Examining the Challenges and Opportunities of Multi-Level Marketing for Resort Hotels: A Delphi Study

Environmental changes push hotels to seek additional and innovative channels to market their products/services while maintaining a high occupancy rate and revenues with lower marketing costs. Building on network theory, this research investigates the extent to which multi-level marketing (MLM) can be adopted as an appropriate and innovative marketing channel for resort hotels. A Delphi study was undertaken with hotel and MLM experts to explore their perceptions about the opportunities and challenges of MLM for resort hotels. The results showed that MLM could appropriately be developed as an innovative marketing channel for resort hotels if challenges are fully addressed and controlled by hoteliers. Two models are proposed for proper implementation of MLM for resort hotels. The first model uses current customer/s as a marketer/s. This includes sharing resort experience using social media posts. The second model uses MLM companies as a channel for marketing hotel products/services to new customers. Several theoretical and practical implications of the study were discussed.