Marketing Analysis: Courtyard by Marriott's Competitive Advantage

This essay provides a comprehensive analysis of Courtyard by Marriott's marketing strategies, focusing on its value proposition in Prince George, Canada. It compares Courtyard's offerings to competitors, highlighting its competitive advantages, such as world-class service, competitive pricing, and a focus on business travelers. The essay also explores the factors influencing positive and negative word-of-mouth, including dining experience, marketing effectiveness, and service delivery. Furthermore, it emphasizes the importance of a well-defined marketing plan, detailing its role in product design, pricing, promotion, fund allocation, and target market identification. The conclusion reiterates Courtyard's position as a leading hotel in Prince George and underscores the significance of strategic marketing for business success.

Running head: INTRODUCTION TO MARKETING
Introduction to marketing
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

1INTRODUCTION TO MARKETING
Introduction
Customer value proposition plays an important role in gaining competitive advantages for
the service sector organizations. This is due to the reason that the more will be the value
proposition being offered by the service providers to their customers, the more will be their
attractiveness in the market. This is majorly applicable in the hotel industries due to the reason
that customer loyalty is being determined by the quality and standard of service delivery process
of the organizations (Payne, Grow & Eggert, 2017). Quality of the service delivery process also
determines the generation of positive or negative word of mouth in the market. In addition, it
should also be noted that effective marketing plan also plays an important role in influencing the
generation of word of mouth among the customers. Thus, marketing plan is also having a major
importance among the service providers in deter mining their brand value and awareness
(Martelo Landroguez, Barroso Castro & Cepeda-Carrion, 2013).
This essay will discuss about the distinctive values being offered by Courtyard by
Marriott in Prince George over their competitors. In addition, the factors affecting the positive
and negative word of mouth will also be discussed along with the evaluation of importance of
marketing plan.
Value proposition of Courtyard
It is can be concluded that Courtyard by Marriott is the best hotel available in the Prince
George location of Canada. There are number of reasons behind choosing Courtyard as the best
hotel of Prince George. One of the major reasons is the competitive scenario in the location with
having the competition for Courtyard in the forms of Coast Inn of the North, Ramada Plaza by
Wyndham and Sandman (He et al., 2016). Thus, among the major hotel brands operating in the
Prince George, Courtyard is the only international brand with having their presence across the
world. Thus, the service quality of Courtyard is more of world class compared to their
competitors. It is also being identified that price for Courtyard is low compared to some of their
competitors. Thus, the service quality standard for Courtyard is higher along with offering at
competitive price point helping in providing the best value for money service in the region. In
addition, the market focus strategy of Courtyard in targeting and catering to only business
travelers helped them to design their service elements accordingly. Thus, the satisfaction of the
target customers is more for Courtyard compared to their competitors (Kunkel, Funk & King,
2014).
One of the major distinctive values being offered by them is having desks, couches and
free internet services across all the accommodations including the budget rooms. This denotes
that diversity of the complementary services for Courtyard is more over their competitors. In
addition, the visitors are also having the access to the live bistro service, which provides fresh
cooked breakfast and snacks (Bradic, Kosar & Kalenjuk, 2013). This is another differentiating
value for Courtyard. As discussed in the previous section about the market focus strategy of
Courtyard of catering only to the business travelers, it is helping them to provide the holistic
service to the target customers. It is identified that Courtyard is having dedicated business center
for their guests where they can have their business work done perfectly. This distinctive and
focused approach of Courtyard is helping in meeting the expectations of the business travelers
effectively and retention ratio is also increasing for them. The guests visiting Courtyard are
having the free access to these added benefits and facilities, which are not being provided by the

2INTRODUCTION TO MARKETING
other brands in Prince George. The shopping experience offered by Courtyard to their guests is
also enhancing the value proposition of them. It is identified that guests are having the
opportunity to shop for the exclusive household and serve ware products from the Courtyard
home collection. This is increasing the physical evidence for the customers, which will further
increase the brand recall among the customers.
Factors affecting the word of mouth
One of the major factors affecting the trend of word of mouth in the restaurant industry
and this is the dining experience. This is due to the reason that dining is the core service for the
restaurants and the quality of it determines the trend of word of mouth among the customers.
According to Blazevic et al., (2013) the core expectation of the customers from visiting the
restaurants is having a fine dining experience and if the desired level of them cannot get fulfilled,
then the probability of emergence of negative word of mouth will be more irrespective of
effective added and auxiliary services. On the other hand, if the dining experience is meeting the
expectation of the customers, then the probability for positive word of mouth will be more. Thus,
dining experience can be concluded as one of the major factors in affecting the trend of word of
mouth. Another major factor is the marketing effectiveness. The more will be the reach and
penetration of the marketing activities for the restaurant, the more will the word of mouth trend
among the target customers. According to Lu et al., (2013), marketing and promotional activities
of the restaurants helps in determining the brand awareness among the customers, which will
further reflect the emergence of buzz regarding the particular restaurant. On the other hand, it is
also stated by the authors that ineffective and intensive marketing and promotional activities will
reduce the word of mouth trend in the market. However, it is also being identified that the more
will be the buzz around the brand in the market, the more will be the probability of spreading of
word of mouth including positive and negative.
Another key factor in determining the positive and negative word of mouth is the service
delivery process. This also includes the quality of the food. This is due to the reason that ideal
and high quality service and ambience will also cause emergence of negative word of mouth if
the quality of the food is not up to the desired level (Rahman & Areni, 2014). Thus, if the food
quality cannot be maintained, then the probability of negative word of mouth will be more and
vice versa. The service delivery process also includes the effectiveness of the employees in
providing the desired standards to the customers. Thus, if the employees are effective enough in
offering the desire d service standard to the customers, then it will enhance the positive word of
mouth among the customers and vice versa.
Importance of marketing plan
In the recent time, marketing plan is having more importance than it was before. This is
due to the reason that in the current competitive market scenario, effective marketing plan will
help the business organizations in having larger penetration among the target customers. This is
due to the reason that marketing plan includes the product, pricing and promotional strategies
coordinated with each other. Hence, the products or services will be better designed in
accordance to the target market preferences (McDonald, 2016). On the other hand, marketing
plan is also important due to the reason that it helps in proper allocation of fund for different
elements and activities in initiating the marketing activities. An ideal marketing plan includes the
budgetary considerations, which helps the business organizations to have the understanding

3INTRODUCTION TO MARKETING
about the capital required. This also helps in further evaluation of the marketing effectiveness by
estimating the return on investments. In the recent time, determination of the target customers
along with their taste and preference pattern is important especially for the service providers.
This is due to the reason that effective determination of target market helps the service providers
to offer their services in more personalized manner (Holliman & Rowley, 2014). With the help
of the marketing plan, business organizations can effectively identify the target customers along
with their trend patterns. This will increase the effectiveness of the of service delivery process.
Selection of the proper marketing and promotional mediums is also important in reaching out to
the target customers. In addition, these mediums should be diverse in nature catering to different
customer segments. With the help of the effective marketing plan, these mediums are being
chosen based on their effectiveness among the target market. This ensures that the promotional
activities are being communicated through right set of mediums and right set of customers are
being targeted (Shea, 2015). These are the major important benefits that can be gained from an
ideal marketing plan.
Conclusion
This essay concludes that Courtyard is the best hotel available in the Prince George,
Canada. There are number of reasons being identified in this paper, which proves that they are
the best option available in the location. This essay also discussed about the factors that are
affecting the negative and positive word of mouth trend. There are number of factors being
identified based on different theories by the authors. It is also discussed about why the marketing
plan is important for the business organizations and how it can be prove beneficial in enhancing
their strategic intent.

4INTRODUCTION TO MARKETING
Reference
Blazevic, V., Hammedi, W., Garnefeld, I., Rust, R. T., Keiningham, T., Andreassen, T. W., ... &
Carl, W. (2013). Beyond traditional word-of-mouth: an expanded model of customer-
driven influence. Journal of Service Management, 24(3), 294-313.
Bradić, M., Kosar, L., & Kalenjuk, B. (2013). Business guests satisfaction in the hotel industry:
A case study of North American hotel chains. Turizam, 17(2), 60-70.
He, Y., Chen, Q., Tam, L., & Lee, R. P. (2016). Managing sub-branding affect transfer: the role
of consideration set size and brand loyalty. Marketing Letters, 27(1), 103-113.
Holliman, G., & Rowley, J. (2014). Business to business digital content marketing: marketers’
perceptions of best practice. Journal of research in interactive marketing, 8(4), 269-293.
Kunkel, T., Funk, D., & King, C. (2014). Developing a conceptual understanding of consumer-
based league brand associations. Journal of Sport Management, 28(1), 49-67.
Lu, X., Ba, S., Huang, L., & Feng, Y. (2013). Promotional marketing or word-of-mouth?
Evidence from online restaurant reviews. Information Systems Research, 24(3), 596-612.
Martelo Landroguez, S., Barroso Castro, C., & Cepeda-Carrión, G. (2013). Developing an
integrated vision of customer value. Journal of Services Marketing, 27(3), 234-244.
McDONALD, M. A. L. C. O. L. M. (2016). Strategic marketing planning: theory and practice.
In The marketing book (pp. 108-142). Routledge.
Payne, A., Frow, P., & Eggert, A. (2017). The customer value proposition: evolution,
development, and application in marketing. Journal of the Academy of Marketing
Science, 45(4), 467-489.
Rahman, K., & Areni, C. S. (2014). Generic, genuine, or completely new? Branding strategies to
leverage new products. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 22(1), 3-15.
Shea, E. (2015). Amplify your impact: Taking stock of your institution's marketing
efforts. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 54(3), 27-29.