Helpmate Tours and Activities Company: Business Idea and Feasibility

This report outlines a business idea for Helpmate Tours and Activities Company, a mobile application designed to enhance the tourism experience in Australia. The company aims to capitalize on the underserved local tourism market, offering customized tour packages and services for events, sports games, and holidays. The report details the company's benefits, business model, including location, target market (local and international), services, pricing, and marketing strategies. It also discusses critical success factors such as funding, timing, marketing, and management. The feasibility of Helpmate is assessed by considering the Australian population, tourism statistics, and competitive landscape, highlighting its potential for profitability through product differentiation and market niche.

1
Running head: Business Idea
Business Idea
(Helpmate Tours and Activities Company)
Institution
Name

2
A. INRODUCTION
Helpmate Tours and Activities Company is a business concept of a mobile application based
venture aimed at making the experience of doing an activity or visiting a place the best possible
experience. The application will only carry the name Helpmate to help customers familiarize
with the company. The concept arose from the need to concentrate on the local population in
Australia as a market for a tour company by offering more products that would attract the local
tourists. This will be together with providing new packages for the international arrivals to
Australia (Alastair, 2013).
Australia has over 552 tour companies across the major cities in the country. These
companies, however, concentrate mainly on the international tourism as compared to the local
tourism. This leaves a market of up to 25 million without access to tour products that best suit
them. The country has a total of 500 national parks and 2700 conservation areas, as well as
beaches, all of which provide tour opportunities for local tourists. Helpmate’s main objective is
to exploit this vast local market by providing tour packages for Australians, customized to
benefit the local tourists (Jago, 2013).
This gap is also evident in sport tourism and event tourism in relation to sports tournament
and other events and festivals that take place across the country. In addition to global sports
events held in Australia such as the Australian Open the Formula 1 Grand Prix; it has more than
120 sports organizations which also hold tournaments and events. Numerous festivals such as
The Adelaide Festival and The Melbourne International Comedy Festival are also held in the
country and spread throughout the year. These events provide an opportunity for Helpmate to

3
assist sports fans and those attending festivals with everything from flights to event and game
tickets to hotel bookings to restaurant reservations.
The modern work life in Australia is a busy one. And as such, many working class
Australians don’t get the time to make arrangements personally for an event, holiday or sports
game. This results in a last minute rush that causes high demand for tickets and hotel rooms. The
high demand in turn drives the prices up (Richards, 2008). Helpmate aims at being the bridge
connecting Australians to their preferred events, holidays and sports games, saving the clients’
time and money.
B. BENEFITS OF HELPMATE
The business name, Helpmate, derives a lot from the company’s mission and goal. The
company aims at being a personal assistant to every Australian planning to go on holiday or
attend an event. The company mission is to help a fellow Australian mate avoid the uncertainty
associated with doing an activity or attending an event outside a person’s area of comfort. The
key benefits of using services provided by Helpmate are convenience and financial realistic
services.
Using Helpmate will save the customers’ time, by making all the necessary reservation as
well as purchasing the required ticket(s) on their behalf; this will prove to be a convenient way of
planning holiday or attending an event. Being able to make reservation and buy tickets early is
going to ensure the customer is not affected with the inflated prices that are associated with
waiting for the last minutes. This will save the customer’s money that would otherwise have
been lost in buying tickets and making reservations at a later date.
C. BUSINESS MODEL FOR HELPMATE

4
1. LOCATION
The main offices for Helpmate will in one of the five major cities in Australia, with a lot of
preference for either Sydney or Melbourne. The population distribution of the five major cities
is: Sydney – 20.86%, Melbourne – 19.72%, Brisbane – 9.79%, Perth – 8.39% and Adelaide –
5.42% (World population Review, 2018).
Setting up Helpmate in a city with high population is going to give the company a physical
contact with a significantly large portion of the target market (Covello and Hazelgren, 20060.
(Covello, 2006).
2. TARGET MARKET
The primary market for Helpmate will be the local population in Australia. This will be a
move away from what tour companies usually focus on, international tourists. the purpose is to
tap into the local tourism market which is underrated. The international tourists will form our
secondary market, with packages available to accommodate them as well.
3. SERVICES
The service package available from Helpmate will be divided into two broad groups: Local
Packages and International Package. Although the main target market will be the local
population, an international package will be available for any visitor interested in acquiring the
services of Helpmate. Under each of the packages there will be a list of customized services.
Same services may feature in both packages; they’ll however be different arrangements

5
depending on location of the local client but hugely standard for international tourists (Rumelt,
2011).
4. PRICING AND MARKETING
Helpmate will adopt a penetrating pricing strategy. This strategy will help us in attracting and
maintaining customers during the infancy stage of the company. Having a reasonably low
starting price will build loyalty among the customers while allowing Helpmate offer market
competitive prices. This strategy will later on be evaluated after a specified period of time to
adjust the prices according to the market forces.
The penetrating pricing strategy will be one of marketing strategies that Helpmate will use to
attract customers. The main marketing tool will be the digital space since websites and social
media platforms provide the currently best avenues to advertise products (Jeremy, 2015).
D. CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS
The strategy for funding and capital will form a vital aspect for the setting up operations at
Helpmate. This strategy will impact other aspects of the company, these aspects include;
ownership, management and company debt. The amount of input capital is a key determinant of
how much shares a founder or investor own of a company. Also the amount of funding and
individual brings into a company dictates the level of influence they are going to have over the
allocation of roles in the company. Depending on the structure of the agreement on funding,
partnership or retrievable investment, the company may be classified as in debt or not. Hence,
Helpmate ought to settle on a funding strategy that will allow for smoother running of operations
at the company.

6
The timing for the launch of Helpmate is going to be a key factor of success for Helpmate.
Although events, festivals, sports games and local tourism may be spread throughout the year,
launching Helpmate at a point in the year when all the activities are at their peak is going to give
the company a good head start. The high customer numbers is going to release a bit of the
pressure that comes with starting up a business and provide reliable income for the given period
of the peak season for the activities.
Another key factor for the success of Helpmate will be the marketing strategy that will be
employed to advertise the brand and its services. A lot of advertising has from physically putting
up posters and billboards, and advertising on newspapers and magazines to online platforms.
This thus makes online marketing the preferred mode of marketing that should be adapted by
Helpmate. This can be achieved through posting interactive advertisement on social media and
websites to help reach as much of the potential clients as possible.
The management of the company during its infancy stage is going to be an important success
factor. The management will determine the level of competency of the team working at
Helpmate, the ability of Helpmate to reach its profit goals and the capability of the company to
effectively compete and survive in the tour service industry. The management is responsible for
recruiting the team that will work at Helpmate; good management will ensure recruitment of a
competent and qualified team that will be efficient. Under good management Helpmate will also
be able to meet its financial obligations such serving the liabilities, making loan payments if
applicable and most importantly will be reaching the set profit goals. All this will help in setting
a good foundation for the company (Avinash and Nalebuff, 2008).
E. FEASIBILITY OF HELPMATE

7
Australia has a population of around 24.13 million people, getting a significant market share
from this population would represent a profitable return for Helpmate. On top of the local
population, Australia receives an average of 8.9 million visitors annually generating $47.5 billion
for the economy. This international market would also present a profitable opportunity for
Helpmate (worldometers, 2018).
Despite having a competitive industry with over 552 tour companies in Australia, Helpmate’s
offer of customized packages and focusing on the local population will guarantee its profitability.
This differentiation of product and niche is what will set Helpmate aside from the other
traditional tour companies (Russo and Richards, 2016).
Australia has over 500 national parks and 2700 conservation areas, this provide huge pool of
destination to choose from for any tourist (local and international) (Natural Resource
Management Ministerial Council, 2005). This is supplemented by the numerous beaches and
various activities such as sports events and other events and festivals. All this alternatives ensure
that customers will always a destination or an event to suit their preference. With this possibility
of innumerous alternatives will provide a good opportunity for Helpmate to make returns.

8
References
Alastair, M. M. (2013). Marketing and Managing Tourim Destinations. 1st ed. New York:
Routledge.
Avinash, D. and Nalebuff, B. (2008). The Art of Strategy: A Game Theorist's Guide to Success in
Business and Life. 1st ed. New York, London: W.W. Norton and Company.
Covello, J. A. and Hazelgren, B. (2006). The Complete Book of Business Plans: Simple Steps to
Writing Powerful Business Plans. 2nd ed. Illinois: Sourcebooks. Inc.
Jago, L. (2013). The changing face of Australia's tourism industry: The role of research , s.l.:
Curtin University.
Jeremy, K. (2015). Business Strategy: A Guide to Effective Decision-Making. Third ed. New
York: The Economist.
Richards, G. (2008). Cultural Tourism: Global and Lcal Perspectives. Journal of Cultural
Economics, 32(3), pp. 231-236.
Rumelt, R. (2011). Good Strategy Bad Strategy : The Difference and why it Matters. 1st ed. New
York: Crown Business.
Russo, A. P. and Richards, G. (2016). Reinventing the Local in Tourism: Producing, Consuming
and Negotiating Place. New York: Channel View Publications.
World population Review, 2018. Population of Cities in Australia. [Online]
Available at: http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/australia-population/cities/
[Accessed 4 May 2018].

9
worldometers, 2018. Australia Population. [Online]
Available at: http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/australia-population/
[Accessed 4 May 2018].