable the proper transmission of consumers’
requirements data to multimedia content provider, facilitating in this way the delivery of
actual interactive services via iDTV networks.
In this context, Figure 1 depicts the proposed CRM model that enables for the real time
collection of data stemming from customers’ premises. This data is stored in the IMS
Module/Database of Figure 1, facilitating marketing analysis phase, in order to establish
targeted and efficient advertising strategies. Data analysis is performed, by exploiting data
mining methods, such as predictive visual analytics, facilitating marketers to predict new
consumers’ trends and habits. The proposed approach involves a multi-perspective
process, which associates pattern recognition, integrated reasoning and predictive
modeling related with domain knowledge.
Taking into account the proposed approach and by analyzing collected marketing data,
the attempt to effectively understand customers’ behavior, as well as envisage new
consuming patterns, is optimized. The proposed data mining techniques are used to detect
sales performance, by specific geographical locations, product category, purchasing
characteristics and promotion strategies. In the next step, demographics, lifestyle
variables, as well as purchasing activities are exploited, towards examining future possible

Figure 1. Customer relationship maagement model based on IDTV and IMS convergence.
 Anatolia – An International Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Research 37

Figure 2. Predictive visual analytics process.

products or services that can be introduced in tourism industry market. Finally, behavioral
metrics established exploiting models based on predictive analytics can realistically
reproduce particular sales information, as well as to create several scenarios, by
confirming the precise combinations of future tourism products and services provision.
Compared to traditional relationship management and marketing systems, the
proposed model elaborates to face a large volume of collected data, as well as to address
increased complexity for difficult investigative and analytical tasks. Such analytical tasks
are time critical and usually include several methods and multiple processes. The proposed
predictive visual analytics process (Figure 2) is associated to predict new trends, according
to several observed events. Customers’ data collected using the proposed CRM model
could facilitate enterprises and their marketing or sales departments to be fully aware about
their clients’ behavior, preferences, as well as to predict their future purchasing pattern.

iDTV commercial implementation to collect survey information

Interactive marketing is considered as one of the most vital features of interactive
television and the proposed CRM system offers several new potentials for optimally
promoting a product or a service, such as instant purchase (e.g. T-Commerce), detailed on-
demand product descriptions, newsletter subscriptions, social media interaction, customer
surveys, are a few examples that offer much more user engagement than traditional TV
commercials.
In this framework, an interactive television application for marketing purposes was
developed to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed CRM system. According to a
marketing application (Figures 3 and 4) that was developed, while tele-viewers watch a
video TV-Spot, there is an option for them to interact with an overlaid questionnaire, in
order to gather information, which are stored into the IMS databases. While the video is
playing, questions are overlaid using HTML text and CSS3 transaction effects. The
smooth transitions are important for a more TV-like experience and avoid looking like off-
place content from another medium, such as a PC. The viewer can choose to respond to the
questions using the remote control, while this is managed using JavaScript event handling.
At the end of the advertisement, after the questionnaire is completed, related data is sent
over the network to the database to be stored, along with other collected data, such as
location information, language etc.
38 G. Mastorakis et al.

Figure 3. Introductory HTML5 text informing users about the questionnaire.

Methodology
The applicability and the usefulness of the system were tested by interviewing a sample of
hotel marketing managers and the findings provide useful practical implications. The
research framework of the study was based on Ko, Kim, Kim, and Woo (2008) CRM
adoption model. They suggest in their study that the CRM adoption process consists of
three stages: perception of CRM, adoption of CRM and implementation of CRM. Once a
firm is persuaded by the benefits, it decides to adopt CRM and begins to search for the
technologies to implement. This study focuses on the first stage of their model, namely
perception. In this stage, companies recognize a CRM system and its functions.

Figure 4. Sample video-related interactive question.

 Anatolia – An International Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Research 39

Consequently, the objective of this research was to identify the tourism firms’
perceptions of the proposed e-CRM system. In order to meet this objective, a convenience
sample of 24 5-star hotels in Lasithi Prefecture in Crete, Greece, drawn from the Hellenic
Chamber of Hotels directory, was selected. The research focused only on 5-star hotels
because previous studies indicated that the use of CRM and e-CRM systems in the
hospitality industry is positively dependent on hotel size and class (Bai et al. 2007; Banga,
Kumar, & Goyal, 2013; Gilbert, Powell-Perry, & Widijoso, 1999; Lo, Stalcup, & Lee,
2010; Luck & Lancaster, 2003; Sigala, 2005). This implies that it is mostly the larger hotel
chains and upper class hotels, which implement e-CRM systems, while small properties
have fewer possibilities for gathering, storing and disseminating guest information
electronically. Selected hotels were initially contacted, in order to identify their
willingness to participate in the study. Of the 24 hotels targeted, only 5 responded. For the
purpose of confidentiality and anonymity, the five hotels are identified as H1, H2, H3,
H4 and H5.
The proposed e-CRM system was demonstrated to the five marketing managers of the
corresponding hotels. Semi-structured in-depth interviews with the managers followed the
demonstration in order to identify: (a) the level of CRM and e-CRM practices
implementation in their hotels and (b) their perceptions of the usefulness, the applicability
and the benefits that the proposed system could possibly bring to their business.
Respondents were reassured that the results would have a degree of confidentiality. The
five interviews took place during September 2013.

Results
The first introductory question to the five marketing managers was about their knowledge
of the CRM theory. All managers looked familiar with the concept stating that they have
introduced CRM practices in their company philosophy and operating methods. The
managers were then questioned about the CRM practices they implement in their hotels.
The most common practice among hotels is the loyalty clubs. The aim is to reward
frequent customers and to maximize their satisfaction through customized services.
Manager H4 claimed that “Nowadays we face a strong competition in our business while
at the same time our customers become more and more demanding. A key strength against
other competitors lies in the personal relationships with customers”. However, some
managers argue that in some cases they are forced to provide personalized services and
apply niche or one-to-one marketing. As Manager H1 noted,
H1 is the most cosmopolitan and luxurious resort in Greece, hosting some of the most
prominent representatives of the world’s social, political and economic life. It is our duty to
create a personalized value for these special customers and satisfy all of their desires, as weird
as they may be.
By personalizing a customer’s stay, a hotel can ensure that he will come back again and
again “ . . . simply by remembering his favorite beverage, newspaper or other preferred
amenity” (H3). The managers claimed to have strong relationships and emotional
connections with the loyalty club members.
Besides loyalty clubs, another frequently used CRM strategy by the interviewed hotels
is the development of customer databases to store guests’ history records. Managers
reported that they collect guest information by observing and interacting with guests and
then store this information into databases. These databases are exploited for developing
frequent, loyalty and reward programmes, personalizing guests and other marketing
purposes.
40 G. Mastorakis et al.

Moving to the concept of e-CRM, managers reported that they use features in their
corporate websites, such as online registration and bookings, newsletters, guest books and
feedback forms, in order to gather customer data. They also send personalized e-mails to
their customers. Furthermore, managers mentioned that they have started to exploit some
basic Web 2.0 features, such as social media (mainly Facebook, Twitter, YouTube,
Pinterest and TripAdvisor) and RSS feeds (in two cases). As they argued, they try to
constantly monitor user-generated content for understanding the profile of their customers,
as well as for protecting their firms’ online reputation. Overall, the managers interviewed
shared the opinion that the web could serve as a marketing tool to establish, maintain and
enhance long-term relationships with customers and third parties. However, while they
seem to be aware of the potential of the web as a CRM tool, when it comes to implement
e-CRM they are not putting this knowledge into practice to the maximum extent.
All managers admitted that they have only embraced a few elements of e-CRM and that
they are far from full exploiting the possibilities the web offers for a successful e-CRM
strategy.
Obviously, CRM practices would not be adopted unless firms can recognize their
benefits. When inquired about their motivations for implementing CRM, managers
reported many benefits such as improving and personalizing customer service, reducing
guest complaints and increasing guest satisfaction, encouraging repurchase, collecting
accurate customer data, reacting faster to marketplace trends, identifying and targeting
customers, reducing cost of new customer acquisition, enhancing customer retention and
raising brand loyalty. Managers expect that all the CRM benefits mentioned above will
lead to higher profitability. The perception of CRM benefits significantly influences
managers’ CRM adoption decision.
In the second part of the interviews, marketing managers were asked about their
perceptions of the proposed e-CRM system. It is important to mention that their first
reaction after the system demonstration was quite positive. All managers agreed that the
proposed system could be a part of their overall e-CRM strategy. As they mentioned, the
interactive nature of the system makes it an ideal source for gathering qualitative customer
data, such as life-stage, lifestyle, socio-demographic and behavioral data. They were
especially interested in the system’s metrics that can be effectively used for market
segmentation, targeting and reward strategies. Managers expressed the perception that the
system could leverage existing business. Furthermore, they found quite interesting the fact
that the proposed system exploits a medium, digital TV which so far they were not taken
advantage of. However, although the potential of the system as a strategic interactive
communication medium was identified, some concerns raised by the managers.
The first concern was about the system ease-of-use. Specifically, three of the managers
(the younger) found the system’s architecture and operation quite simple. Obviously,
people are not all the same; rather, they differ both in personal dispositions and in acquired
knowledge. This result may be explained by Avlonitis and Panagopoulos’ (2005) research,
suggesting that individual factors such as computer self-efficacy, innovativeness, and
computer experience could positively influence e-CRM perceived ease-of-use. These
individual characteristics apparently have a significant effect on the way managers
perceive this new e-CRM system and, subsequently, on their desire to accept it. The
findings clearly demonstrate that the younger and more innovative managers, who
probably are early adopters of new technological innovations, are more likely to adopt the
proposed e-CRM system. It was obvious that the other two managers needed more
information to better understand system’s operations. They wondered about the possible
training needs on the system usage. Specifically, Manager H5 concerned about the new
 Anatolia – An International Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Research 41

tasks and responsibilities that the system could mean for him, as well as “the hours
possibly needed to spend on training in the system’s usage for which I will not probably be
paid”. This finding crucially highlighted the need to include the use of the proposed
e-CRM system for business exploitation within the job description and roles of marketers.
The second concern is related with the digital TV penetration rate in the target markets.
According to managers, a high level of digital TV usage among population of the countries
where their customers come from is a prerequisite for the success of the system. This
comment does not refer to the traditional markets of the West Europe (i.e. Great Britain,
Germany) where the digital TV penetration is high nor Greece (as Greeks are only a small
percentage of these hotels’ clientele) but mostly the rising tourist markets such as Russia
and Israel for which the knowledge about the level of digital TV usage is limited.
Furthermore, managers suggested the application of the proposed e-CRM system on
mobile devices, as “mobile tourism is the future way of travelling” (H1).
The final concern was about the cost of implementation of such an e-CRM system.
As three of the managers commented, marketing departments are today under increasing
pressure from the management to demonstrate cost effectiveness and evidence the
additional value, which accrues from their marketing interventions. Obviously, in order to
agree and commit on any technology investment and application, firms require hard
evidence about the return on investment.
Overall, it seems that marketing managers interviewed are aware of the importance of
CRM and e-CRM for their business, mentioning that they have introduced such practices
in their company philosophy and operating methods. In addition, they incorporated in their
websites a number of features, which had been identified by other researchers (Bai et al.
2007; Hamid et al. 2011; Luck & Lancaster, 2003) as important for e-CRM, towards
delivering updated and accurate information, offering customer service support, as well as
providing personalized and value-added services. They also mentioned that they have
started to exploit some basic web 2.0 features, such as social media, which lately are
gaining the interest of the research community, enabling hotel and other tourism
businesses to engage their customers in a strong, personalized and mutually beneficial
interactive relationship (Bygstad & Presthus, 2012; Milović, 2012). On the other hand, the
managers admitted that they had not thought until now to take advantage of digital TV for
marketing purposes.
Moreover, the findings from the in-depth interviews revealed that marketing
managers’ attitudes and views for the proposed e-CRM system depends on factors such as
their perceived ease-of-use and perceived usefulness of the system. The findings confirm
previous research that concluded that people who believe that a CRM system is easy-to-
use and useful will tend to hold a more positive attitude towards the system (Avlonitis &
Panagopoulos, 2005). This conclusion is not surprising when considering the findings of
previous studies examining the factors affecting the adoption of technologies
(e.g. Technology Acceptance Model). It is reasonable to expect that a marketing manager
that feels satisfied with the information that the e-CRM system provides, regarding his
customer profiles, will use and finally accept the system, since he expects that using the
system will help him to better perform his tasks.

Conclusion and implications

This paper proposes a promising e-CRM model, which can be adopted in future interactive
television networks to support the provision of effective e-marketing services.
By considering the current technological advances, this paper elaborates on a technology
42 G. Mastorakis et al.

convergence model, which may result to a novel research paradigm, able to be adopted in
tourism CRM. In an unstable and unpredictable environment of doing business at the
tourism industry, characterized by strong competition and sophisticated demand,
implementation of CRM concepts with focus at development of high quality relationships
with consumers and stakeholders is becoming imperative of gaining a competitive
advantage. Towards ensuring that guest of tourism destinations are satisfied, a basic
process is to make current clients loyal, as well as attracting new potential ones. The overall
target of the proposed e-CRM model is to enable marketers to track existing and potential
customers’ preferences and subsequently give them superior value via customized service.
The proposed research approach is the basis for an effective procedure to collect and
analyze marketing information from consumers, which is important for optimal advertising
purposes. It could be a possible solution for marketers’ priorities, towards moving forward
to one-to-one advertising communication with the desired audience, gain customers’
attention and interest, as well as creating desire to purchase. In addition, the proposed data
mining methods and web technologies enhance this research approach, towards facilitating
for an effective marketing data analysis and an efficient way to automatically customize
services for individual customers or market segments, respectively. The findings of the
in-depth interviews that were conducted in a sample of Greek hotels marketing managers
showed that the proposed e-CRM system could have application in their e-CRM strategy,
providing an effective solution for gathering qualitative customer data in a medium, digital
TV, which so far they were not taken advantage of.
The research took place during September 2013. The tourist season in Crete ranges
from May to October. Therefore, in most cases marketing managers had a busy schedule
and the interviews had to correspond with the respondents’ availability and willingness to
be interviewed. While the small and convenience sample that was used eliminates the
possibilities for generalizing findings to the whole Greek hotel industry, the findings
provide some useful practical implications. The research focused only on 5-star hotels in a
specific region of Greece. Both the hotels and the region have specific characteristics that
differentiate them from other areas in Greece and other types of hotels. In that sense, a
research in a different area or other types of hotels could have differentiated the results.
Moreover, the proposed e-CRM system in order to be successful requires a relatively high
percentage of digital TV penetration rates, especially in the travel markets in which a
tourism company aims. Therefore the perceptions of the usefulness and the applicability of
the proposed system could be significantly different according to the target markets.
Finally, several open issues will be considered for further investigation and research.
The proposed approach will be extended in the future considering mobile CRM models
and systems in tourism industry. In addition, cloud computing approaches will be studied
to enhance the current research.

Notes
1. Email: ntrihas@staff.teicrete.gr
2. Email: mperakakis@staff.teicrete.gr
3. Email: kopanakis@staff.teicrete.gr

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