Service and Experience Marketing for Marriott Hotels & Resort

This report discusses the services provided by Marriott Hotels & Resort, their target market, and the use of social media as a marketing tool. It also suggests new promotional strategies such as mail order marketing and customer incentive referrals program. The report highlights the advantages and disadvantages of social media for Marriott Hotels & Resort and explains the STP model used by the company. The report is relevant to the subject of Service and Experience Marketing and is applicable to the course code and college/university if mentioned.

Service and Experience
Marketing

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY ..................................................................................................................................1
The services which the company provide including the service elements .................................1
Explanation of one marketing tools to promote the services and company and evaluation of the
promotional tool effectiveness.....................................................................................................3
An idea for the new promotional strategy for campaign and the elements of marketing
communication mix ....................................................................................................................5
RECOMMENDATION ..............................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
The hospitality services refers to the food and drink service, theme park, event planning,
lodging, tourism and travels. It involves restaurants, bars, hotels and tourism agencies which
provides these services to the people in order to earn maximum profit and market share.
Marketing refers to the set of activities and processes for making, institutions, delivering,
communicating as well as exchanging services which have value for consumers, partners, clients
as well society at large (Cai, Lu and Gursoy, 2018). The main aim of marketing is to create
revenue or value for company and brand. To explain this concept the selected company is
Marriott Hotels & Resort which was established in 1957 to provide food, beverages and
accommodation services to the people internally.
This report highlights the services which the company provide including the service
elements and their target market using segmentation principles. Further, it explains at least one
way in which they promote and evaluate whether the promotion tool works well to reach the
target market. At last, it covers an idea for a new promotional strategy or campaign.
MAIN BODY
The services which the company provide including the service elements
The Marriott Hotels & Resort provides food, beverages and accommodation services to
the people in UK in order to earn maximum profit, market share and customer base. Food and
beverages services includes cart service, plate service, plater service, family style service and
buffet service as per the demand of customer. Accommodation services is termed as a company
provide a secure or safe place to the people for stay to earn money in return(Cham, Lim and
Sigala, 2022). The Marriott Hotels & Resort provides both services to the domestic people and
many tourist across the world. The service elements of the Marriott Hotels & Resort includes
cafe, coffee shop, lounge, restaurant, bar, poolside barbecue, room service, banquet service and
many more to satisfied the needs and experience of tourist which come from different countries
to explore the UK.
Target market of the Marriott Hotels & Resort includes youth, target customers,
demographical area as well as those people who are seeking opulent and quiet environment
during their accommodation. The manager of Marriott Hotels & Resort use STP model to set
their target related to area, customers, services as well as technology used for marketing. STP
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refers to the segmentation, targeting and positioning to attract large number of customers. The
manager conduct segmentation process which helps them to determine the group of target
audience to analyse and identify their preferences or needs for the guidance to provide services
to them to complete the target (Chang, 2018). Once the manager decided the target group and
their needs they make strategy for targeting process. This process includes development of
particular services which provides value and good experience to the targeted customers like fax
machines and in room safes for business travellers. At last the manager conduct positioning
process to create reliable, competitive and simply recognisable image of the organisation so the
customers build loyalty to the hospitality industry. The manager of Marriott Hotels & Resort use
this segmentation as well positioning to satisfied the needs of customers and tourist by providing
best food and room services in order to get loyal customer base and market share.
As per the Herman the STP model is most suitable model for the hospitality services in
order to determine the target market (Herman, 2019). The segmentation and positioning helps the
managers to get enough amount of data and information about the customers, trends, market
place and condition for the analysis. For the hospitality industry the role of customer is dynamic
as well as the techniques are rapidly changing. The segmentation helps the manager to adopt and
mitigate the alterations in the market place and assist them to use the possibilities of the
heterogeneous market toward the growth of business. Thus, by applying STP in hotel
organisation the manager gets competitive benefits in order to achieve growth for the
company(Domazet and Neogradi, 2019).
The segmentation includes multiple dimensions such as demographic, geographic,
behaviouristic and psycho graphic to determine and divide them as per their status, value, needs
and many more. The use of segmentation principles in the reference of Marriott Hotels & Resort
are as follows-
Geographic- By using this segmentation, the manager of Marriott Hotels & Resort
divides the clients into various groups as per states, nations, districts by paying more attention to
attractions, cultural particularities and local entertainment(Gentsch, 2018).
Demographic- By using this segmentation the manager of Marriott Hotels & Resort
divides the clients according to their income rate, age , gender family life cycle and ethnicity in
order to provide the quality services to satisfied their needs.
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Psycho graphic- By using this segmentation the manager of Marriott Hotels & Resort
divides the clients on the basis of their requirements, character, life style as well as their social
class needs and provides them services to fulfil their needs.
Behaviouristic- By using this principle the manager of Marriott Hotels & Resort to
differentiate the clients on the basis of their purchasing behaviour, attitude and pattern on the
regular basis to provide valuable services to fulfil their needs and improve their experiences
(Hsieh, 2018).
Explanation of one marketing tools to promote the services and company and evaluation of the
promotional tool effectiveness
Social media
The most common and effective marketing tool for the hospitality industry is social
media which helps the company to reach the large number of customers across the world. It is
most effective promotional tools which allows the marketers to promote their product and
services at large scale with less cost and time from one place. By using various plat form of
social media the marketers can give information and spread awareness about their product and
services to the large number of target audience in order to attract them to their business. By
posting innovative and attractive video, poster and photo about their product and services on the
profile of the social media site they can attract large number of customers for the profit and
brand value (Islam, 2018). The marketers of Marriott Hotels & Resort can use social media to
promote their hospitality services across the world to spread awareness about their services
among the tourist and people of their country.
The social media consist multiple platform such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter,
LinkedIn and many more which the marketers of Marriott Hotels & Resort can use as marketing
tool to promote their food, beverages and accommodation services globally so the loyal
customers get time to time updates about the changes and new innovation about the hotel
(Leppiman, Arkonsuo, and Kukk, 2018). These information creates awareness and curiosity
among clients which they experience while visiting the hotel.
The use of social in Marriott Hotels & Resort to promote their services are as follows-
 The marketers can use Instagram platform by creating attractive content for reels, video,
GIF and post to posting these on the profile and account of company to share the
necessary information to the clients about the services and addition innovations.
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 By collaborating with agencies, influencers, bloggers and celebrates who has huge fan
base, the marketers of Marriott Hotels & Resort can use these people to spread awareness
about their services among their fans and followers across the world to increase the
popularity and brand value (Liu and Hung, 2022).
 By using marketing features of Facebook the marketers of Marriott Hotels & Resort can
give advertisement an convey their message regarding their unique services on the
profile or page of company so the clients get more information about organisation and
engage more with the activities of hotel.
 By developing website on LinkedIn the marketers can drive the attention of loyal
customers and new target segment towards the services of Marriott Hotels & Resort in
order to increase the revenue and market share to compete in the dynamic market
effectively. By using social media platform of digital marketing the manager and marketers can earn
the competitive advantage easily as compare to another big competitors. As well as they
also enable to attract more number of target customers by providing unique and better
quality services to them to satisfied their needs and expectations (Micheaux and Bosio,
2019).
The advantage and disadvantage of social media for the target market of Marriott Hotels &
Resort are as follows-
Advantages are-
The target market of Marriott Hotels & Resort is tourist from different countries, business
travellers, celebrities and youth who like to explore and ready to pay for unique or high quality
food, beverages and accommodation services. To attract these types of customers the marketers
can use social media platform to spread awareness about the facilities and services they provide
for their entertainment, stay and convenience.
 The social media marketing tool helps the marketers to spread and convey their massage
easily to the clients and customers at large scale. By this they can connect with customers
by replying the response and feedback of customers regarding their experience and
issues.
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 It is also very cost and time effective which enables the marketers of Marriott Hotels &
Resort to promote their services at large scale with less capital and time (Park and Ahn,
2021). It helps them to get information and data about the customer trends, expectations, taste
and preferences regarding room services, food and beverages. They can also get to
know about the issues and complains of customers related to their current services to
make changes, update and improvement in order to reduce issues and complain
(Pencarelli and Forlani, 2018).
Disadvantage of social media platform for the Marriott Hotels & Resort
With lots of advantage there are also some disadvantage of social media marketing platform for
Marriott Hotels & Resort such as sometimes it enhances the expectation among the customers
about the services and innovation.
 In social media most of the youth and half of the population are engaged on daily basis so
they want daily update on the profile of the business which create trouble for the
marketers and influences to create new content for the entertainment of people.
 It is the most common medium to spread the news easily, so many competitors and
rivalries spread fake news about the Marriott Hotels & Resort and their activities which
hinder the image and revenue of the company (Polegato.and Bjerke, 2019).
 On social media the people share their social life which are challenging for manager of
Marriott Hotels & Resort to update their services and innovation on regular basis to
provide different and unique service all time to engage the loyal customer for life time.
The Jones states that the social media is most valuable tool for marketing as well as to
promote the product and services easily to the large number of customers globally (Jones, 2018).
The marketers can use various platforms of social media to share information about their product
and services. It helps the company to make strong relations with customers to providing them
accurate information as well as listening and considering their feedbacks or suggestion to
enhance their trust and experience. By making effective plan for providing content on digital
platform the marketers can earn competitive advantages such as they can drive the huge traffic
toward their organisation as well as engage more customers with the activities or services of
hotel.
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An idea for the new promotional strategy for campaign and the elements of marketing
communication mix
The marketers can use mail order marketing and customer incentive referrals program to
promote their food, beverage and accommodation services to reach the maximum number of
customer. By using this they can attract huge customer base by providing all the necessary
details to the clients for their convenience and facilities.
Mail order marketing- It refers to the direct mail marketing in which marketers can
offer their product and services by mass mailing and by giving advertisement on magazine and
newspaper as well as allow clients to place and book order through mail. The marketers of
Marriott Hotels & Resort can develop a website on various travelling apps and allow their clients
to book or place order through mail with the use of internet form any country or place. They can
also develop their own personal app to provide online booking facility to the business travellers,
tourist to save their time and better quality services for their stay and food. The clients also give
review and feedback on the site which the marketers considers as feedback and information to
improve their facilities and services to gain the trust of clients for time. By providing these
facilities to the customers they create sense of feeling among customers to be valued as well as
they suggest the name of hotel to their relatives for the experience which indirectly increase the
popularity of business. By replying and interacting with customers through website and email
they can make them more engage towards the organisation as well as gain them as competitive
advantage to increase the brand value (Roy, 2018) .
Customer initiative referrals programme- It is mostly used by famous and big
organisation which have huge customer base and operate their business at large scale. The
marketers can use this promotional strategies because the Marriott Hotels & Resort operate at
large scale globally from many years. So they can take it as advantage to tell their customers,
staff, partners and many known companies to promote their hotels globally in order to increase
huge customer base and revenue for future expansion. The regular customers share their
experience to their relatives and people of their country which leads to indirectly promotion of
the hotel and helps in increasing their brand value and awareness among new customers group.
By giving them best facility and increasing their experience they can build trust among them
which helps them to promote their services to the large number of target audience.
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This new promotional tool and strategy is perfect for Marriott Hotels & Resort to
promote their services also it is beneficial for their regular and exiting customers such as by
using online booking facility they can book easily the rooms, bar, halls and pool for their
personal occasion at less time without visiting physically. Also, they can suggest it to other
people also to use and experience this services of Marriott Hotels & Resort for their specific
purpose in order to get best experience.
The marketing communication mix refers to the combination of various marketing
strategy such as personal selling, advertising, public relation, publicity and many more to achieve
their marketing goal. The marketer of Marriott Hotels & Resort can use these strategy by
updating their social media content, by developing their personal sight as well as by offering
various offers to the public and exiting clients for the effective promotion of their hospitality
services. By using direct mail they can connect with their current customers to improve their
experience every time they visited the hotel and services. So they share their experience with
other people for their own personal benefits and to increase the revenue of the business. The
company give offers such as 15% discount to their current clients for the recommendation to the
other people and give rebate coupon to them to visits again (Solimun and Fernandes, 2018).
To achieve the goal of this strategy the marketers of Marriott Hotels & Resort can make
effective strategy and hire specialist to develop effective app and website with attractive or
accurate content in order to achieve the target as increase new customer base in many countries
as well as expand the business in other countries. By using the marketing communication mix
effectively the marketers can promote their hotel in new countries to attract the people of these
countries and develop big brand value among the people to get popularity and maximum profit.
RECOMMENDATION
The marketers can use various tools of digital and traditional marketing to promote their
service in all type of group such as for youth they can provide information on website and social
media and for the older age group they give advertisement on newspaper, television and between
various shows to spread awareness among them. The marketers of Marriott Hotels & Resort can
use public relation, mail order marketing and many marketing mix strategy to promote their
services at large scale globally. By providing innovative services like online booking, feedback
conner and personal safe in rooms to increase the experience of their clients in order to earn
competitive advantage to achieve the long term goal of business.
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CONCLUSION
As per above presented information, it is concluded that hospitality services is most
popular business idea which required huge marketing and promotional activities to attract large
number of customers. The marketers can use STP model to set their target market and to satisfied
the needs of customer in order to gain huge profit. By using social media platform of digital they
spread awareness about their service and engage more people towards their organisation. By
adding mail order marketing in the promotional plan they can conduct their marketing acrtivites
more effectively.
REFERENCES
Books and journal
Cai, Lu, L. and Gursoy, D., 2018. Effect of disruptive customer behaviors on others' overall
service experience: An appraisal theory perspective. Tourism Management. 69. pp.330-
344.
Cham, T.H., Lim, Y.M. and Sigala, M., 2022. Marketing and social influences, hospital
branding, and medical tourists' behavioural intention: Before‐and after‐service
consumption perspective. International Journal of Tourism Research. 24(1). pp.140-157.
Chang, S., 2018. Experience economy in hospitality and tourism: Gain and loss values for
service and experience. Tourism Management. 64. pp.55-63.
Domazet, I.S. and Neogradi, S., 2019. Digital Marketing and Service Industry: Digital Marketing
in the Banking Industry. In Managing Diversity, Innovation, and Infrastructure in
Digital Business (pp. 20-40). IGI Global.
Gentsch, P., 2018. AI in marketing, sales and service: How marketers without a data science
degree can use AI, big data and bots. Springer.
Hsieh, C.M., 2018. A multilevel analysis of the service marketing triangle in theme
parks. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing. 35(2). pp.130-147.
Islam, S., 2018. Understanding health consumer value: service marketing perspective. South
Asian Journal of Business Studies.
Leppiman, A., Riivits-Arkonsuo, I. and Kukk, J., 2018. Experience marketing from a teaching
and learning perspective. Journal of Marketing Trends (1961-7798), 5(2).
Liu, C. and Hung, K., 2022. Improved or decreased? Customer experience with self-service
technology versus human service in hotels in China. Journal of Hospitality Marketing &
Management. 31(2). pp.176-204.
Micheaux, A. and Bosio, B., 2019. Customer journey mapping as a new way to teach data-driven
marketing as a service. Journal of Marketing Education. 41(2). pp.127-140.
Park, J. and Ahn, J., 2021. Editorial introduction: Luxury services focusing on marketing and
management. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services. 58. p.102257.
Pencarelli, T. and Forlani, F., 2018. Marketing in an Experiential Perspective: From “Goods and
Service Logic” to “Experience Logic”. In The Experience Logic as a New Perspective for
Marketing Management (pp. 43-67). Springer, Cham.
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Polegato, R. and Bjerke, R., 2019. Looking forward: anticipation enhances service
experiences. Journal of Services Marketing.
Roy, S., 2018. Effects of customer experience across service types, customer types and
time. Journal of Services Marketing.
Solimun, S. and Fernandes, A.A.R., 2018. The mediation effect of customer satisfaction in the
relationship between service quality, service orientation, and marketing mix strategy to
customer loyalty. Journal of Management Development.
Online
Herman. C. 2019. Main Activities of Target Marketing [Online]. Available through:
<https://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/3-main-activities-target-marketing-12505.html>
Online
Jones. J. 2018. The Value of Social Media in the Hospitality Industry [Online]. Available
through: <https://www.hospitalitynet.org/opinion/4086981.html>
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