Bear E. Drooley: Achieving Business Growth With the Help of Pets-In-Residence and Resort Mascots

With increasing pet ownership in the United States and the growing popularity of pet travel, lodging businesses have recognized the attractiveness of this niche market. As means to support the pet-friendliness of the lodging industry and achieve business growth, this case introduces students to two powerful concepts in hospitality marketing and branding and addresses their complementarity. These concepts are pets-in-residence and brand mascots. The case explores the benefits of using these as brand identity and customer engagement strategies and illustrates how a resort uses these to achieve business growth based on the identification of market changes and pet-friendliness trends. This case study focuses on FantasyWorld Resort in Kissimmee, FL. During the pandemic, this resort became pet-friendly and brought in a new key “employee” for the success of this strategy and its future growth. Bear E. Drooley is a St. Bernard dog who has been FantasyWorld Resort’s pet-in-residence and Chief Hospitality Officer since September 2020. So far, Bear has been highly beneficial to the resort, which has big plans for Bear to become its official resort mascot.