Relevance of Market Research for Hospitality Industry

This article discusses the importance of market research for the hospitality industry. It highlights how market research helps in understanding current and future trends, customer demands, and formulating effective marketing plans. The article also explores the suitability of social media marketing for a hospitality product or service and evaluates the implementation of a marketing plan for a specific hospitality product or service.

Marketing

TABLE OF CONTENTS
TASK 4............................................................................................................................................2
4.1: Discussing the relevance of market research for the Hospitality industry...........................1
4.2: Select a Hospitality specific product or service. Undertaking primary market research for
selected hospitality product or service.........................................................................................2
4.3: Analysing the suitability of social media marketing for a Hospitality product or service.. .4
4.4: Evaluating the implementation of the provided marketing plan and scenario.....................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9
TABLE OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Accommodation service primary survey plan.................................................................4
Figure 2: Facebook page of Marriott Hotel....................................................................................5
Figure 3: Twitter page of Marriott Hotel........................................................................................6
Figure 4: Steps of implementing marketing plan............................................................................7

TASK 4
4.1: Discussing the relevance of market research for the Hospitality industry
Marketing strategy serves as the base for developing brand and influencing customers for
gaining loyalty. In other sectors such as retail, selling of consumables products might be easy.
But in case of hospitality, the major emphasis is laid on selling of services and facilities to please
and influence people. Associated companies in the hospitality sector make use of various models
and strategies to acquire the brand success (Haley, 2006). The entire strategy focuses on building
relationship with the past and existing customers. Market research is significant as it helps to
know about the current and future prospectus of hospitality trends. These are required to examine
as it helps in kneeing about the profitability of the business whilst introducing any goods and
services. For the current facilities, goods and services, the market research is significant as it
enables to explore the ways through which customer’s demands and requirements can be
interpreted. Thence, it assists in ensuring the formulation of marketing plan.
Positive relevance of implementing marketing plan:
The market research helps in knowing about the competitive advantage of the rivalry
firms thereby leads hospitality sector to enhance its customer service delivery. The stated
marketing plan by the hospitality organisation entails a description of retaining guests through
various means. Organisations in the hospitality industry require abundant of knowledge that
ensures changing needs, demands and desires of the customers (McDonal and Wilson, 2011).
Hence, marketing research sustain in gaining reliable and required information to succeed for
improvements in designing services. Various hotels such as Hilton, Marriott hotel work on
market research with the aim to provide quality services and demands of the customers. This
helps them to develop a quality tool to influence perception of people regarding different goods
and services.
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Negative relevance of implementing marketing plan:
In hospitality sector, planning made due to insufficient or improper gathering of data
through market research may hamper the business. The collected information is a remark that
assesses weaknesses that are faced by the hospitality firm.
4.2: Select a Hospitality specific product or service. Undertaking primary market research for
selected hospitality product or service
Market research is conducted in order to know about different response through
published and unpublished sources. Primary and secondary are two sources of collecting
information. In this section, primary research is undertaken to assess the responses of customers
towards the accommodation services at the Marriott hotel of the UK (Henley, Raffin, and
Caemmerer, 2011). Survey, interview, observations, etc are some methods of collecting data
through primary source.
For the present work, survey method has been chosen where questionnaire will be
prepared related with accommodation facilities provided by the cited hotel. Customers who are
frequent and regular visitors are taken as sample population and sample size is 7. Collected data
will be interpreted by Human Resource department of the Marriott hotel to arrive at desired or
meaningful conclusion. Accommodation survey will be beneficial in knowing the feedbacks
about the guests. This has been designed accordingly by considering the customers as their
valuable resource and is sent to them on their e-mail ids. The accommodation survey for Marriott
hotel plan been designed as follows:
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ACCOMODATION SURVEY PLAN
(For customers or visitors of the hotel Marriott, UK)
DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS
Name:
Age:
Email id:
Statement Strongl
y Agree Agree Neutral Disagre
e
Good experience and further
recommending people to visit
Check in
Reservation record was accurate.
Timely and efficient check in processes
Well established check-in of staff
members
Guest Room
Tidy and cosy rooms
Well furnished and developed rooms
Convenient and comfortable bedding
Guest Staff
Quick, accurate and reliable services of
guests
Knowledgeable and skilled staff members
Presence of security
Efficient housekeeping staff
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Appropriate measures to solve issues
Food and Dining
Courteous and pleasing staff
Efficient good food quality
Suitable room services
Correct orders of food and drinks ordered
Amenities
Properly available and well equipped
amenities
Check out
Timely check out provisions.
Suitable and exact billing of services
Recommendations (If any):
1.
2.________________________________________________________________
____________
Figure 1: Accommodation service primary survey plan
For conducting survey, questionnaire method for analysing the accommodation services
of the Marriott hotel has been collected through primary data collection. On the basis of above
questionnaire, 7 participants who are customers of Marriott hotel are surveyed and results and
analysis is made as follows:
Theme 1: Customers have good experience at Marriott hotel in terms of accommodation and
thereby further recommend other people to visit.
Results:
RESPONSES NUMBER OF RESPONDENTS
Strongly agree 3
Agree 1
Neutral 2
Disagree 1
4

Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
Theme 1: Customers have good experience at Marriott
hotel in terms of accommodation and thereby further
recommend other people to visit.
NUMBER OF
RESPONDENTS
Findings and Analysis: When 7 respondents were asked about their response regarding the
assertion, 3 were strongly agrees, 1 agrees, 2 were neutral and 1 disagree. It has been analysed
that customers who have been to Marriott share good experience and the satisfaction level was so
well that they found recommending to their acquaintances as well for availing the facilities of
Marriott.
Theme 2: Check in and checkouts are highly organised accommodation activities of the
Marriott hotel.
RESPONSES NUMBER OF RESPONDENTS
Strongly agree 5
Agree 1
Neutral 1
Disagree 0
5

Theme 2: Check in and checkouts are highly organised
accommodation activities of the Marriott hotel.
Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Findings and Analysis: With regards to this theme, 5 out of 7 were in strong favour of the check
in and checkout services of Marriott hotel whereas 1 agrees and 1 disagrees to the same.
However, no one found to be disagreeing to the same. These provisions are inclusive of
reservation record accuracy, timely and efficient check in processes, well established check-in of
staff members, timely check out provisions and suitable and exact billing of services.
Theme 3: Guest room facilities are integral aspect taken into consideration for influencing
customers at Marriott hotel.
RESPONSES NUMBER OF RESPONDENTS
Strongly agree 6
Agree 1
Neutral 0
Disagree 0
6

Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Theme 3: Guest rooms are integral aspect taken into
consideration for influencing customers at Marriott
hotel.
NUMBER OF
RESPONDENTS
Findings and Analysis: In consideration to above theme, it has been found that 6 out of 7
strongly favour the assertion whereas nobody was against the fact. However, 1 agrees. It has
been interpreted that guest services of Marriott are inclusive of tidy and cosy rooms, well
furnished and developed rooms and convenient and comfortable bedding. Staff members of
accommodation department are well trained and are developed to take care of these services and
are successful in grabbing the attention of customers.
Theme 4: Management of Marriott hotel provides appropriate food, dinning and other
amenities to its customers.
RESPONSES NUMBER OF RESPONDENTS
Strongly agree 3
Agree 1
Neutral 1
Disagree 2
7

Theme 4: Management of Marriott hotel provides
appropriate food, dinning and other amenities to its
customers.
Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Findings and Analysis: On analysing the data pertaining to present theme, it has been found that
3 participants showed strongly agree behaviour, 1 agrees, 1 neutral and 2 disagrees to the
assertion. Food and dining facilities at Marriott are inclusive of Courteous and pleasing staff,
efficient good food quality, suitable room services and correct orders of food and drinks ordered.
Amenities provides at the cited place is regarding properly availability and well equipped
provision for customers. Customers are evaluated to find satisfied and contented.
4.3: Analysing the suitability of social media marketing for a Hospitality product or service.
Introduction of social media
Business organisations in hospitality sector intend to get the good reviews from their
dedicated and reliable customers. Social media is defined as a way through which internet source
is used to communicate with mass at once. In the latest development and growth of information
technology, various social media sites are developed which acted as a medium through which
business marketers are promoting their goods and services in the target market. This is gained
through the use of social media marketing tool so that widespread positive and negative
experiences can also be acquired from them. In today’s competitive and globalised era, social
media tools which are namely; Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are identified as main tools of
social media marketing where everybody can raise their voice in both positive and adverse way.
These are digital tools that are implemented in the business activities in order to know about their
as well as competitors’ position in the entire hospitality industry.
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For present scenario, Marriott Hotel can make use of Facebook and Twitter as two
effective sources. Visitors and customers share their travelling experiences through Facebook
(Marriott Hotel, 2016). Facebook works as very informal sharing media tool. They share travel
comments and reviews on these public platforms. This social activity is an example to
demonstrate the interaction that one, two or an entire group do regarding any aspect. This serves
to be a specific medium through which hospitality organisations can know about their goodwill
and image in the market place. If any person do not knows about Facebook page of Marriott,
they send them message where direct link is send and by clicking on same, people can easily get
access on it.
Figure 2: Facebook page of Marriott Hotel
Secondly, celebrities, eminent person and Marriott itself can also tweet their travelling
and accommodation experience thereby is easily and quickly delivered to mass at once. By doing
this, both people and Marriott management become able to assess more about the luxurious, cosy
and suitable service provisions regarding accommodation of the cited hotel (Grant, 2010). Along
with this, it will be beneficial for the individuals as well who have never able to access the
services of the Marriott Hotel. Thereby the platform of social media tool acts as a platform in
gaining customers base.
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Figure 3: Twitter page of Marriott Hotel
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4.4: Evaluating the implementation of the provided marketing plan and scenario
Implementation of marketing plan is a very procedural process which demands effective
planning and organising of available resources. The significance lies in appropriation of
resources so that planned action contributes in the success in the long run (Cravens and Piercy,
2008). According to the current scenario, the need is to examine the accommodation service of
Hotel Marriott of the UK. In an order to implement the marketing plan for promoting
accommodation services of the Marriott Hotel will be done by using process which is detailed
below. Implementation of this current marketing plan will be made by considering the following
points as follows:
Figure 4: Steps of implementing marketing plan
Activities to be implemented: Marketing department of Marriott hotel are held responsible
for planning, designing and executing marketing plan for promoting their accommodation
services. The marketing plan will commence with the market research where collection of
relevant information will be acquired through primary source. In the present report, this has
been done with the help of potential and regular customers of Hotel Marriott who were
surveyed in order to know their responses regarding their experience for accommodation
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ImplementingmarketingplanActivitiestobeimplementedResponsiblemembersfortheimplementationTimeandlocationforimplementationConductingimplementation

services. These are inclusive of room facility, food and dining, amenities, entertainment and
other facilities provisions. Next, this information will be processed through effective use of
resources and materials. Scanning of internal and external environment of the business
environment of Hotel Marriott through frameworks such as SWOT, PESTLE would prove
beneficial in assessing the marketing plan (Armstrong and Cunningham, 2012). With the help
of defining the activities, evaluation of marketing activities can be worked upon.
Responsible members for the implementation: In an order to consult the marketing
research regarding the accommodation services provided by the Hotel Marriott, entire
management is responsible. However, allocation of jobs is suitable in order to save time and
cost. Therefore, in this stage of implementation process of marketing, work activities will be
allotted where different employees from top to bottom level of other departments as well will
be involved. Hence, marketing team will involve in research of external market environment
where users and customer’s views are collected and analysed regarding accommodation
services, human resource department will provide training to manpower regarding better
ways to teach methods to deal with clients by promoting better initiatives to please and
satisfy customers in regards to their accommodation services, finance department will
allocate funds so that entire research program carried above for marketing of accommodation
services of Marriott can be planned and Information technology department will work on
social media websites where new additional provisions to the accommodation services of the
Marriott hotel can be worked and planned.
Time and location for implementation: This is defined as marketing plan should meet the
purpose to be attained in provided time frame. As per present scenario Marriott is involved in
promoting and marketing its accommodation services. For conducting this marketing
implementation process, time period of 6 months would be enough.
Conducting implementation: Meetings, conferences, trainings are best methods through
objectives, vision and mission of marketing plan to be conducted can be best implemented by
the management of Marriott. Marketing team executives are required to communicate the
entire information regarding their marketing plan. They are supposed to intimate their
management and employees about every action which they will take to inform about
promotion of accommodation services. This is done so that any demanded change can be
worked upon before final execution.
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REFERENCES
Armstrong, G. and Cunningham, M. H. , 2012. Principles of marketing. Pearson Australia.
Cravens, D. and Piercy, N. F. ,2008. Strategic marketing. McGraw-Hill Irwin.
Grant, R. M. , 2010. Contemporary strategy analysis and cases: text and cases. John Wiley &
Sons.
Haley, G., 2006. Managing for strategic success in emerging markets. Handbook of Business
Strategy. 7(1). pp.27 – 33.
Henley, N. Raffin, S. and Caemmerer, B., 2011. The application of marketing principles to a
social marketing campaign. Marketing Intelligence & Planning. 29(7). pp.697-706.
Marriott Hotel. 2016. [Online]. Available through:< http://www.marriott.com/meeting-event-
hotels/weddings/guest-accommodations.mi>. [Accessed on 28th April, 2016].
McDonald, M. and Wilson, H., 2011. Marketing plans: How to prepare them, how to use them.
John Wiley & Sons.
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