POTENTIALITIES OF ONLINE MARKETING OF PRIVATE HOSTELS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF BENIN ENVIRONS

ABSTRACT

As the population of students keep increasing year in year out, there is a shortage in hostel accommodation the University of Benin is capable of providing, because of this, off-campus hostel accommodation is a very popular solution to the university hostel shortages for new and current students. This study’s goal is to examine how the private off-campus hostels are marketed and the level at which online marketing strategies are used to achieve marketing objectives. The researcher employed both primary methods; questionnaire and Secondary methods; Journals, newspapers websites and textbooks, of data collection to gather information for the completion of the study. The population of the study is students residing off-campus in three communities; Ekosodin, EDPA and Osasogie which are popular locations for students to reside. The Taro Yamane formula was used to derive a sample size of 221 persons and the 5-point Likert scale questionnaire was used to gather data of the respondent’s perception. The method of analysis in the study is the frequency count and percentage distribution to ascertain the number of times a variable occurs and the percentage of the variable occurrences. The mean item score to determine the average of the variables and the relative importance index to determine the rank of the variables is also used. The analysis showed that students can access the Internet and do know what online marketing is about and a majority of students have used an online marketing platform in procuring a hostel accommodation. The Analysis also discovered that online marketing tools are preferred by students in marketing a private hostel however, other traditional marketing techniques such as banners and signboards according to the study, did provide a positive result in advertising a private student hostel. The Researcher recommended that both social media marketing techniques and traditional marketing methods, banners and signboards in particular should be utilized in advertising a private hostel.