Marketing Proposal: Holiday Inn's Global Market Expansion Strategies

This report presents a marketing proposal for Holiday Inn's global market expansion. It begins with an introduction to the hospitality industry and Holiday Inn's current services. The proposal suggests the introduction of a smart vacation-planning tool and on-site travel planners to enhance customer experience and increase profitability. The report details the services, including a 'Travel Match' program and the use of Desk CRM software for data analysis and sales tracking. It explores various research methods, including descriptive research, focus groups, and direct observation, to assess market needs. The report also analyzes distribution channels, pricing strategies (cost-plus pricing), and potential risks associated with the new services. Finally, it discusses the importance of adhering to local laws and regulations, the impact of the global supply chain, and strategies to mitigate risks, such as liability concerns and the need for discounted attraction tickets. The report emphasizes the importance of digital marketing and customer relationship management for the successful implementation of these expansion strategies.

Running Head: MARKETING 0
MARKETING

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
1..................................................................................................................................................2
a..............................................................................................................................................3
b..............................................................................................................................................4
c..............................................................................................................................................4
2..................................................................................................................................................5
a..............................................................................................................................................5
3..................................................................................................................................................5
a..............................................................................................................................................5
b..............................................................................................................................................6
4..................................................................................................................................................6
a..............................................................................................................................................7
b..............................................................................................................................................7
c..............................................................................................................................................7
5..................................................................................................................................................8
a..............................................................................................................................................8
(i)........................................................................................................................................8
b..............................................................................................................................................9
References................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
The hospitality industry included various broader fields in the service industry that
provides several accommodations in terms of travelling, hotel management, event planning
and some other additional fields within the tourism industry.
Holiday Inn is a British-owned American brand founded in 1952. The headquarter of
company is situated in Denham, United Kingdom. The major service provided by Holiday
Inn includes food services, lodging, conventions and meetings.
Holiday Inn believes that the joy of travel is for everyone and that is why around
1,171 hotels were opened till now by the company.
In this project, a proposal is defined below which states that how Holiday Inn can be
effectively adapted to a global market.
1
In this 21st century, the emergence of global technologies creates various opportunities
for the hospitality industry. Before, travel agents are used by customers to plan their vacation
packages but now with the help of modern technology, many individuals can easily plan their
own vacation packages (Law, Buhalis & Cobanoglu, 2014). Globally, many hotel chains
assist the customer in the hotel booking process by providing them with rental cards and
flights.
Holiday Inn has an opportunity to increase their business as well as profitability with
the introduction of two new services. Holiday Inn can launch a new smart vacation-planning
tool which should be a part of their booking process. In terms of second service, the company
can provide onsite travel planners, which will help the guest and customers to locate the best
attractions while on holiday. The company can test these two services in North America first
as the population is more than the other continents. In addition, North America also includes
more number of countries i.e. 23 countries including United States. This means that the
number of destination to visit will be more as compared to other continents and thus attract
more travellers to visit. The company can use digital marketing tool for rolling out these new
services, as it is a cost effective way and if the company test fails, then it will not cause any
big impact on their budget.

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The first service i.e. holiday planning tool will be seemed to be like a dating site.
Here, an individual will create a profile that will include their likes, hobbies and interests.
When customers or guests visit the Holiday Inn website so have to find the available hotel
rooms, the hotel chain should give them local attractions. This will help the guests to plan an
entire holiday from the webpage. In sometime, when more numbers of guests will know of
this service, Holiday Inn can start direct selling of the destinations according to the interest
and hobbies of guests. Once when guests hobbies and interest matched by Holiday Inn, the
entire booking process will be more effective and it will help in planning the entire holiday
whiteout doing any much research. The company will also give reviews, facilities like
transportation and an efficient way to pay for the whole vacation.
Considering the second service, the onsite travel organiser positioned at each hotel
across the world can be used in providing a unique experience. With the help of this tool, the
hotel can effectively book reservations, sell attractions and delivers the travel destination
information.
Both of the above-mentioned services can make Holiday Inn, a full-fledge destination
experience. The guests can easily find several relevant attractions that will attract them
without any risks or having a wicked time. The matching will happen directly that will rise
their interests with the attractions.
a.
The three different methods can be used by Holiday Inn to reveal out that is there is
any need for these two services in the international market. Descriptive research can be the
first tool or method which would relate with the customer survey based on demographics.
The second method will comprise the focused groups and the third method will be based on
direct observation.
In the first research method, descriptive research technique will be used that will
comprise the customer profile and questionnaire. It will ask the guests about the travel
booking experience. Holiday Inn needs to do research about the guest perception that how
they decide their travel destination and where they are located on the geographical basis. As
per this research, many individuals and people reserve travel online and they determine their
destination as per their earlier research. With the help of new booking profile made by the
Holiday Inn, guests will be allowed to discover a travel destination that peaks their interest
without doing any type of exploration.

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The second research i.e. focus groups will assist the Holiday Inn finding what
necessary queries needed to be questioned related to the customer profile to define the finest
destination according to the need of the guest. With the support of focused groups, the
necessary information can be obtained like how people feel about travelling, and what
benefits can be more important for them.
Direct observation will be the last method of the purpose of research. The global
hospitality industry is diversified into various fields. One observation in this can be – how
cruise ships will sell shore excursions to passengers who book a cruise. As this make
additional sales and Holiday Inn can be, learn to drive sells like this only to the different
destinations. This research method also leads to the need for global service relating to the
rating of Trip advisors and Trivago. Many guests and users research on these webpages so
that to search for various attractions in their desired city. Holiday Inn trip Match program can
be used by the guests in finding the attractions according to their interest.
b.
Many people use various different travel sites like Trip advisor and Trivago for the
purpose of comparison of Hotel (Xiang & Gretzel, 2010). The new travel match service will
be used by Holiday Inn so that to assist travellers plan on one webpage. The company will
gain the sustainable advantage, as they will get the guests who are discovering a location on
one website and in the last confirming their hotel and full holiday plan right on the website of
Holiday Inn. The Holiday Inn website will be used by the users for the exploration of the
various new destinations that they would have never thought of. There will be further
enhancement in the competitive advantage with the help of onsite travel planners that will
provide the users a one-stop shop to all the related needs of the travel. Holiday Inn will also
get the first mover advantage in the industry because this service is not offered by any hotel
chain in the market.
c.
The first risks linked with introducing these two new services would be that the users
will still conduct research so that he/she can get cheaper substitutes to booking the attractions
that interest them. For minimizing the risks, Holiday Inn needs to consider the local attraction
near every hotel which helps them in getting discounted attraction tickets. It can also be sell
as a part of the Travel Match program and the onsite travel planner. In this Travel Match

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Program, all those organizations who are participating will get free promotion or advertising
in exchange for the respective attractions discounts.
Another risk is linked as the liability which will be due to the introduction of the
program and planner. For instance, if somebody drives to the parachuting or sky diving and
gets a wound on any part of the body, they could sue the hotel chain. Holiday Inn needs to
make specific claim for minimizing this risks. It can be mitigated if the company inform the
guests that they are not responsible for any dues for a third-party attraction. Holiday Inn need
to also review various laws as each nation has different liability laws to safeguard the
organization from claims.
2
a.
Holiday Inn will use the Desk CRM software so that they can track all the relevant
customer conversations from various websites such as Facebook, Twitter and also in the app
chatting (Lee, Tang & Sugumaran, 2014). The company can use this software so that to
discover various destinations that customer is talking about and the data will also be added to
the Travel Match Profile. This software enables Holiday Inn to measure sales coming from
the program. To all the guests that are staying in each of the hotels, the Desk CRM software
can help in selling the attraction tickets by the onsite travel planners. Holiday Inn can easily
able analyse the sales, which are making inside in addition to the sales due to the Travel
Match. This makes the company increase traffic to that destination by targeting to certain
demographic area.
3
a.
In the distribution channel, Holiday Inn will become a wholesaler. The attractions will
be purchased from the local vendor by Holiday Inn which will later to be sold to the
consumer. Most of the local vendors are not able to sell these attractions on a global level but
with the help of Holiday Inn, these vendors can sell those attractions on a large scale.
Considering local attraction, Holiday Inn will become the distribution channel. Travel Match
App can be used for distributing these new services which will make convenient for the
consumers as they can directly purchase the tickets at the time of booking hotel. On-site
travel planner will also help the users to book the attraction tickets.

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In every country, there are certain laws, customs and regulations which is needed to
be followed by the Companies for the purpose of doing any business. Holiday Inn also needs
to follow various certain laws so that they can efficiently sell the destination vacations in all
the global market by considering the reputation of the vendors. Those attractions, which are
perceived negatively in other counties can be sold by Holiday Inn so that to impairment the
goodwill of the brand. In addition, the Travel Match programm of the Holiday Inn will sell to
the individuals from several backgrounds, it can be said that the application is coded in such
as way that it does not unintentionally offend anyone from a dissimilar culture.
b.
This service can be affected by the global supply chain, as it will be based on the
suppliers, local attractions vendors in providing tickets for Holiday Inn to sell as part of the
booking process. If there will be no substantial agreements between the Holiday Inn and
vendors, the guests may left and purchase the tickets from their own sources and thus the
hotel room will not be purchased from the Holiday Inn Webpage. In this programme, the
Company also needs the participation of various vendors or this can cause a loss to them.
Global supply chain plays an important role in the success of both these services and due to
this, the products that are already present in the other avenues can be resold by Holiday Inn.
4
The main pricing strategy for the On-Site Travel Professional service and Travel
Match service will depend on the attraction cost that visitors are purchasing. Therefore, in
this, cost plus pricing will be the main focus of the Holiday Inn. They will rise the price of
attraction by 10% when sold to the customer. The company believes that the discounted
tickets will be sold by the local vendors to them and with the 10% rise in the cost. Users will
still obtain a good deal than if they buy the product themselves. Holiday Inn wants to increase
their number of guests, which is also linked to their overall marketing strategy. The Travel
Match service will also be used by the Holiday Inn to sell an experience to the customers so
that they can help them in finding out new travel destinations which also link with the rise in
revenue for Holiday Inn.

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a.
Cost to build Travel Match $
Application Encoding $7,000.00
Hardware required to run Travel Match $12,000.00
CRM software $4,000.00
Training of Staffs $5,000.00
Promotion and Advertising $100,000.00
Working with local vendors $25,000.00
Cost to build On-Site Travel Planner $
Travel Planner $45,000/year
CRM Software $2,000.00
Training of Staffs $5,000.00
Promotion and Advertising $100,000.00
Working with local vendors $30,000.00
b.
The acceptance by customer is based on the number of sold attraction tickets per
geographic area. These services depend on the ability to sell a hotel room within the
geographical area. As compared to the normal market price, the price could be cheaper
relating to the attraction tickets but the package will not be sold if the hotel room price is
overpriced. Those attractions which are not selling will be removed from the system and the
tickets sold by location will be tracked.
c.
This will be the first service that directly matched the guests and the user's interest to
the perfect holiday and then the destination will be sold. In the current scenario, the
commission is received by the various travel agents while they book any hotel or airline. The
system of travel matching will work like the travel agents and thus match the consumer to the
best vacation. With the help of these new services, the commission on the attractions as well
as the rise in the incomes of the hotel booking will lead the company to make more money.

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Generally, there are paid commissions for the competitors who are selling same service and
there is difference in the price based on the type of the service purchased.
5
Social media and the mass media will be the two promotional activities can be used
by Holiday Inn for promoting their two services. The company will also have specific
promotional strategy which will rise the individual's attention in these new services. The
young professionals will be target for the marketing of both these services and these young
professionals includes family that have limited time which causes a barrier in the booking of
their dream vacation. In the next section, the definite strategies of promotion are listed.
a.
(i)
Across the Globe, a global campaign will be run on Television by Holiday Inn. The
advertisement will run on various stations and networks across various nations. In this
advertisement, the destination will be premier followed by running several local attractions
that can be purchased as a part of the booking tool or with the on-site travel professional. On
several travesties, the Company will also position their ad including Google, Trip Advisor
and Expedia. In a family, the young professionals will be targeted through this ad.
Considering these new services, the consumers will be the families who can afford these
vacation plans. The young mothers are also targeted by Holiday Inn who does not have
sufficient time to research a holiday plan and they concern for their safety while booking
from the unknown sources.
For these new services, Holiday Inn will also opt for social media as a new promotion
strategy to attract consumers. With the help of CRM software, the comments on Facebook
and Twitter can be tracked which help Holiday Inn to gather information about the customer
interests and market specific destinations as per the recommendations of travel match
software (Heller & Parasnis, 2011). This campaign can be proved as a critical phase as it
requires the attractions of the professionals and the new mothers who want to go for holidays
but do not have much time to explore the vacation.

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b.
The first sales promotion activity that can be used by the company in promoting their new
product to the global market will be the coupons. Every customer who books the hotel room
with the help of Travel Match software will get coupons for free attractions at the on-site
travel planner. This will also increase the number of users to experience this software and
when they use this software, they will be linked through various attractions. The main reason
behind this scheme is that if a customer uses this software, they will come again in the late
future so that to find out the hidden gems of the travel destinations.
Another promotional activity will be related to the introduction of a competition for all
the customers who list their interest on the Travel Match site. All the registered travellers can
win a chance to get their dream destination vacation after the first month of the launch of the
Travel Match Software. The company can also launch a scheme that if any users visit the on-
site holiday planner will be drawn to win their dream vacation.

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References
Heller Baird, C., & Parasnis, G. (2011). From social media to Social CRM: reinventing the
customer relationship. Strategy & Leadership, 39(6), 27-34.
Law, R., Buhalis, D., & Cobanoglu, C. (2014). Progress on information and communication
technologies in hospitality and tourism. International Journal of Contemporary
Hospitality Management, 26(5), 727-750.
Lee, Y. C., Tang, N. H., & Sugumaran, V. (2014). Open source CRM software selection
using the analytic hierarchy process. Information systems management, 31(1), 2-20.
Xiang, Z., & Gretzel, U. (2010). Role of social media in online travel information search.
Tourism management, 31(2), 179-188.