title: Acquisition and Retention Strategies in Australian Land-Based Casino Resorts
Creators: name: Tuguinay, Jovanie A
Publisher: name: Griffith University
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: casino
subject: marketing
subject: acquisition
subject: retention

description: Casinos face heightened competition from alternative leisure options, raising concerns about the growth and sustainability of the sector. Prior research highlights a variety of factors that influence casino profitability, with customer loyalty a critical topic in the casino discourse. Studies articulate that while maintaining loyalty is crucial, casino viability hinges on a continuous cycle of customer creation, development, and retention. However, despite the importance of retention, there are limited studies that explicitly focus on acquisition and retention, with an absence of strategies identified in the casino marketing literature. Consequently, the conceptual understanding of customer acquisition and retention strategies in the casino context remains underexplored, with an emphasis on casino marketing interventions that can influence these processes. Notably, there is a lack of research that examines the influence of acquisition and retention strategies on customer behaviour and patronage. Advancing knowledge on acquisition and retention in casinos forms a strong foundation for innovation and the development of new and existing casino customer experiences with a capacity to influence customer loyalty. Such knowledge gaps underscore the need for research to enhance the understanding of effective marketing practices within the casino sector. The overarching aim of this research, therefore, is to investigate acquisition and retention strategies in casinos, with an emphasis on the relationship between visiting intention and loyalty. In response to the identified gaps in the literature, this thesis formulated four specific research objectives to fulfil this overarching aim. This thesis draws on a variety of theoretical perspectives, including the seminal concepts of relationship marketing, the customer journey framework, the 7Ps strategy framework, and experiential marketing, to investigate whether acquisition and retention strategies can support casino viability by enhancing visiting intentions and customer loyalty. This research adopts a pragmatic paradigm, employing an exploratory sequential mixed-method design (qualitative followed by quantitative). The thesis includes a systematic literature review and three stages of empirical research. The systematic literature review was conducted to critically assess casino marketing literature, in particular casino acquisition and retention strategies. The first empirical study involved interviews with 17 casino marketing senior representatives, who provided insights vital to the identification of acquisition and retention strategies. The second empirical study consisted of data collection from 413 Australian land-based casino customers. It examined the aspects of acquisition strategies and retention strategies in relation to intentions to visit and customer engagement and loyalty. The third empirical study collected data from 320 casino members and examined the aspects of their experience with innovative casino games and customer engagement and loyalty. This thesis is structured as a compilation of four interrelated published and unpublished papers. Each manuscript serves as a core chapter of this thesis, and each addresses a research objective supported by a literature review, methodology, results, discussion, and implications to theory and practice. Two papers have been published in A-ranked journals (ABDC, Australian Business Deans Council Journal Quality List), and two are currently under review. [...]