Business Location and Customer Patronage in the Hotel Industry in Benue State, Nigeria

This study examined the effect of business location on customer patronage of hotels in Benue State, Nigeria: The study specifically examined the effect of parking space, road network and accessibility and security and safety on customer patronage in the hotel industry in Benue State, Nigeria. The survey design was adopted for the study. The population for this study was 474. This figure consists of 159 tenured staff of 9 hotels selected across the 3 geopolitical zones of the state and 315 customers purposively sampled (35 from each hotel). The study adopted census sampling and 474 questionnaires were administered on entire population. However, only 402 were retrieved and analyzed. Pearson correlation was used to test the hypotheses while multiple regression analysis was employed to test the extent of the effect of independent variables on the dependent variable. Findings of the study revealed that parking space, road network and accessibility and security and safety all have significant effect on customer patronage in the hotel industry in Benue State, Nigeria The study concluded that repeat patronage, customer retention and customer referrals can be achieved through provision of innovative parking space, accessible road network and assured security and safety of guest. The study recommended among others that hotels managers in Benue State should be innovative and aggressive in providing parking space for their customers.