Linking marketing efforts to financial outcome: An exploratory study in tourism and hospitality contexts

The purpose of this article is to improve the understanding of the marketing-finance interface by developing a model to capture the relationship between marketing efforts and the creation of owners' firm-related wealth in tourism and hospitality industries. In addition, this study combines the balance sheet and income statement-driven measures (i.e., profit margin, Tobin's q) and off-income-statement measures (i.e., customer satisfaction score) to assess the effect of marketing efforts on a firm's financial performance. The findings indicate that marketing efforts indeed affect the owner's firm-related wealth as measured by financial performance variables. Overall, this study provides a valuable benchmark for further research in the area of marketing productivity in the tourism and hospitality industries.