Digital Marketing in The Hospitality Industry: Adoption, Use, Firm Performance and National Development

Digital marketing integrates electronic technology with traditional marketing concepts and covers strategies such as social media, video, content, affiliate, mobile and internet marketing. Embracing digital marketing can contribute to firm performance and national development. This review paper explores digital marketing in the hospitality industry. The objectives of the review are to establish how the facilities can adopt and use digital marketing, determine how digital marketing can affect the performance of the firms and highlight how digital marketing can contribute to Kenya Vision 2030 and sustainable development goals. The paper builds on the author’s knowledge, observations and experiences on digital marketing in the hospitality industry and explores secondary data from books, journal articles, newspapers and conference papers. The paper highlights the digital tools that the firms can adopt including the internet, mobile, video and social media and shows how the tools can be used to convince, educate and inspire stakeholders. The review also reveals that digital marketing can affect the non-financial and financial performance of hospitality firms. Digital marketing can contribute to customer satisfaction, competitive advantage, profits and costs. This study finds that digital marketing can contribute to Kenya Vision 2030 through selling and marketing hospitality products. Digital marketing also promotes sustainable development goals of climate action and economic growth. The paper concludes that hospitality firms should embrace digital marketing for enhanced performance and national development