Rebranding Hilton: A Luxury Hospitality Experience

Hilton Hotels & Resorts is a prominent leader in the hotel industry that provides differentiated products and services to its customers and clients. To create a niche market and compete globally, Hilton needs to adopt innovative strategies. One such strategy is to launch social media campaigns to harness customer opinions and use them for future brand promotions. Additionally, the company should position itself as a place for rejuvenation and wellbeing by providing yoga mats in hotel rooms. A comprehensive integrated marketing plan will be developed to reach high-income individuals with luxury lifestyles. The promotional mix will include personal selling, public relations, advertising, sales promotion, and direct digital marketing. Each element of the promotional mix will be allocated an effective budget, and proper channels will be used for conducting promotional programs.

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ASSESSMENT 3 HAT202
BUSINESS AND MARKETING PORTFOLIO

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INTRODUCTION
Hilton Hotels Corporation is seen as the prominent global hospitality corporation which covers
over 3890 hotels in more than 91 countries across the world. Hilton Hotel Corporation is seen
as one of the flagship brand and place emphasis on corporate travel and vacation travel having
sites in key city centers, convention centers, nearby to airports and deals in number of holiday
and leisure hotels prevailing vacation destinations globally (Dudovskiy, 2018).
In the present paper for designing the portfolio of an organization, we have selected Hotel
Hilton, Brisbane Australia. It is selected due to the recognized name in industry because of its
stylishness and innovativity. The corporation is having differential products which deal in
resorts and hotels like Canopy, Curio, Double tree, tapestry, Embassy suites, Hampton, Tru etc.
In Brisbane the hotel is located at Winder garden, Queensland Australia.
The hotel aims at classy business travelers in order to maintain the stable and foreseeable
stream of income and guards the company from the temporary recession in industry.
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CURRENT BUSINESS OPERATION
PRODUCT
Hilton major products and services include Luxury Conrad hotels & Resorts and Waldorf
Astoria Hotels and Resorts which provide comfort of housing for a definite period (Craft,2015).
In addition to that the corporation also runs timeshare resorts through Hilton Grand Vacation
Corporation, which offer an onsite facility to Grand Vacation Club resorts.
LOCATION AND DISTRIBUTION
Hilton hotel Brisbane is located in Queensland which is in the heart of vibrant metropolitan
area which is having a 30 minutes’ drive from Brisbane Airport and a short walk from Central
station. In terms of distribution strategy the company focus on online distribution strategy
incorporating components like price integrity, brand website enhancements. For this the
company made the hotel agreement with Expedia Inc., Hilton which implement a direct
connection in central reservation system and Expedia Database.
PRICING MODELS
The pricing strategies for the corporation include economy, penetration, skimming and
premium pricing strategies. Economy pricing includes selling products of basic features to the
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consumers with low budget, whereas penetration pricing involves offering high quality goods
and services at low prices for increasing market share (Hilton Rolling out Customer-Centric
Pricing Model, 2018). Skimming strategy includes the desire to associate products and services
that re of high quality. Premium pricing strategy adopted by Hilton makes the company able to
charge its customers at premium levels beyond the core product which provide set of tangible
benefits like high status and luxury
CUSTOMER SEGMENTS
Hilton’s geographic segmentation strategy focuses on building hotels on location popular with
the target customer segment. For example in London the Hilton hotels are found in travel
locations like Canary, Bankside etc. on the basis of demographic segmentation the company
target individuals with luxury lifestyle and charge high prices for that (Cross,2015). In
psychographic segmentation Hilton target ambitious individuals who like to express their high
status and achievement.
BRANDING AND POSITIONING
Brand positioning is defined as the conceptual place which the marketer owns in the mind of
target customer. An effective brand positioning strategy will maximize competitive
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distinctiveness and customer relevancy in terms of maximizing brand value (Kumar, 2018). For
creating differentiated positioning in market Hilton worldwide unveiled a renovated lobby at
the McLean Tysons corner, which includes tech lounge, service restaurant and an 18 hour bar.
In addition to that it includes refreshed, smart design which drives performance, pricing and
attain market share. The company adopts the corporate standard to the local cultural
environment by penetrating new market.
CURRENT PROMOTION AND MARKETING MATERIALS
The marketing segment of the company on regular basis is checking on the effectiveness of
marketing strategy. The current promotional tools include mails to the target customers on
timely basis which provide information to the customers. Credit card privileges are providing to
the customers for increasing sales. Well written catalogues are used by Hilton to provide the
information about the service (Wang, 2015). The advertisement and promotion of Hilton are
mainly done through internet as the customers are basically corporates and elite groups. The
communication strategy includes the summary of services offered by company to be
communicated to target customers like businesspersons, tourists, delegates, and families who
go for vacations (Yang, 2016).
APPENDICE 1 – PRODUCT
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APPENDICE 2 – LOCATION AND DISTRIBUTION
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APPENDICE 3 – PRICING MODELS
Fig 2: Pricing strategy matrix
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Fig 1: Pricing classification of Hilton Hotels
APPENDICE 4 – CUSTOMER SEGMENTS
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AP PENDICE 5 – BRANDING AND POSITIONING
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APPENDICE 6 – CURRENT PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS
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RECOMMENDED NEW OR INNOVATIVE IDEA100
DESCRIPTION:
Hilton is always seen as the prominent leader in the hotel industry by providing differentiated
products and services to its customers and clients which are mainly corporates or the elite
classes. But in addition with that, to create a niche market and compete in the global scenario
Hilton has to adopt some innovative strategies (Huang, 2015). The company has to adopt social
media strategy for harnessing customer opinion, which will be used in future for brand
promotion. Company also has to launch the campaigns for taking the experiences of customers
that what customers want so that it will be delivered to them as per their expectations. The
company also takes the initiative of positioning the hotel as the place which is seen as the place
for rejuvenation and wellbeing. For that Yoga mats must be kept in hotel rooms where the
customers could escape from the stress of everyday life.
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FUTURE INTEGRATED MARKETING PLAN100
PLAN OVERVIEW
In order to promote the business, it is necessary to use multiple promotional techniques so that
every segment of customer can be reached effectively. The organization will put equal
emphasis on each of the elements of the promotional mix in order to use these elements
effectively. While considering the budget for promotion, effective allocation of budget should
be done to each elements of the promotional mix. Apart from this, it is also necessary in order
to use all the elements of promotional mix together, to use proper and effective channels for
conducting promotional program. Effective channels help in reaching maximum number of
people with minimum time (Oladepo et al., 2015). Social media is also one of the best methods
to reach the customer effectively. Therefore, social media should be used as well.
TARGET MARKET
The target customer for this promotional program would be the high income people with luxury
lifestyle.
PROMOTIONAL MIX
Promotional mix is one of the important elements of the marketing plan which is used to
communicate with the target customer.
PERSONAL SELLING
Personal selling is very effective promotional tool in which the organization uses people to
meet the target potential customer face to face in order to sell the product. The organization
would also use personal selling to meet the potential target customer of the organization. It also
helps in building good customer relationship.
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PUBLIC RELATIONS
Public relation is also one of the very effective tools to communicate with the potential target
customers. Public relation is used by the organization to build a positive image of the
organization in public in order to support new product and sales. It also helps in evaluating the
attitude and buying behavior of the people as well as communicates the overall goals of the
organization.
ADVERTISING
Advertising is very common and effective tool of promoting the product and services of the
organization and almost every business uses this tool of promotion. It is any of the forms of
impersonal communication which is used to demonstrate the product and services of the
organization using any of the appeals to induce to people to buy the product and services of the
organization (Sagala et al., 2014).
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SALES PROMOTION
Sales promotion is also one of the very effective promotional tools which attract and induce the
customer to purchase the product and service of the organization. Under this promotional tool,
the organization gives discount or provide offer to the customer on the product and services.
DIRECT AND DIGITAL MARKETING
Direct digital marketing is one of the electronic delivery of the important information or
channels to communicate the target customer. Direct digital marketing is much customized type
of promotion because it uses website, emails, as well as mobile services. It is used to directly
communicate with a particular target customer through mobile services or emails.
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REFERENCES
Dudovskiy, J. (2018). Hilton Hotels Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning - Research-
Methodology. Retrieved from https://research-methodology.net/hilton-hotels-segmentation/
Hilton Rolling Out Customer-Centric Pricing Model. (2018). Retrieved from
https://www.travelpulse.com/news/hotels-and-resorts/hilton-rolling-out-customer-centric-
pricing-model.html
Hilton Sydney Hotel. (2018). Retrieved from http://www3.hilton.com/en/hotels/new-south-
wales/hilton-sydney-SYDHITW/index.html
(2018). Retrieved from http://www3.hilton.com/en/hotels/queensland/hilton-brisbane-
BSBHITW/photo-tours/index.html
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