Customer relationship management as a management concept: "The comparison analysis of applicability of customer relationship management in 5-star city hotels located in downtown İstanbul and Antalya"

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a very populer concept amongcontemporary business approaches. In order to understand the guests thoroughly and reachguest satisfaction, an effectve CRM implementation seems to be the only option.Customer Relationship Management is the set of actions developed by understanding,monitoring and analysis of the guest behavior. The impact on the guest leads to guestsatisfaction and commitment to the facility. Therefore guest relations and hospitalitymanagement is very crucial for a hotel.This study?s objective is to identify and compare the CRM approaches of 5-star city hotelsthat are owned by the same company for at least 3 years located in downtown Antalya &Istanbul.In the first section CRM -as a management concept- is analyzed thoroughly focusing on itssignificance, historical evolution, components, and relations with other managementconcepts.Second section includes some examples of CRM models that are being implemented in thehospitality sector throughout the world.The last section includes the comparison of applicability analysis of CRM in 5-star cityhotels. Descriptive statistics are used as the analysis method for comparisons betweenthese cities.The result of this study indicates that accommodation facilities in Istanbul are moredeveloped than the ones in Antalya with respect to their CRM activities and applications.