Marketing Strategies in Hospitality Industry

The provided document is an assignment on marketing in the hospitality industry, specifically focusing on Marriott Hotels. The report discusses the crucial role of marketing in the success of promotional events in companies like Marriott. It also highlights the need for effective marketing strategies that cater to customer needs and provides suggestions for improving marketing plans. The document includes references from various books and journals related to marketing and hospitality.

Hospitality Marketing

Table of Contents
SUMMARY.....................................................................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
1.1 Marketing process and its concepts:.................................................................................3
1.2 Impact of micro- and macro- marketing environment on the industry:...........................4
1.3 Relevance of consumer market in the hospitality sector:.................................................5
1.4 Rationale for developing different market segments:......................................................5
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................6
2.1 Assess the importance of components of the marketing mix:..........................................6
2.2 Analysing pricing strategies and policies in relation to the industry:..............................7
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................8
3.1 Role of the promotional mix:...........................................................................................8
3.2 Plan an advertising campaign for a service's industry operation:....................................8
3.3 Role of sales promotion and public relations in promotional efforts:..............................9
TASK 4............................................................................................................................................9
4.1 The relevance and importance of market research :.........................................................9
4.2 Marketing research for product or service:....................................................................10
4.3 Analysing the suitability of different media for marketing:...........................................10
4.4 Implementation of the marketing plan for an appropriate product or service:...............10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

SUMMARY
Marriott hotels and resorts:
It is the international hotel in UK which was founded by the S. Edward Marriott in 1967.
Its headquarters in the Bethesda, Maryland, united states. It has overall 566 hotels in various
locations all over the world. It was awarded with the best company to work with UK and got the
award for the best company in 2009. It was started back in the year with only two motels in
1950. They opened the motel near Washington DC and another after few years later in twin
bridges. After that Marriott got the popularity among people and became the big brand name in
the market. Currently it is operating in the various countries like Spain, Sri Lanka, turkey,
Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, united Arab emirates, Russia, Singapore, India, etc. It has
the world class accommodation provided by the hotel to their customers. There are various types
of the rooms in which the people can stay, such as they provide premium rooms with balcony,
deluxe suite rooms, chairman suite, Marriott suite, guest room, presidential suite and executive
suite. There rates vary according to the suite which the customer choose to stay.

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INTRODUCTION
The process where an organization understand the demands and need of their customers
and try to fulfill their it providing them better services is known as marketing. It plays a crucial
role in the overall development of the organization. A well planned and executed marketing
strategy is base of marketing of company. This report will analyze the strategies taken by
Marriott Hotels in UK. Marriott International is one of the largest and most prominent hotel
operators in UK. It was founded by J. Willard and Alice Marriott. It is a leading global company
of Hotels having more than 6,500 properties across 127 countries and territories. Headquarters is
in Washington, DC. in Bethesda, Maryland.
This report will also help to find out different ways in which the company is trying to
stay in top positions. Different topics will be covered in this report such as, marketing process,
macro and micro environmental factors affecting the company. Furthermore, it will also examine
the marketing mix variables and various pricing policies and strategies used by them, etc.
TASK 1
1.1 Marketing process and its concepts:
Marketing process is a technique used to satisfy the customers' requirements and needs,
increasing their profitability and sales in the market. There are five different marketing concept
approaches which the Marriott group can apply in order to attract customers toward them, they
are as follows:
 Production Concept: This concept is based on the fact that customers are utilizing the
products which are easily available and accessible and inexpensive in the market. For
this, Marriott Hotels should make new plans and strategies in which some offers are
provided to the customers to that they will give priority to them.
 Product Concept: In today's world, customers are looking forward to new and innovative
options which are currently available in the market. So Marriott group should come up
with new and unique ideas to satisfy their customers. They are constantly updating their
system and releasing new schemes and services for them. Company should review the
customers needs and queries and should quickly resolve that (Aulton, M.E. and Taylor,
K.M. eds. 2017).
 Selling Concept: Selling concept is that process in which the customers are seeking for
some good sales and discount provided by the company. It is done to promote the

company name more in the market. Marriott Hotels should come up with new discounts
for their customers occasionally. They should also try to give some special offers in
festival season when there is higher chance of customers to come.
 Marketing Concept: This concept is the most important process in marketing process as it
ensures to build the company's name in market and helps to maintain their good
reputation. In marketing concept, company focuses on the customers and on their values
in order to achieve their sales and profits. In this, achieving company's target is done by
knowing the needs and interests of the customers and delivering them the desired
satisfactory services better than what their competitors are giving. This is the main
strategy of the marketing concept.
 Social Marketing concept: This is the concept which is used to deliver services to the
customers which helps to maintain the well being of customers as well as of society.
All these concepts of marketing should be applied by the Marriott Hotel group in order to
increase the customer rate (Bowie, D., Buttle, F., Brookes, M. and Mariussen, A. 2016). It is a
type of action, which is done to attract the targeted customers by providing those good services
and offers which are beneficial for them. All these concepts includes customer focused
marketing which helps to determine the customers' needs and wants and tries to solve these
issues by creating different strategies for it.
1.2 Impact of micro- and macro- marketing environment on the industry:
There are many environmental factors affecting the marketing strategy of Marriott Hotel
group. These can be divided in micro and macro environmental factors. Micro environmental
factors are internal factors that affects the company's business which includes customer’s,
company and competitor's profile analysis while macro environmental factors are the external
factors which includes analyzing the economic conditions, technological and demo-graphical
change in UK. Micro-environmental factors of Marriott Hotel includes,
 Company Overview: Marriott International group is an American hospitality company
that manages hotels and lodging facilities. It has great location, luxurious rooms, and has
4000+ hotels worldwide with extra ordinary amenities like restaurant dining, swimming
pool, fitness center, etc (Freer, T. 2014).
 Customer Analysis: Marriott hotels mainly target luxury and high class customers in UK
as well as from different countries. But they target middle class families by providing

different offers and discounts occasionally to them. They believe in providing high class
services and products to the customers to create brand name in the international market.
 Competitor Profile Analysis:. Company should know all plans and strategies of their
competitors in order to defeat them. There are several competitors of Marriott hotel like
Starwood, Hyatt and Hilton hotels, who compete on the basis of their services, prices,
facilities that they provide to their customers.
Macro-environmental factors for Marriott Hotels includes,
 Economic Factors: There are many economic factors which affect the company's
business. The factors can impact both the organization's production and the consumer’s
decision making process for the company. A related problem for Marriott is the high
exchange rate for U.S. dollar overseas.
 Demographic Factors: These factors effect the basis of some common demographic
forces like country/ region of the customers, age group, lifestyle and culture of people,
etc.
 Political and Legal Factors: There are some political and legal factors which impact the
growth of Marriott hotels. There are several rules and regulation made by the government
of UK, which should be applied in the hospitality sector (Gilbert, D.C. 2015.).
All these micro and macro environmental factors have a significant impact on the marketing
strategies of the Marriott hotel group. To overcome all these problems, they should keep in mind
all these factors and make plans according to it. This will increase the brand reputation of the
Marriott Group in the hospitality sector.
1.3 Relevance of consumer market in the hospitality sector:
Identifying the target customers and their buying nature is the essential requirement for
the company. The main aim of Marriott hotel group is to satisfy their customer's needs and
wants. Consumer market can be termed as the end user of the individuals which are buying the
hospitality services of the hotels for their personnel utilization. There are so many factors which
influence the buying decision of the end customers and these factors can affect the consumer
market for the Marriott group.
1.4 Rationale for developing different market segments:
Market segmentation is a process in which an overall market is divided into small
segments that consists of customers having similar interest in their choices. Before stepping into

any market service, company should segment their market to achieve their targeted customers in
efficient way. By analyzing the needs and wants of the customers, Marriott can frame out their
strategies. These marketing strategies of segmentation can help the company to recognize their
products and services and can work efficiently in order to achieve their targeted goals.
Segmentation can be done on the basis of geographies in which they are divided into
nations, regions, state, etc. In demographic segmentation, customers are divided on the basis of
age, gender, income, occupation, etc. and on behavior segmentation they are divided on their
attitude and response towards other, etc. Market segment is useful for Marriott group to analyze
and understand their customers better. For example, if the management team of the Marriott
hotel is focusing on the young generation to buy their services, they have to come up with new
offers which can attract them to come there. This can be done by giving discounts on limited
services in the hotel like on room tariff.
By segmenting their customers, it will become easy for the Marriott hotels to focus on
their plans and strategies. They can make these plans according to their requirement. For
example if the maximum customer of Marriott is young generation, then the hotel management
team can give offers which will attract these youngsters to book rooms in their hotel. Giving
offers in gym, providing different beverages complementary etc. All these strategies will be a
beneficiary steps in their success.
TASK 2
2.1 Assess the importance of components of the marketing mix:
Marketing mix is a core concept in hospitality marketing. In this each element of the
marketing is consistent with all other elements. Traditionally, there are four P's that are
associated with this, which are- product, price, promotion and place. These four components of
the marketing make the decision-making variables that are available to marketing managers of
Marriott group.
 Product: The product factor of marketing mix includes goods and services which are
accompanied by that final product. A product can be in the form of package or goods or
services provided by the company for example, purchasing a hotel room in Marriott hotel
will also include several elements to attract customers such as fitness center, pool,
restaurant, valet service, housekeeping services, etc. All these factors depends upon the
needs and interests of the customers.

 Price: After production, comes the 'price' factor. It is that value which is placed on a
particular product or service provided to customers. It includes, fee, rate, tax, etc. Some
other variables which are counted as price are considered as discounts, allowances, and
payment options offered by hotel.
 Place: This is the third element which sometimes also known as 'distribution'. It basically
describes that the product or services provided to customers should be easily accessible.
Marriott hotels are east to find by the customers which make them comfortable to book
their rooms.
 Promotion: This is the last and most important element in the market mix. Without proper
promotional events, it's difficult for Marriott Group to deliver their product and services
to their customers. The promotional activities of hotel can be done in either of the ways-
by advertising, personal selling, publicity, and sales promotion.
All these elements are important for Marriott Hotel group to establish their name in the market
successfully and to manage all the activities in proper manner (McDonald, M. and Wilson, H.
2016).
2.2 Analysing pricing strategies and policies in relation to the industry:
Pricing strategies and policies for any company is very important in many aspects. The
pricing structure helps to draw an image of the company and establishing a specific customer
base. Analysis of price strategy reveals that Marriott group has a range of options in their pricing
toolkit which they can use to augment their marketing initiatives. The main objective of this is to
meet profit margins and to increase their revenue costs. There are many ways in which pricing
strategies and policies can be applied to the business. A good and fair price can be an indication
towards healthy profit margins, which confirms growth for the company.
Setting too high prices for the hotel rooms will lead to decline their customer rate as high
price can give a negative impact on customer's mind. It is Hotel's responsibility to set fair prices
for the customers. Another key factor that has to be taken into consideration is the highly
competitive market scenario quoted by their competitor. The price offered to the consumer by
Marriott hotel is mostly compared with other hotels which are also good known hotels. Along
with the price, Marriott hotels should provide some discounts on there selected rooms as
strategy. There are so many pricing strategies are available in the market which can be opted by
hospitality industry. For example, Marriott hotels are giving discounts on their limited rooms

which makes more popular in the market as compared to their competitors in the market. It is
very important for them to analyze the prices of different hotels located in their ares so they can
make their pricing strategies according to that.
TASK 3
3.1 Role of the promotional mix:
All the efforts made by the company to ensure that the product or services are reaching to
their customer are known as promotional mix. The entire hotel staff stars adopting different new
and innovative ideas in accordance to their changing marketing strategies. For example, Marriott
Hotel has come up with an idea of fusion for those who loves to try new things like different
food and style of rooms. As a result for this, the revenue of Marriott hotel has increased a lot in
the past few years. By doing all these promotional activity it helps them to enhance their services
to satisfy their customers. As its very important to have a good feedback from them after their
stay in the hotel. Delivering the services and products to the customers also matters more to the
overall growth of the hotel because for them, customers are their most important factor or
priority. The factors which are currently under play for setting the mark for quality of hotel
services can be analyzed with examples, such as many hotels in the United Kingdom have
resorted to online booking systems which makes their customer to book their hotel online only,
which saves a lot of time of both-customers and hotel as well. These features made the Marriott
hotels to increase their foreign tourists and multiply their income (Scott, D.M. 2015).
3.2 Plan an advertising campaign for a service's industry operation:
For effective marketing, a systematic approach is needed. For example, if Marriott Hotel
Group is planning to operate an advertisement campaign for their restaurant. Hotel management
team will ensure to first apply the tried and tested method of campaign in such a manner that if
any of the strategy fails than there is a back up strategy for it.
Various factors affecting the campaign are- transportation, local area coverage,
technology based advertisement and benefits. They are discussed below,
 Transportation sector: Transportation sector of the Marriott Group must be effective in
terms of promoting their name. For example, providing taxi services to their valuable and
frequent customers. This will make a good impression.

 Local area coverage: It is used to refer as a strong connection with the local market used
for the promotion. It is one of the best ways of promotional campaigning.
 Technology-based advertising: This is the new trend which has become popular now
days. Advertising through internet has become so easy to carry out and it saves a lot of
time, energy and resource of the hotel.
 Benefits without compromising profit: These are the strategies used when it comes to
getting past the competitors. For example, increasing the basic rate of the room and
giving some offer to the customer and showing off the original price to them is the mostly
used trick by the hotelier to make profit (Malhotra, N.K. and Peterson, M. 2014).
For advertising any campaign, there are many option like, media coverage which includes, print
media, television, social media etc. All these factors can be helpful for promoting the Hotel name
in the market.
3.3 Role of sales promotion and public relations in promotional efforts:
There is a great importance of sales promotion and public relations in the promotional
efforts for the company. Using different methods and strategies in the promotional mix will
clearly say about organizations’ communication objectives. Marriott Group use the promotion
mix to make their customer aware about their hotel services. Most of the focus of the Marriott
Hotel is on their promotional activities focusing on the benefits and values of the targeted
customers. Promotional mix helps to maintain the long term communication while sales
promotion can be described as a strategy used when the company is aiming to generate instant
profit from their customer.
Competition is growing day by day, where hotel industries are constantly aiming to
attract their targeted customers. Public relations are maintained by organizing different activities
that are performed by the Marriott group to attract different customers. The main aim of
campaigning is to build smooth relation between hotel staff and the customer (Armstrong, G.
et.al. 2015).
TASK 4
4.1 The relevance and importance of market research :
There is a great importance of marketing research in any business to establish in the
market. Market research can guarantee the success of the marketing campaigns, and in-turn sales

of the company. It not only helps in identifying new business opportunities, but also helps in
designing marketing campaigns that will directly target the interested customers and will also
help in increasing sales. It provides information about the potential of the hospitality sector.
Through marketing research Marriott Group can keep a track on company's progress and will
also provide information regarding their competitors. With market research, Marriott group can
reduce the chances of loss to a large extent in the market. It will identify the area where the most
problem arises in the department. Will help to understand the needs of existing customers and
why they are choosing Marriott's service over their competitors (Babin, B.J. and Zikmund, W.G.
2015).
Marketing research is very crucial step in the progress of any business in the market.
Proper research will help the Marriott hotel to serve better services, providing excellence food to
the customers. They should try some innovative ways in which they can increase their
productivity in the market.
4.2 Marketing research for product or service:
Analyzing and proposing a marketing research for the Marriott hotel for its luxury suites
to offer to business executives can be done by various ways. The hotel can opt for promotional
event in the local market which is the best way to promote anything. In promotional events like
this, there is a direct contact of the Marriott staff members with the customers which helps them
to build a positive impression (Unit 8 Marketing in Hospitality Assignment. 2018). There are
other ways also like, media coverage, campaigning, through internet etc. By offering different
services will also attract the customers to come to their hotel for their meeting and work.
Implementing any new product or service in the hotel system doing good research is very
important. It will make sure that it will provide them a great advantages of that service.
Marketing research can be done by many ways, for example, they can directly interact with the
people to understand their needs and preferences from the hospitality industry what are the
changes they can adapt to improve their service in the target market.
4.3 Analysing the suitability of different media for marketing:
To attract business executive by providing luxury suits to them with some discounts and
offers will help Marriott Hotels a lot. There are different media which are available for
promotional events. Such as,

 Print media: This is the mostly used media for promotional activities. It can be done by
providing business cards, brochure and postcards, through hoarding advertisement, etc.
 Through Website: This is the most prominent tool used to advertise or promote
something. It is very convenient for the customer to gather information related to their
interest.
 Through Social Media: This is the most common method which is being used now-a-days
as public is more favorable toward social media. It is an easy platform to promote
anything.
 Through Events and promotional campaigning: This is done by organizing different
events and public gathering to aware customers about their product and services (Lee,
C.G. and How, S.M., 2018).
4.4 Implementation of the marketing plan for an appropriate product or service:
Suppose we choose social media for the promotional event of the luxury suites of
Marriott Hotels. The management team will make sure that the team has uploaded the
advertisement on the social media handles of Marriott Hotel such as Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram, etc. This will help the company to increase their customers as most of the generation
is using social media some or the other ways. These type or promotions looks so fancy which
generates curiosity in the customer's mind to find out that advertisement.
By doing promotion through social media it becomes easy for the Marriott Hotel to
interact with their customers directly with the help of internet. In which they solve their queries
related to their hotel and can help them to understand their services better. They can provide
services according to that. For example, if the Check-In time of Marriott Hotels is 10 AM but the
customer is arriving early, so they can provide them rooms early also as per customers
requirements. This will make their marketing process more effective and efficient in terms of
delivering their services to their client.
CONCLUSION
From above report, it can be concluded that marketing in hospitality is a crucial step for
the promotional events in a company. Marketing is a key tool in hospitality and other services. It
can be summarized through report that marketing strategies should be effective and must contain
plans to fulfill needs of the customers. Marriott hotels have a good marketing strategies which
makes them to stay in top position in UK and in other countries as well. It is also discussed in the

report how Marriott can improve their marketing strategies by implementing some new and
innovative methods and processes into their management system. It can also be concluded that
having a proper marketing plan is a key tool in any business to become successful. So, marketing
process and strategies of Marriott Hotel can be improved more to stay in the market in top
position.

REFERENCES
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Bowie, D., Buttle, F., Brookes, M. and Mariussen, A., 2016. Hospitality marketing. Taylor &
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Gilbert, D.C., 2015. Changes and Development in UK Tourism Marketing. In Proceedings of the
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