BRAND NAMING PRACTICES: AN ASSESSMENT OF HOTELS IN ADDIS ABABA

Abstract

A brand in general and brand name in particular for m the perception or personality consumers attach a company. A brand name is a core indicatio n of the brand. Therefore a careful selection of a brand name could communicate various product o r service attributes desired by the producer/provider like ruggedness, sophistication, friendliness or sincerity. For the hotel industry in particular, the brand name is an integral compon ent of all marketing efforts. Research also suggests that a hotel’s brand name should be intens e and vibrant that is able to relate to multiple level of the senses while at the same time serve as a reminder of pleasant experience. Despite the rapid growth of the hotel industry in Addis Ababa, a peculiar observation suggests that a well thought of branding/brand naming practice is not in place. This research therefore tried to understand the brand naming practice of hotels in A ddis Ababa with the aim of improving the practice. A questionnaire was used to gather inform ation about the importance of brand names from owners/managers and the process they used to d evelop the brand names for their hotels. Another set of questionnaire was used to understand how the brand names of those hotels were perceived by their clients. The findings indicate t hat owners/managers associate a lot of importance to the brand name but do not actually th ink guests use it to choose hotels. It was also found that majority of them use no particular proce ss to develop a brand name. On the other hand, guests indicated that brand name is very help ful for the selection of a hotel but is does not particularly apply to the hotels they selected impl ying that the names being developed by owners/management are not distinctive enough to ass ist in the selection of a hotel by guests.