Strategic Marketing: International Tourism and Hospitality Management

This report focuses on how strategic marketing can enhance the performance of Madame Tussaud, a well-known tourist attraction in London, and attract more visitors. It explores segmentation, experiential marketing, and communication plan. The report highlights that Madame Tussaud targets different segments of customers based on geographic, demographic, and psychographic segmentation. It also emphasizes the importance of experiential marketing and communication plan to increase brand awareness and gain a competitive edge.

Strategic Marketing:
International Tourism and
Hospitality Management
1

Executive Summary
The present study focuses on the concept of strategic marketing which shows how
marketing of services in tourism sector enhances the performance of firm and in turn its positive
impact on profitability of the company. For conducting study, organization chosen is Madamee
Tussaud which is well known in the market of London for wax modeling of famous
personalities. With the increase in demand for tourism in country like London the firm is
focusing on marketing so as to provide remarkable experience to the visitors who are arriving
from other country. Through effective marketing, the firm can give effective services to the
customers which can be above their expectation level. Madame Tussaud is considered as one of
the most famous destination place in London where company focuses on different segments with
the motive to provide them with unique experience. Segmentation criteria of enterprise focus on
geographic, demographic along with psychographic segmentation. Further, company is having
different branches in different areas. Company also considers demographic segmentation where
people of every age group prefer to visit museum and it acts as a good source of entertainment.
Psychographic as segmentation criteria is also undertaken by the firm where customers are
segmented on the basis of their lifestyle.
On the other hand, different types of theories are linked with experiential marketing such
as Acho, Pine and Gilmore and Schmitt. Pine and Gilmore focuses on framework with the help
of which various practical relevance linked with tourism is measured. This framework also
highlights that visitors are inclined to pay premium price for the memorable experience provided
to them. Further, Madame Tussuad museum emphasizes on providing education along with
information to the individuals. Another author named Schmitt has highlighted five component of
experience which takes into consideration sense, feel, think, and act. All these components vary
from each other in the form of their attributes. Apart from this, communication plan develop will
support in enhancing awareness regarding services in the market. Main aim of the
communication plan is to target customers so that company can gain competitive advantage.
Promotion with the help of social media is considered to be quite appropriate as through this
target market can easily gain information regarding the service range. Main sources of social
media are Facebook, Youtube, twitter, trip advisor etc.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
SEGMENTATION CONCEPTS.....................................................................................................4
EXPERIENTIAL MARKETING CONCEPTS...............................................................................5
COMMUNICATION PLAN...........................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................12
Recommendations..........................................................................................................................13
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................15
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INTRODUCTION
In order to meet the changing expectations and to provide memorable experience to the
affluent consumers it is essential for hospitality and tourism organization to focus on
repositioning their services (Nandakumar, Ghobadian and O'Regan, 2011). Therefore, strategic
marketing support the tourism and hospitality organization to improve their services by creating
an effective plan that will reach and satisfy customers which will result in exploding the
profitability and productivity. Preset report focuses on tourism organization that is Madame
Tussaud which is one of the major tourist attractions in the London that displays wax modelling
of famous personalities.
Therefore, with the increasing tourism and hospitality sector in UK experiential
marketing of the chosen organization will directly help customer to experience the brand that
will contribute in the economy. The main objective of experiential marketing is to form
memorable connection with customers or visitors and the brand so that it may result in enhancing
loyalty among customers and will also help in influencing the decisions of visitors. Thus,
marketing manager of the organization must focus on improving target market experience by
providing them with different services that support them in gaining competitive advantage.
Furthermore, the report will also focus on segmentation concepts so that they can easily target
them. The report also focuses on enabling the proper communication plan that will be used by
the marketing manager of Madame Tussaud that help the organization in reaching and attaining
goals and aims of the organization .
SEGMENTATION CONCEPTS
Madame Tussaud museum is one of the major leading destinations in the London which
attracts all types of people (Parvinen, Tikkanen and Aspara, 2007). The main vision of the
organization is to provide branded and family entertainment to all the customers. Thus,
marketing manager of Madame Tussaud will focus on different segment customers as they
provide unique experience to their customers. The organization is considered as a significant
tourist spot that target large number of customers all over the world which assist them in
generating huge revenue. The segmentation criteria of Madame Tussaud generally focus on
demographic, geographical as well as psychographic segmentation (Trim and Lee, 2008).
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Under geographical segmentation, the chosen organization will focuses on diferent
geographical region and locations across the world for marketing their services so that they can
provide different entertainment and leisure services to all the customers residing in the different
country (Trim, 2004). However, geographical segmentation by the organization also results in
expanding their reach in the different countries and region which overall enhances their brand
image. In addition to this, Madame Tussaud museum also emphasizes on demographic
segmentation as it has been found that museum is preferred by all age group individual but they
are liked by the children and youngsters because of their entertainment services. Other
segmentation criteria include psychographic segmentation under which marketing manager
segments the people on the basis of their lifestyle that is fun loving as well as who are fond of
sports or entertainment personnel.also fre (Doole and Lowe, 2008).
Therefore after segmenting, the market marketing manager focuses on evaluating
different segments and selects appropriate segment which they will target so that they can
improve their experience by providing different services. Thus, Madame Tussaud target market
will focus on children as well as individual between the age group of 16 to 30 as this age group
people mainly depict the sociable fun loving people. To attract the target audiences of Madame
Tussaud marketing manager can focus on different targeting strategies like concentrated,
differentiated and undifferentiated targeting strategies (Ulph, 2011). In the past, environment
organization may use traditional platform by the organization for communicating activities and
services which are rendered by the organization in the contemporary business environment. The
selected target market is suitable for the Madame Tussaud as the children and people of the age
group 16-30 prefer to have adventurous trip and are also keen interested in visiting such places
which provide leisure and entertainment services that satisfy their needs. However, Madame
Tussaud features wax sculpture of different personalities that mainly attract youngsters and
people who love entertainment services.
EXPERIENTIAL MARKETING CONCEPTS
In the contemporary scenario, there it is important to build interests among the customers
and enhance the experience so that they may have pleasant and leisure stays in the country.
Experiential marketing is the modern way of marketing which focuses on the procedure of
engaging and attracting the customers by providing in-depth experience of the services that are
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provided by the brand (Ashill and Frederikson 2003). Madame Tussaud is one of the renowned
and leading tourist destination of London that mainly provide different form of entertainment
services to the individual and their visitors like wax sculpture of different famous personalities.
Therefore, to enhance the reach and increase brand awareness in the market, marketing manager
must focus on experiential marketing concepts as it is considered as the modern form of
marketing which generally focuses on interactive promotional plan that result in creating or
initiating the visitors to visits the place. This replaces the traditional marketing strategies of
Madame Tussaud that mainly focuses on price of services which acts as a source of long term
differentiation (Bernick and Boo, 2013).
There are different theories associated with the experiential marketing that are Acho, Pine
and Gilmore and Schmitt. Pine and Gilmore, mainly focuses on the framework for measuring
different practical relevance related with the tourism as experience is considered as key products
which highly impact the tourism industry as well as Madame Tussaud. The author has also has
also stated that unforgettable experience motivates and influence customers and travellers to
visit the place. Pine and Gilmore framework also states that visitors are inclined to pay premium
price for the memorable experience (Holm, 2006). Therefore, the experiential marketing is
effective concept in marketing that mainly focuses on classifying experience into four realms
that is education, esthetics, escapism and entertainment. Madame Tussaud museum mainly
emphasizes on providing education to the individual. It also focuses on enabling philosophy that
is to become the leading tourism organization that is located in providing the entertainment
services to customers and tourists. However, escapism experience relates with advanced
participation where traveller actually has consequence on their performance. However, the
experience area direct upon entertainment that tourist grip the experience and actions such as
visiting the museum (Mehmetoglu and Normann, 2013).
However, author Schmitt has mainly planned five component of the experience that
supports the Madame Tussaud in encouraging their brand awareness among the customers that
emotionally appeal to the tourist and customers and influences their decisions. The five
component of experience mainly include sense, feel, think, and act as well as relate. The sense
component results in creating experience through visualizing, tasting, smelling etc. it may be
used by the marketing manager of Madame Tussaud to motivate their visitors and customers to
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consume their services. Another component is feel that primarily appeal to the inward belief or
values of the customers while perceiving the services (Ward and Lewandowska, 2008). In
addition to this, another component is think focuses on catching the target customers so that they
can pursue their visitors in the effective manner. Act marketing focuses on enriching the lives of
tourist of Madame Tussaud by providing them experience to visit the museum. On the other
hand, last component of experience include associate under which individual or customer may
relate their feelings and emotions to other person through social systems (Briggs, 2001).
COMMUNICATION PLAN
Communication plan simply focuses on procedure that may be used by the marketing
manager of Madame Tussaud that helps the organization in reaching and attaining goals and
aims of the objectives (Schmitt, 1999). Main aim of the communication plan is to target
customers so that company can gain competitive advantage. Promotion with the help of social
media is considered to be quite appropriate as through this target market can easily gain
information regarding the service range.
Aim of the communication - The main aim of organization is to become the leading tourist
destination that provides entertainment service to their customers and tourist.
Communication Objectives-
1. However, the objective of enabling the communication plan helps in increasing the
brand awareness in different region as well as to strengthen the position in the field of
entertainment.
2. Another objective of communication plan is to easily target their audiences which assist
in gaining competitive edge.
Audience Communication
objectives
Message Channel Time period
Youngsters and
children
To increase the
awareness of
brand among the
customers.
Museum focus on
displaying the
wax sculpture of
famous
personalities and
Online medium
social media sites
6 months
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stars (Gilmore
and Pine, 2002).
Madame Tussauds museum is one of renowned organization of the London that
facilitates in designing thousands of wax statues of famous celebrities and personalities that
reflects the art and entertainment services to the customers. It is one of the globally acclaimed
wax museum that displays attractive and quality waxwork of the honourable guests (Aho, 2001).
Therefore, marketing manager of museum must focus on improving experience of target market
by providing them with different experience to customers and tourist that support in generating
sales volume. Madame Tussauds focuses on targeting the children and young people from the
age group of 16 to 30 (Kim and et.al., 2011). Therefore, marketing manager must adopt different
effective method of communicating various features of Madame Tussauds museum and the
entertainment and leisure services which they provide to their customers and tourist.
In the past, organization used traditional platform b for communicating the activities and
services that are rendered by the organization in the contemporary business environment
(Kaynak and Kucukemiroglu, 2015). However, for becoming successful in the competitive
marketplace marketing manager of Madame Tussauds must focus on effective advertisement and
promotion channels through which they can easily communicate their message to the target
audiences. Word of Mouth is advised as an impressive form of communication tool through
which message or information may be communicated in the proper manner from individual to
individual. It is required for marketing management of the company to promote by PPC and
celebrity endorsement. So, this can surely bring favourable resources for the target market and
can act as development tool for the business in every possible manner. Through this, more
visitors can be attracted in short period of time which is also effective in enhancing overall
performance of the firm in market. Despite of this, for attaining communication objectives
marketing manager of Madame Tussauds will target their audiences by enabling the features and
service of the museum that they are providing to their visitors . With the help of different sources
or application of social media they can easily communicate their services to target audiences.
The different sources of social media include
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Key sources of Social
media
Attributes
Facebook  It is commonly and frequently used social media sites by the
youngsters as it provide latest and updated information
regarding the place.
 This social media application mainly enables the two-way
communication.
 However, this form of social media sites is not suitable for the
lengthy or long posts (Gilbert, 2015).
 Organization or marketing manager of Madame Tussauds on a
regular basis may update their message and services which they
are offering.
YouTube  It is regarded as one of the impressive form of diffusing the
information regarding the museum (Lacey, 2015).
 Through the visual communication, Madam Tussauds may
supply high level video for their customers and visitors that
enhances their visibility. t
Blogs  Appropriate source for transferring lengthy posts and
nonfiction over the internet.
 However, the rate of change the contented or message respect
with the organization is quite lower berth than other social
media platforms (Edgington, 2014).
TripAdvisor This application mainly focuses on posting reviews of hotels and their
experience gained by the customers.
 This is quite effective as through this customers or guest can
select the hotel which provide quality and leisure services.
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 Facebook- One of the major form of social media that is commonly used in the
contemporary scenario includes accessing Facebook for communicating the message.
Madame Tussauds mainly targets children and young people that often use Facebook
sites for gaining information. Therefore, marketing manager of Madame Tussauds focus
on designing and creating their official Facebook page for communicating information
regarding their services and offers which they provide to their target audiences (Richards,
2014). Thus, if customers or tourists like the information that has been shared by the
Madame Tussauds then they would promote the information further by sharing or liking
the post that has been posted on their official Facebook page. In the present scenario, it is
considered as an effective medium for communicating the information to target audiences
that are children and youngsters. However, it has been measured that with the help of
Facebook marketing manager can directly communicate the information to the ultimate
customers by consuming minimum time period (Strategic Planning, 2014).
 YouTube- Another application or source of social media that is mainly used by marketing
manager of Madame Tussauds for communicating their services and offering to their
target audience include YouTube video (Nandakumar, Ghobadian and O'Regan, 2011).
With the help of YouTube platform, marketing manager of Madame Tussauds mainly
focuses on creating and designing effective video with images and different features and
services that are provided by the museums to attract target audiences. In the
contemporary scenario, it has been proven that effect of social media is beneficial for the
organization as it helps in increasing the awareness in the market. However, marketing
manager may also design an appropriate video with enabling and highlighting the distinct
features and services that museum provide to their customers. Therefore, promoting the
high quality video is effective method or application of social media that is quite effective
for the organization in enhancing their brand image and awareness in the overall
marketplace (Parvinen, Tikkanen and Aspara, 2007). Trip Advisor- Another impressive
social media network focuses on corporate blogs such as TripAdvisor. It is considered as
the new medium of communicating online. The blog is mainly used as the public user
interface to the organization as customer post their negative and positive reviews on the
application that is visible to all target audiences (Trim and Lee, 2008). Corporate blog is
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considered as an effective medium that provide an effective medium or channel for the
target audiences so that organization may know about the responses of the customers or
tourist who have visited the museum. Thus, this application of social media networking
support the Madame Tussauds in reviewing positive and negative comment thus, they
will overcome negative responses by improving their services and ambiance so that they
can easily satisfy their customers.
In addition to this, there are also some other form of communication that marketing
manager of Madame Tussauds can use for increasing the awareness and brand image which
includes-1. Promotion through PPC- Another cost effective method of communication plan include
promotion marketing through pay per click advertisement (Doole and Lowe, 2008).
Under this form of advertisement, marketing manager can properly use the internet
platform for targeting the large customers with the help of providing advertisement on the
pages that are displayed on the web page. The benefit of opting PPC advertisement is that
organisation may gain certain amount by the advertiser on per click by the visitors or
customers on their page (Ulph, 2011).
2. Celebrity endorsement- Another effective method for communication regarding the
services of Madame Tussauds focuses on enabling the celebrity endorsement. It is an
effective tool under which marketing manager focuses on remunerating the celebrity for
endorsing the Madame Tussauds museum. For instance; celebrity endorsement results in
increasing the brand awareness as with this form of communication the celebrity image
get stick with the organisation to whom they are promoting (Ashill and Frederikson
2003).
Despite of this, social media networking sites and application is also useful at each and
every stage of the Madame Tussauds life-cycle. Social media networking and application is
useful in pre-consumption of the services, during the consumption and post consumption. For
example,1. Pre-consumption stage: The customers or visitors who are interested in visiting the
museum that is Madame Tussauds will search regarding the museum on the internet
platform and Facebook page to gather necessary information regarding their services
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(Bernick and Boo, 2013). Social media networking will benefit the customers and tourist
to gain adequate knowledge regarding the destination that influences their decisions.2. During the services: However, social media networking is also essential at this phase as
customer consume the services at this stage. For instance, during the services they may
update or check-in the post on social media sites that is visible to large masses audiences.
Thus, it will result in increasing awareness of the chosen organization in the marketplace.
Therefore, during purchasing or consuming the services and offering of the museum
customers prefer different social media channel and networking platform that assist them
in purchasing (Holm, 2006).
3. Post consumption suggestions: The last stage include providing post consumption
suggestions so that marketing manager can assess those effectively to render proper
services according to their requirement. It is termed as remarking stage under which
customer or tourist provides feedback or response regarding the services. Therefore,
providing feedback will assist the marketing manager in acknowledging grievance and
problems that are mentioned by the customers. Thus, social media channels and sites are
applicable in each and every stage (Mehmetoglu and Normann, 2013).
Therefore, it can be stated that in order to gain the client engagement, raising the
satisfaction level of the customers, improving the specific target market's experience it is
essential that marketing manager of Madame Tussauds focuses on using the channels of social
media. Thus, by focusing on effective social media networking tool marketing manager may
enhance awareness of brand among customers as well as it also promote the services that
enhances overall net profit of the organization. With the development or processing of social
media system it outcome in developing the various online level such as Facebook, Twitter,
YouTube, Corporate blog etc. as it result in providingan opportunity and possibility for the
customers to access the required information regarding the organization (Ward and
Lewandowska, 2008).
CONCLUSION
Conclusively it can be stated that in the contemporary scenario utilizing and processing
the social media tool is beneficial for Madame Tussauds as it supports the organization in
communicating their plan to the customers so that they can attain the aims and objectives.
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Furthermore, recommendation has also been provided regarding social media in increasing their
popularity that is management can also create blogs for the museums which will help in creating
more popularity about the Madam Tussaud museum and likewise, footfalls of visitors will get
increase. In addition to this, organization strongly relies with the concept of experiential
marketing where company provides remarkable experience to its target market through its
services. Apart from this, to enhance brand awareness in the market it is required to focus on
marketing tools along with effective promotional techniques. In addition to this, another
recommendation for enabling the social media application for increasing or gaining the
popularity include that marketing manager must focus in designing Madame Tussauds page
should be created in a different manner for all the countries. This would enhance a
personalization and visitors will be attracted towards these museums.
RECOMMENDATIONS
. This museum is highly visited by the people across the world. The authority of
museums has expanded this in various countries (Briggs, 2001). This museum is considered from
a cultural aspects and cultural tourism have played a major role in promoting this museum. The
cultural tourism lay emphasizes on visiting this museum. Moreover, these days’ people usually
travel to view the culture of the London city. Further, this museum has helped in increasing the
tourism for UK and ultimately has lead to development of economy of UK. From the analysis it
can be found that till date this museum is not very popular around the globe and due to this
number of visitor in this sector is relatively low when compared to other cultural sites. Thus, the
popularity of this museum should be increased. However, the authorities are continuously
promoting this site through traditional promotional techniques. Thus, there are several
suggestions given to the museum authorities for increasing popularity of the Madam Tussaud
museum through Social media. Some of the recommendations are as follows:
 Museum management should create the page on the Facebook and than target the market
so that like request can be sent.
 Page should be created in a different manner for all the countries. This would enhance a
personalization and visitors will be attracted towards these museums.
 In addition to this, recommendations prizes should be allotted. For instance, a company
should set the offers and prizes on the page and than it should be stated that whosoever
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will rotate this page for the 20 likes will be given particular prize voucher or cash prizes,
etc. This would lead to the rotation of page to the maximum crowd and likewise
popularity of the museum can be created.
 On the other hand, management can also make video of the entire museum and post it on
the YouTube. This will create popularity about the museum because people will have a
clear aspect and vision about the museum which will influence them to visit. The
information about the video shall be published on the Facebook page so that people can
come to know about it.
 Further, the management can also publish the information about museum on the Trip
Advisor where people can give reviews about it. This will create popularity about the
museum Madam Tussaud. Also, the management can give more information about the
museum on Trip Advisor and exciting offers so that customers get more attracted towards
this museum.
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