When customers are delivered a service that is merely ‘acceptable’, their heads will be easily turned if a better provider comes along. Therefore, hotels should constantly be competitively aggressive in order to sustain their customers delight for their profits to thrive and attain high performance. This is because competitive aggressiveness has an effect on firm performance. However, there are limited studies conducted on the effect of competitive aggressiveness on the performance of star rated hotels in the context of developing countries. In this regard, this study was designed to assess the effect of competitive aggressiveness on performance of star rated hotels in North Rift Region, Kenya. The study was grounded on stakeholders’ theory. This study relied on positivism philosophy and explanatory research design based on samples drawn from across the star rated hotels in North Rift Region. The target population was 575 hotel employees. Data was collected by use of self-administered structured questionnaire and was analyzed by use of both descriptive and inferential statistics using SPSS version 25. The findings showed that competitive aggressiveness significantly affects performance of star rated hotels. Competitively aggressive star rated hotels are more likely to improve their competitive positions, market share, and increase their performance if they transform themselves and evolve with the times. Basing on the stakeholder theory, for competitive aggressiveness the hotels have to be incarnate of forward looking and opportunity seeking strategies in anticipation of future trends and demands of the stakeholders to capitalize on their performance.
Keywords: Hotels, Performance, competitive aggressiveness
