Business Excellence and Marketing Report: UK Travel Companies

This report provides an in-depth analysis of business excellence within the UK travel industry, focusing on two prominent companies: Trailfinders and Turquoise Holidays. The report begins with an introduction to business excellence and its importance, followed by a comparative analysis of the strengths and areas for improvement of both companies, using the EFQM Business Excellence Model as a framework. The core of the report delves into a detailed examination of Trailfinders, evaluating its partnerships, resources, processes, products, and services. The analysis includes an assessment of how Trailfinders builds sustainable relationships with suppliers and partners, manages resources and buildings sustainably, and utilizes information and knowledge for effective decision-making. Furthermore, the report examines Trailfinders' key processes, innovative products and services, and customer relationship management. The conclusion summarizes the findings and emphasizes the importance of continuous improvement and customer satisfaction within the travel and tourism sector.

Business Excellence
and Marketing

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Strengths and areas of improvement of travelling companies....................................................1
Detailed analysis of EFQM model on the organisation..............................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Business excellence is determined as outstanding activities and practices that helps to
manage the enterprise and achieve the business objectives. This report is based upon the Quality
Scotland which is a charitable enterprise that helps in promoting business excellence all over the
Scotland in private, voluntary and public sectors. Bringing excellence and long term
sustainability is very important in an organisation for existing in a market for a long run. This
report covers the consideration of Trailfinders and Turquoise Holidays which are travelling
companies of UK and their areas of improvement and strengths are identified. Further, it includes
the way in which Trailfinders has developed their sustainable relationship with theirs suppliers
and partners and how it manage its equipment, resources, buildings, and resources in a
sustainable manner.
MAIN BODY
Strengths and areas of improvement of travelling companies
In context of EFQM Business Excellence Model, the two organisations which are
selected are Trailfinders and Turquoise Holidays of United Kingdom that deals with travel and
tourism sector and their strengths and areas in which they require improvement.
Overview of Trailfinders
It is a tour and travel company in United Kingdom and Ireland. It is one of the largest
travelling organisation of UK and it has around 31 travel centres in United Kingdom and three in
Ireland. This enterprise is specialised worldwide in tailor-made that includes Asia, Africa, North
& South America, New Zealand and Australia.
Overview of Turquoise Holiday
It is travel and tourism company that is based on United Kingdom that provides high
quality travelling experience to customers. It provides certain holiday packages such as family
holidays, Honeymoons, and other packages. It provides destination in Africa, Asia, Indian
Ocean, Middle East, Caribbean, Australasia, South Pacific, USA, and so on.
EFQM Business excellence model- It is considered as a non-prescriptive excellence approach
for the management of organisation that is developed by EFQM to help enterprises in becoming
more competitive. The five fundamental concepts of EFQM and its relevance upon both of these
organisations are elaborated as follows-
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EFQM Fundamental
concepts
Trailfinders Turquoise Holiday
Achieving balanced results This enterprise is not able to
achieve balanced results and
here it requires improvement.
It can offer online booking
service to make its process
more convenient.
It is the strength of this
travelling company as it is able
to achieve balance results by
indulging itself in online
booking and providing
services across the world
(Macpherson, 2015).
Creating Value for
Customers:
In this regard, it is able to
create value for its customers
by providing them variety
range of services such as
cruise lines, flights, fly drive,
beach, railways, wellness, and
so on and these services are
available at affordable prices.
Here, it requires improvement
as it charges slightly higher
price to its services. It can
improve it by providing certain
offers and deals to its
customers.
Leading with Vision,
Inspiration & Integrity
It has effective leaders that
supervise, guide and motivates
its employees in achieving
organisational goals.
It lacks in this regard and
requires improvement for the
same. In this regard, leaders
can lead its employees with
examples and involve them in
decision making procedure.
Managing by Processes It is not managed through
strategically and structured
processes which can be
improved by renovating the
organisational structure
(Moorman and Day, 2016).
It also lacks in managing its
processes in structured
manner.
Succeeding through People This enterprise is succeeding It also have effective
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through its people as it has
high quality and effective
digital marketing and customer
service team.
management team that helps in
taking vital decision regarding
using business processes.
Nurturing Creativity &
Innovation
It keeps on innovating and
adding new destination in its
travelling packages by using
various technologies such as
cruise lines, multi centre,
flights, and so on.
In this regard, it uses
technology but not to the
extent which is used by other
travelling companies.
Building Partnerships For a travelling company it is
important to build the
partnerships with other service
providers. They have strong
partnerships with the suppliers
of the food and materials etc.
but to maintain the relationship
they need to improve the
partnership by way of sharing
the risk, optimising core
competencies and many more.
As they offer tailor made
services it implies that they
have strong partnership so that
they easily rely upon other
partners who will facilitate to
offer customise holiday
package (Richard and et. al. ,
2015).
Taking Responsibility for a
Sustainable Future
It can be achieved by the
companies by accomplishing
the regulatory framework and
which can vary from country
to country. They comply with
all the regulatory requirements
due to which they enjoys the
ethical environment in their
organisation.
They provides customised
services which is why they
neglect the legal requirement
to maximise the customers
satisfaction so they need to
improve it.
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Detailed analysis of EFQM model on the organisation
The organisation which is taken for detailed analysis is Trailfinders for which various criterion
will be discussed that are related to the partnerships, resources, processes, products and services.
Overview of the company : Trailfinders was founded in 1970 by Mike Gooley, which work as a
travel consultant. They are operating worldwide with a staff of over 1000 and they have a client
base of over 16 million people. They have a large network worldwide which is why they offers a
wide range of flights, hotels, tours, cruises etc. The prices of the packages that they offers are
varies from lowest to highest so that they can target all the income group people. Trailfinders has
been providing their services to over 96% of the world countries. They have been operating
through their 37 centres which are open all the 7 days. The focus of the organisation is on the
quality of the services and complying with all the regulatory requirements (Trailfinders Ltd.,
2019).
Criterion 4 :
In this criterion the partnerships and resources of the organisation will be analysed which helps
them to build the relations with partners and suppliers. Also it helps to identify the use of
resources in sustainable way.
Sustainable relations with the partners and the suppliers :
Sustainability in the relations with the suppliers and the partners will help the
organisation to identify their contribution in their success and on the basis of which the relations
are developed and maintained. Trailfinders build sustainable relations :
 By investing in Suppliers relationship management process which will provide
assistance to the suppliers and the partners which will help to improve their
performances
 They keep all the suppliers and the partners on board which is why they have effective
communication among each other. This helps them to have all the information about the
prices prevailing in the markets and the competitors moves as their partners convey all
them all such informations.
 They uses efficient technology in their organisation and get them installed at their
partners and suppliers which help them coordinate with each other (Kumar and Shah,
2015).
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Building effective relations with the partners will increase the level of satisfaction of the
customers.
Management of building, equipments and resources in a sustainable way :
Yes, they manages their building, equipments and resources in a sustainable way. They
guides their partners regarding use of the resources such as reuse of waste waters from kitchen in
the kitchen garden which they can develop . In their office they tries to operate without papers by
adopting the technology. They also guides their employees staff and the partners to take low cost
actions which will also contribute to the society such as :
 installing energy effective light bulbs which are expensive but saves energy
 regulate heating and air conditioning will also save cost for them and reduce the radiation
from the AC's
 they even promote the use of public transport to the tourist with the help of their partners
so that they can reduce the pollution production
They utilise their building in providing various sessions to the partners and suppliers so that they
can effectively utilise the resources. Also they provides their shuttles to the partners so that they
can use them for transportation for the guest as shuttles have the capacity to carry more people at
one time.
Information and knowledge to support effective decision making:
Yes, information and knowledge are stored by the organisation as it further in decision making.
Trailfinders keep all the information about their employees, suppliers, partners and the customers
to whom they have offered the services. This helps them to determine various strategies on the
basis of the information. For e.g., they keep their data of employees in management information
system, this helps them to analyse the performance of the employees and to identify the right
candidate to train their partners for the opportunities. Similarly they also keep the data of the
suppliers on the basis of which they can decide which supplier offers them the best discounts and
quality that facilitate the selection of the suppliers. Also the record of the customers help the
Trailfinders to decide the appropriate packages for a particular customer on the basis of their
previous packages taken by them (Enquist, Johnson and Rönnbäck, 2015).
Criterion 5 :
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In this criterion the processes, products and services of the organisation bare considered which
helps them to deliver a quality services to the customers. It also helps them to manage and
maintain the relations with the customers.
Key processes required to deliver the strategy :
Yes, they have defined their key processes which helps them to deliver the best possible services
to their customer. The most important process in Trailfinder is of communication as in travel
and tourism industry everything depends upon that for e.g., to communicate to the partners
regarding when the customers will arrive and depart, the services they have opted for etc. as they
will make necessary arrangement accordingly (Charter, 2017).
New innovative product and services :
Yes, they keep on providing various innovative products and services in terms of
amazing destinations clubbed with various services. They make innovative packages by
combining various services which are augmented and the way they promote their services attract
the customers so very easily. Various innovative products that are provided by Trailfinders are
solo tours for the females, adventurous tours which attract a specific whom they target but this
makes them loyal to them as they provides amazing services along with innovative products.
Effective management of customer relationships :
Yes, they try to build the effective customer relationship by keep on updating them
with their new packages and even asking them the destinations which they want to visit. This
make their customers feels integrated with the organisation. They take feedback from the
customers for each and every services which was offered to them if customers are willing to
provide so and then on the basis of this they guides their partners to improve their services. Also
they even ask their customers to give their opinions regarding what else they can provide to the
customers in improve their level of satisfaction (Chaffey and Smith, 2017).
CONCLUSION
It is concluded from the above report that to maximise the level of satisfaction the travel
and tourism companies need to identify the areas where they need improvement which can be
done by applying the model of excellence. Also it was concluded that to make the organisation
successful it is important to build and manage the relations with the partners by developing them,
to provide innovative services to the customers by identifying their taste and preferences.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journal
Chaffey, D. and Smith, P.R., 2017. Digital marketing excellence: planning, optimizing and
integrating online marketing. Taylor & Francis.
Charter, M., 2017. Greener marketing: A responsible approach to business. Routledge.
Enquist, B., Johnson, M. and Rönnbäck, Å., 2015. The paradigm shift to Business Excellence
2.0. International Journal of Quality and Service Sciences. 7(2/3). pp.321-333.
Kumar, V. and Shah, D. eds., 2015. Handbook of research on customer equity in marketing.
Edward Elgar Publishing.
Macpherson, W.G. and et. al., 2015. Kaizen: a Japanese philosophy and system for business
excellence. Journal of Business Strategy. 36(5). pp.3-9.
Moorman, C. and Day, G.S., 2016. Organizing for marketing excellence. Journal of Marketing.
80(6). pp.6-35.
Richard, J. and et. al. , 2015. Publishing success of marketing academics: antecedents and
outcomes. European Journal of Marketing. 49(1/2). pp.123-145.
Online
Trailfinders Ltd., 2019.[online] Available through :<https://www.trailfinders.com/aboutus>
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