Positioning maps: an alternative to define competitors

Abstract

The increasing levels of competition in the tourism sector today and some more experienced and demanded tourists, force hotels managers to apply judgments of greater professionalism in the management of their establishments, and to pay particular attentionto the satisfaction of the customer needs and to the detection and identification of market opportunities that may arise. This study proposes the identification of the Hotel Santa Isabel´s competitors, by studying its position in the market. To accomplishthe definition of the competitors, a change of approach of the positioning studies was made, starting from the design of a perceptual map or market positioning map. The change of approach was given under the conditions of considering a competitor of an establishment, to that company that delivers the same attributes to the same market segment in a similar way. As a result, was determined the main competitor of the Hotel Santa Isabel, based on its location on a three-dimensional positioning map and the distance in relation to the rest of the hotels studied, demonstrating the usefulness of this tool for identifying competitors.