THE STATE AND EFFICIENCY OF MARKETING  STRATEGIES IN UZBEKISTAN’S HOTEL INDUSTRY:  A FRONTIER ANALYSIS OF WHAT HOTELS GET FOR  WHAT THEY SPEND

Oybek Ergashev

doi:10.5281/zenodo.23157391

Authors

Oybek Ergashev Tashkent State University of Economics, Researcher. Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23157391

Keywords:

marketing efficiency, data envelopment analysis, free disposal hull, marketing productivity, RevPAR, hotel industry.

Abstract

Assessments of hotel marketing in Uzbekistan usually focus on what hotels do and how much they spend, while this study examines how efficiently marketing expenditure is converted into revenue. Using data from 180 hotels in five cities in 2025, the analysis shows that marketing practices remain underdeveloped: only 43 per cent of hotels have a written marketing plan and 28 per cent measure performance against targets. Average efficiency is 0.736 under the variable-returns frontier and 0.769 under the free disposal hull, indicating that hotels achieve only about three quarters of the peer-adjusted revenue possible at their spending level. Efficiency is not higher among hotels that spend more, although higher-spending hotels generate substantially greater RevPAR. Planning and brand affiliation are positively associated with efficiency, while the number of marketing tools is only marginally significant. The elasticity of RevPAR with respect to marketing spending is 0.215. For hotels below the 75th percentile of efficiency, improving efficiency at unchanged spending yields an estimated USD 8.61 increase in RevPAR, compared with only USD 1.14 from a 10 per cent increase in marketing spending.

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