Marketing and Customer Retention in the Hospitality Industry

This report discusses marketing mix, relationship marketing, and loyalty programs in the hospitality industry. It proposes strategies for a loyalty program for a new Bed and Breakfast Restaurant, Relish the Splinter, located in the local mountain areas of London.

Marketing and customer
retention in hospitality
industry 1

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Demonstrate you knowledge and understanding about marketing mix, including extended
marketing mix of your proposed Bed and Breakfast Restaurant............................................1
Analyse Characteristics of relationship marketing to implement a........................................3
successful loyal programmes..................................................................................................3
Propose strategies of your loyalty programmes in your own business in the hospitality
industry...................................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
References:.......................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Marketing is the process or the strategy of the company to socialize and communicate
with the market outside with the aim to deliver the values and product and services of the
company (Mahmoud, Hinson and Adika, 2018). The marketing also focus on customer retention
strategy as through marketing company can easily analyse the buying behaviour of their
customers and take action to retain them for future. In the hospitality industry there is huge role
of the marketing as the hospitality industry is fascinating and has keep pursuing to their
customers in order to increase sales. In this industry the customer retention strategy is used to
maintain the relationship with their regular guest. The present report aims to open a new Bed and
Breakfast Restaurant i.e. “Relish the Splinter” which is located in local mountain areas of the
London. The report will propose marketing mix of the restaurant. In addition to this
characteristics of relationship marketing is discussed. In the end strategies are proposed for the
new loyalty programme.
MAIN BODY
Demonstrate you knowledge and understanding about marketing mix, including extended
marketing mix of your proposed Bed and Breakfast Restaurant.
Marketing mix is the marketing tactic that involves combination of 7 elements that organisation
should considered while development and launching of any new product and service. This tactic
is useful to the hospitality industry organisation like “Relish the Splinter” Bed and Breakfast
restaurant in coming up with new strategy that can enhance the value and attributes of the
products and services (Thabit and Raewf, 2018). In early stage there where 4P's of marketing
mix which further extended to 7P's to have deep insight of product and services. The discussion
of 7P's of marketing mix is outlined below in context of Relish the Splinter:
 Product: the service or product is the commodity the organisation develops or produces
in order to satisfy the needs and wants of the customers. The hospitality industry is the
service sector industry where the organisations mostly aim to produce or deliver the
services to their customers. Therefore the service is acknowledged as the centre of
element of the marketing mix. In relation to, Relish the Splinter the company offers the
customers with gym, spa and one night stay facility along with the breakfast. The
company has outstanding spa, gym and rooms with all the amenities that are point of
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attraction. The Mountain View from the rooms and spa is like cherry on the cake for the
services of the restaurant.
 Price: the price is the value that is decided by the company as per the cost and value that
the customer is ready to pay in exchange of the services. The Relish the Splinter
restaurant has kept very low prices for its services as their main aim to is make the guest
satisfied with the experience during their break. The company low price strategy is highly
useful in gaining the high demand for their services as compared to the other competitors.
Also company never charge very high prices during the peak season in order to higher
profit to maintain their values for the customer first (Sukmanegara, 2020).
 Place: the place factor defines the location of the organisation where the customer can
access the availability of the product or service. In relation to the Relish and Splinter the
restaurant the location is very peaceful and is highly near the nature which increases the
value of the restaurant as the current customer needs are highly influenced with
sustainability and nature love. Thus the location is beautiful and eye catching where the
customer can experience best service from the Relish and Splinter.
 Promotion: For the products and services to reach their target audience with power to
drive them to purchase the promotional strategy and activities are used such as
advertising, personal relations, social media advertising etc. In relation to, Relish and
Splinter the company effectively use the social media advertising and promotions by
posting the different views, offers, views on the social media handles like Facebook,
Instagram, twitter etc. As in such facilities most used by youth and bikers therefore the
main target of the restaurant in its promotional activities are related to them.
 People: the people are the employees and customers of the company that has relation
with the products and services. In relation to Relish the Splinter the company has highly
talented employees that aims to improve the services of the company in order to serve the
customers with best services at their leisure time. The company also develop strategies to
retain the both customers and employees through rewards and recognition (Islaini and
Nayan, 2020).
 Process: the process refers to the tactic by which the services are delivered to the
customers with utmost efficiency. The Relish and Splinter has designed an outstanding
delivery process that is linked with online presence the company's website is the mode to
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deliver the service. As every booking and payment is done through website only. The
another way to deliver the the service is through travel agents.
 Physical Evidence: the physical presence of the company in the form of website, logo,
store etc. The restaurant has a very beautiful and easily browsed website for the customer
to check its physical evidence. Also there are the membership cards of the company that
act of proof of physical evidence.
Analyse Characteristics of relationship marketing to implement a
successful loyal programmes.
Relationship marketing is the facet of the CRM which is treated as the marketing strategy
of the business which focuses on developing mutually satisfying relations (Darzi and Bhat,
2018). Basically relationship marketing one of the most relationship oriented marketing strategy
that organisation use in order to build a sustainable long-term relationship with their customer’s
suppliers and other important stakeholders associated with the business. Bread and breakfast
restaurant relationship marketing is essential because potential that customers for the guest
arriving at the restaurant are having mesmerizing experience which further relates with the
retention of those guest. "Relish the Splinter" has use relationship marketing to successfully
implement their loyalty program of "Gem Royal Club". Characteristic of the relationship
marketing is discussed below in context of "Relish the Splinter" and implementation of its
loyalty program:
Service culture: the building of service culture in the hospitality industry is essential because it
makes us that relationship of the customer with the restaurant is enhanced. Developing of long
term relationship of the customers with Relish the Splinter bed and breakfast is due to the quality
of service they offer to them. Service culture is one of the characteristic that is create an
increasing the customer experience and relationship but sometimes become a reason of
micromanagement. Therefore in context of Relish the Splinter restaurant they have established a
loyalty program to attract their customers into their outstanding in High quality services which
effectively meet needs of the customers.
Segmentation: in the relationship marketing the role of segmentation is very high as they divide
group of customers into small sections on the basis of taste, gender, location other behavioural
aspects etc (Galletta and et. al., 2017). The focus of this prospective strategy is too deeply
understood the market and their needs so that restaurant can easily manage their operations as
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per the requirements of the customers. Advantage of segmentation for market to an organisation
is that it able to create divisions by which it is easy to process different operations as per the
different segments. In relation to the Relish the Splinter the company has effectively utilised this
characteristic of relationship marketing in implementing its loyalty program in which the
customers that have membership card of Gem Royal Club will gain the extra benefits.
Database: in order to establish and maintain effective relationship with the customers the
business is required to maintain a used amount of database about the information related to the
customer interaction with the organisation the database includes customer's location, preferences,
contact number which business can easily approach the loan customer advantage of this
prospective strategy of marketing is that it helps an organisation to create personalization in their
services for the better customer experience (Yazovskikh and Yatsenko, 2020). Current world
weather digitalizations there are many electronic database recorders that helps in hospitality
organisation be easily record the data of large number of customers. In Relish the Splinter
restaurant they have database management system that maintains the date of the loyal customers
and also help them and offering them loyalty programs which are specially designed for their
better experience during the stay at following bed and breakfast.
Trust and commitment: the major focus of relationship marketing is to serve the customers
with the values which include trust and commitment for the customer. This means an
organisation must deliver their customer with the promise results and services as trusted
commitment can only be a factor that could generate an effective relationship between the
business and their customers (Munandar, Afrilla and Septa, 2018). When company fulfil their
promises it automatically needs wants and needs of their customers by which customer start
gaining a trust for an organisation. The loyalty program of relish this planter restaurant promises
to provide their customers special and extra benefits from the other regular customers which will
improve the commitment of the organisation with their customers.
Rewards and recognition: in the business like hospitality industry the rewards coupons a very
general in order to create the relationship with their customers. This helps organisations like
"Relish the Splinter" under the relationship with their customers and also the gifting and
devoting the customers the customer seems more happy and satisfied. The Gem royal club
membership loyalty program of the Relish the Splinter has been the interest from the customers
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by identifying their requirement of extra benefits will offer the rewards to their loyal customers
(Yang, Yu and Bruwer, 2018).
Propose strategies of your loyalty programmes in your own business in the hospitality industry
The two most outstanding strategies for the “Gem Royal Club” loyalty programme of the
Relish the Splinter organisation are discussed below:
Unique events: the strategy of Relish the Splinter restaurant of organising the Unique and
exceptional events and the loyalty program will help business in gaining the success. The
member of Gem Royal Club loyalty program will get free passes to enjoy the several perks of the
Unique event organised within the hotel during their stay (Kanakaratne, Bray and Robson, 2020).
There will be a series of unique events throughout the state of members that are part of loyalty
program which will make them feel special and satisfied. This will also include that members of
Gem Royal club loyalty program will enjoy free visit of the hills and mountains from the side of
the restaurant.
Personalized customer service: the loyal customers those who are the members of the Gem
Royal Club loyalty program gain an advantage of getting personalized customer service
throughout their stay. For instance this includes services like getting their breakfast to their
rooms as per the demand from menu which is different from the regular buffet breakfast to
regular customers. This customer will also receive the personalized spa and gym services during
their accommodation at Relish the Splinter. This is highly effective strategy for this loyalty
program as this will help in retaining the customers.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it is concluded that in the hospitality organisation the role of
marketing is very huge and important. The concepts like marketing mix is highly useful in
analysing the overall product and service related factors which also help the company in devising
different strategy which could lead to competitive advantage. Also the relationship marketing is
highly useful in implementing the successful loyalty programme as this develop the trust and
commitment in customers towards the organisation which act as retention of customers. Thus,
the proposed strategy of the company for the implementation of the loyalty programme of the
company are really impactful as they gained the customer attention and also helped the company
in meeting its objective of retaining the customer base.
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References:
Books and Journals
Darzi, M.A. and Bhat, S.A., 2018. Personnel capability and customer satisfaction as predictors of
customer retention in the banking sector: A mediated-moderation study. International
journal of bank marketing.
Galletta, A and et. al., 2017. A cloud-based system for improving retention marketing loyalty
programs in industry 4.0: a study on big data storage implications. IEEE Access, 6,
pp.5485-5492.
Islaini, M.A.A. and Nayan, S.M., 2020. The Role of Price in the Marketing Mix. Journal of
Undergraduate Social Science and Technology, 2(2).
Kanakaratne, M.D.S., Bray, J. and Robson, J., 2020. The influence of national culture and
industry structure on grocery retail customer loyalty. Journal of retailing and consumer
services, 54, p.102013.
Mahmoud, M.A., Hinson, R.E. and Adika, M.K., 2018. The effect of trust, commitment, and
conflict handling on customer retention: the mediating role of customer
satisfaction. Journal of Relationship Marketing, 17(4), pp.257-276.
Munandar, R., Afrilla, N. and Septa, R.Y., 2018. STRATEGI CUSTOMER RETENTION
MARKETING (CRM) PADA DISTRIBUTOR DUTA PARFUM CENTER DALAM
MEMPERTAHANKAN PELANGGAN (Doctoral dissertation, Universitas Sultan Ageng
Tirtayasa).
Sukmanegara, R., 2020. Marketing Mix.
Thabit, T. and Raewf, M., 2018. The evaluation of marketing mix elements: A case
study. International Journal of Social Sciences & Educational Studies, 4(4).
Yang, S., Yu, S.L. and Bruwer, J., 2018. The effect of relational benefits in loyalty programmes:
Evidence from Chinese milk formula customer clubs. Journal of Consumer
Behaviour, 17(2), pp.211-220.
Yazovskikh, E. and Yatsenko, O., 2020. Formation Of A Fitness Club Customer Loyalty
Programme. Economic Science, education and the real economy: Development and
interactions in the digital age, (1), pp.472-479.
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