Marketing Strategies for Holiday Inn Hotels: A Detailed Report

This report provides a detailed analysis of marketing essentials within the hospitality industry, specifically focusing on Holiday Inn. The report begins by outlining the roles and responsibilities of the marketing function within the hotel, emphasizing its influence on other departments. It then delves into a comparative analysis of marketing mix strategies, contrasting Holiday Inn with its competitor, Premier Inn, across product, price, place, promotion, physical evidence, people, and process. The report concludes by presenting a basic marketing plan for Holiday Inn, designed to address current market challenges and opportunities. The content covers key aspects of marketing, from promotional activities and sales strategies to product management and pricing, offering insights into the hotel's operations and market positioning.

Unit 15 - Hospitality
Marketing Essentials

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
LO 1.................................................................................................................................................3
P1 Roles and responsibilities of marketing function in Holiday Inn hotel..................................3
P2 Interrelation and influence of marketing with other functional departments.........................5
LO 2.................................................................................................................................................6
P3 Comparison of marketing mix strategies in context to hospitality companies.......................6
LO 3.................................................................................................................................................9
P4 Basic marketing plan for Holiday Inn....................................................................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................13
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................14

INTRODUCTION
Marketing essentials are the most necessary elements of marketing such as sales,
advertising, public relations and sales techniques that are significant for an organisation. The
actions used in the marketing are aimed for creation, communication, delivery and exchanging
offers that sustain value for customers, partners, society and clients at large (Lanier and Lanier,
2017). This report will focus upon the requirement of marketing especially after the Covid-19
pandemic when the hospitality industry is facing huge losses, job cuts and uncertainty. The
chosen organisation is Holiday Inn, which is a British-American brand of hotels headquartered in
Buckinghamshire, UK with more than 1000 active hotels and over 200,000 rentable rooms. This
report will evaluate the key responsibilities and functions of marketing in the hotel and the ways
in which marketing influences other departments and functional units. The report will also
elaborate a comparative marketing mix of the hotel with its competitor and also produces a basic
marketing plan for the hotel.
LO 1
P1 Roles and responsibilities of marketing function in Holiday Inn hotel
Marketing is aimed at creation of value for customers and building strong relationships in
order to capture value in return. The marketing process consists of understanding the customer
needs, wants and the marketplace within the industry and designing and devising a successful
marketing strategy. The four basic marketing process can be described as strategic marketing
analysis, planning through marketing mix, implementation of marketing strategies and marketing
control. The process also includes development of an integrated marketing plans which is aimed
at delivering value, situational analysis, market segmentation and appropriate marketing
strategies (Pricilla, 2019). The process is driven towards building professional relationships
through customer loyalty and retention as well as capturing value from the customers by
increasing the lifetime value. There are various marketing functions that are undertaken to
completed the marketing process in the Holiday Inn hotels. The major roles and responsibilities
of marketing functions are as follows:
 Promotion: This function is aimed at mapping of the goals of the Holiday Inn hotel
through activities that help in building brand awareness. Various activities like email
marketing, content marketing, promotion campaigns for building brand awareness,
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educating visitors of the hotel and sparking lead generation are performed by the hotel.
The promotional activities are the basis of gather consumer’s attention and are essential
for the hotel for generation of qualified leads.
 Selling: Every marketing decision of brand promotion, campaigns, marketing strategies
are aimed for ultimately increasing the sales. The Holiday Inn hotel has to incorporate
service and product-centric as well as personalised aspects in the marketing
communication. The hotel also has to relay talking points and offer differentiation which
are all an integral part of the selling strategies (Blythe and Martin, 2019).
 Product management: Holiday Inn hotel has a major duty to ensure that the products and
services in context to hospitality which are offered consistently meet the needs and
demands of the customers. The marketing team need to conduct analysis in context to
customers and competition, communicate the services with prospects and also gather
customer feedback to improve the services that are offered by the hotel. For example, the
room types, facilities, customer service needs etc.
 Marketing management and information: The process of marketing is driven through
the collection and analysis of data and information in order to make changes in the other
functions like promotions and product management. It is a major duty of Holiday Inn
hotel to use the granular information from various specialised tools for determining the
preferences and demographics of customer in order to deliver appropriate services and
targeting the right customers (Yadav and et.al., 2016).
 Pricing: The setting up of prices for the products and services offered by the hotel is a
major responsibility and can be quite complicated and the method for selection is not
only gathered from the marketing research but also from the perceived value of the hotel
brand. It is also the duty of the marketing team of the hotel in ensuring that the pricing
aligns with the promotional strategies and the value offered.
 Financing: Marketing functions ted to generate money in multiple ways beside the sales
that occur on the sale of rooms and other facilities. When financing is conducted adeptly
by the Holiday Inn hotel, the brand equity can be enhanced and funding can be gathered
for the hotel (Law and et.al., 2018).
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P2 Interrelation and influence of marketing with other functional departments
Marketing functions are inculcated in various departmental functions and units in the
entire hotel and many processes are directly influenced by marketing and its various functions
such as advertisements, distribution, finance etc. The key elements of the marketing function are:
The marketing elements are interrelated with other functional units in the Holiday Inn hotel, and
all the functions of es, planning, strategy and tactics are closely limed with each other. The
marketing functions the need economic resources have to be in coordination with the finance
department as it is involved in provision, accounting, budgeting and resources for marketing
functions. Marketing also influences the finance department as, higher the requirement for
finance, more investment and bottom-line for the hotel will be needed, which has to be dealt by
the finance department. The marketing department will not be able to function well without
communicating with the finance department (Sukarsa and et.al., 2020). Similarly, the marketing
is related to the customer service department as it has to ensure that they function as per the
marketing goals.
The human resource department is very closely linked to the marketing department as all the
polices that is ingrained for employees need to in line with marketing objectives and effective
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communication needs to exist between employees and marketing department as the front-line
workers have to ultimately implement the marketing policies and increase the customer
experience through effective services. Apart from this all-other functional units have to work
with marketing department of the Holiday Inn hotel or there can be chances of mismanagement
(Yadav and et.al., 2016).
In context of holiday inn, the major units or departments that are interrelated with
marketing department are customer relations, housekeeping, food and beverages department, the
finance or accounts department, security department, maintenance department as well as sports
and recreation department. The marketing and housekeeping department interact for maintaining
the standards of cleanliness that are marketed by the hotel. The customer relations and service
department take care of all needs and thus improve marketing of the hotel, where customer
service can be advertised effectively. The food and beverages department communicate with
marketing department to decide the best food items and offers that the restaurant is giving out
and special cuisines, which is then used by marketing department to put out offers. The finance
department manages the marketing budgets and communicates consistently for this matter. The
maintenance department and security give out their feedbacks and operational value to marketing
department that it uses for enhancing value added marketing campaigns. The sports and
recreation department in the holiday inn communicates and collaborates with the marketing
department to launch various event related offers and information that takes place in the hotel, in
the advertisements on digital media as well as the marketing campaign of holiday inn (Records,
2020).
LO 2
P3 Comparison of marketing mix strategies in context to hospitality companies
The marketing mix strategies are referred to a set of tactical, controllable marketing tools
for the hotel companies that use this in producing a desired response from the targeted market
and is entirely aimed at influencing the demand for the hotels services and increase sales. In this
section, the 7ps marketing strategies will be compared for Holiday Inn hotel and its prime rival
the Premier Inn hotels on the basis of products, pricing strategy, place, promotional techniques,
physical evidence, processes and people.
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Marketing
Mix
Holiday Inn Premier Inn
1. Product The hotel is divided into primarily
two types that offer high-rise full-
service plaza hotels and low-rise full-
service category. The services
currently offered are divided into
various categories of hotels such as
Holiday inn hotel and suites, resorts,
Holiday Inn Select and club
vacations, garden courts and holiday
inn express that offer various types
of rooms (both functional yet
comfortable) for family and business
visitors, conference halls, pool,
exercise room restaurant, and other
services (Išoraitė, 2016).
The three categories in the hotels are
Premier Inn, discover hub, discover
Zip. Premier inn hotels offer various
types of rooms divided into
presidential suits, economy rooms
and family rooms. The rooms across
all branches are standardised with in
room technology like tablets in each
room. There is 24*7 room services,
simplified food and drink services,
kids’ friendly products like sofa beds,
good convenience, Wi-Fi
connectivity, pools, spas, gym etc.
2. Place The locations strategy for the
holiday inn is establishment of
hotels across various areas and
regions and a wide spread. there are
more than 1300 hotels in operations
presently in the entire world and this
makes the hotel to be one of the
world’s largest hotel chains. The
hotel is spread across America,
Asia-pacific, Africa, Europe, Middle
east.
The premier inn adopts the strategy
to be present at distinct locations and
cover a wide area with more than 800
hotels in operation. The locations
generally include city centres,
airports, sub-urbs etc. The areas
served are UK, United Arab
Emirates, Ireland, India, Germany,
Isle of Man, jersey.
3. Price The hotel follows a flexible pricing
policy and targets families, business
The premier inn follows affordable
pricing plus flexi pricing as per needs
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executives and offer affordable
rented room and value-added
services as per prices. The range
stretches between £ 40 to £ 150 for
immediate bookings for one person
for one night.
and availability. The targeted people
are middle class or average earners,
but prices vary for premium rooms.
The average prices for one person
and for one-night ranges from £ 30 to
£ 120.
4. Promotion The holiday inn uses broadcast
marketing and uses humorous
commercials that highlight the
amenities offered by the hotel such
as internet facility and club rewards.
The hotels also adopt engagement
marketing for promoting through
sponsorships, like Major league
Baseball for Look again campaign.
The hotel is aiming to further
expand its digital marketing
strategies for promotions of daily
offers.
Premium inn has highly invested in
prime-time television advertisement
with major budget. The tactics used
were animated adverts and celebrity
endorsements by making comedian
Larry henry as brand ambassador.
The hotel also used digital marketing,
affiliate marketing and used its
website to launch offers and includes
smartphone bookings (Pogorelova
and et.al., 2016).
5. Physical
evidence
The physical evidence elements
such as ambience and facilities of
the hotel are quite simple and clean.
There are modern styles of
architecture seen in the hotels. There
are high value propositions and the
quality is high.
The purple brand colour is imbibed
in the standard décor of the hotel, and
suggests warmth and luxury. Rooms
are clean, airy and spacious, extra
pillows, comfortable and high-quality
mattress.
6. People The staff employed is trained to deal
with multiple culture staff and has
high efficiency in managing high
bookings. The hotels invest highly
on training and development.
The employees are well, trained,
show empathy, remember customer
and address their needs effectively.
The staff is friendly and committed.
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7. Process The hotel is process oriented with
intensive activities with high quality
CRM systems employed for
efficient and seamless operations for
higher customer experience. The
process guidelines are effectively
communicated to the staff.
Ensures that all the process from
booking on various channels, to
customer service and check out is fast
and efficient. An electronic kiosk is
used and breakfast are booked
separately which allows transparency
and flexibility (Wu and Li, 2018).
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LO 3
P4 Basic marketing plan for Holiday Inn
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This marketing plan will comprise of a brief understanding of the marketing objectives
related to expansion, sales revenue, customer experience and marketing strategies and conduct a
situational analysis to research about present market conditions and post pandemic situation. The
situational analysis is conducted using Pestle analysis. The marketing strategies and tactics were
devised after conducting market segmentation and relevant strategies were elaborated for
Holiday Inn Hotel using 7ps of marketing mix. A marketing budget was developed for the
Holiday Inn Hotel using estimations from previous year expenditure for one quarter. Along with
this, different marketing monitoring and evaluation methods were devised and elaborated.
OBJECTIVES
 To expand the hospitality market and target new customers in UK market within one
financial year.
 To increase the overall room revenue by 15% in comparison to the previous year within 6
months.
 To adopt and promote new marketing strategies and policies post Covid-19 and increase
brand awareness
 To increase the consumer experience of all the guests (Chernev, 2020)
COMPANY SUMMARY
Holiday Inn hotels, a subsidiary of Intercontinental Hotel Groups is an international hotel
chain company that is established in more than 100 countries and is one of the largest hotel
chains in the world with more than 1100 active hotels operating across the world, and more than
200,000 rentable rooms. The rooms offered by the hotels are aimed at business travellers and
families and offer a comfortable atmosphere, with various amenities. The hotel chains are
established in various locations and offer affordable rooms at large.
MARKET ANALYSIS: PESTLE
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 Political factors: Holiday Inn hotels needs to cope up with the existing political
instabilities sin the UK, that is Brexit, which directly affects the logistics, supply chain,
taxation, import and export duties and tariffs of various goods and services that are
auxiliary to the hotel business.
 Economic factors: The factors like high rate of inflation, Covid-19 pandemic effects on
economy, and high labour cost can have negative impact on the expansion strategies as it
will increase the investments. However, the high disposal income of the people of UK in
can be a positive impact post lockdown,
 Social factors such as the religion values, beliefs, trends and preferences also impact on
the choice of hotels. When it comes to millennials many prefer affordable hotels that
provide all the facilities in moderate prices. Tourists might prefer nearby locations to
shopping centres, therefore demographics and behavioural segmentation can be used for
development of strategies (Perera, 2017).
 Technological factors such as rise in the social media usage and online bookings can be
a positive sign for the hotel as they can use personalised affiliate and influencer
marketing to attract customers. However, the online world is highly transparent and bad
online reviews can have negative impact on the brand value.
 Legal factors like legal frameworks, hospitality industry regulations and policies, food
and beverage regulation, consumer rights, employee legislations have to be strictly
adhered to by Holiday Inn hotels as it can lead to lawsuits and hefty fines, and also
damage the reputation of the company.
 Environmental factors like rising awareness of environmental pollution and climate
change has led to new environment polices and higher consumer expectations of using
eco friendly products, better garbage disposal and reduction of carbon footprint by the
hotel. The hotel can imbibe these changes in its operations to avoid any legal
complications and enhance its goodwill (Perera, 2017).
STRATEGIES & TACTICS
Market segmentation
 Demographic segmentation: Factors such as gender, age, life-cycle stage, income level,
family, social class and lifestyle are targeted and customers are categorised. The targeted
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income level is moderate, age from 20 to 50. For the luxury services and rooms, high end
consumers are targeted and business executives.
 Behavioural segmentation: The past purchase orders and previous customers are
targeted for the new rooms and services that are being expanded. The behaviour is
tracked to intervene with promotional strategies like loyalty points.
 Geographic segmentation: The areas in UK especially city centres, Tourist places and
shopping areas are being expanded. The hotels near airports and railways are also being
targeted in the UK (Dolnicar, Grün and Leisch, 2018).
 Psychographic segmentation: The travellers that want affordable facilities and are
flexible yet ambitious are being targeted.
Marketing Mix Strategies
 Product: The new rooms will have three main segments will be classified into family,
business, premium and economy and relevant products and accessories will be available
in such rooms. Like Kids sofa beds in family rooms and additional facilities in premium
rooms. Gyms, Pools, Conference and meeting halls, restaurant, and other facilities will be
available (During, 2016).
 Price: Flexible pricing strategy where the prices will rise on the booking sites as per the
demand, but a minimum affordable price will be maintained for economy rooms ranging
from £30 to £50.
 Place: The locations will be based near shopping and city centres, main areas, leisure
points so that the customers don’t have to travel a lot.
 Promotion: Both traditional marketing and digital marketing will be used. Celebrity
endorsements, TV and broad casting, and print advertisements will describe offers.
Affiliate marketing, social media marketing, database marketing and influencer
marketing will be sued to update regarding upcoming events, drop in process, discounts
and engagement with potential customers.
 Process Will be made seamless and prompt by using efficient CRM systems and
electronic kiosk for easy booking, ordering food in restaurant and quick payments and
check outs (During, 2016).
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 People will be well trained to maintain health, safety and hygiene in context to Covid-19
measures, ensuring social distancing and cleanliness.
 Physical evidence will be made simple and sober and a distinct theme will be used for the
hotel, merged with the colour of the brad and will have all amenities, spacious rooms and
standardised look, architecture and furniture.
MARKETING BUDGET
S.No. Particulars Amount (in £)
1 Marketing research and information 700,000
2 Traditional advertisements 2550000
TV And broadcasting 950,000
Newspaper and magazine advertisements 600,000
Celebrity endorsements 1,000,000
3 Online marketing 1200000
Social media marketing 200,000
Influencer marketing 300,000
Affiliate marketing 150,000
Database marketing 500,000
Miscellaneous 50,000
Total expenditure 4250000
Source: eMarketer, 2017
MONITORING AND CONTROL
 Goal tracking: The marketing strategies and its outcomes will be cross checked with the
established goals and all the strengths and weakness of the plan will be evaluated and
necessary changes will be made (Fotiadis, Mombeuil and Valek, 2018).
 Google analytics: Various marketing metrics will be used and the number of traffic
generated on the social media sites will be identified and tracked through marketing
analytics through landing pages and referring sites. The lead generation will be evaluated.
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 Benchmarking: The marketing strategies employed will be measured against the industry
standards of the marketing practices used by the other rivals operating in the UK such as
premier inn and Travelodge.
 KPI: Marketing metrics such as key performance indicators stated below will be used:
o Sales revenue generated on monthly basis
o Cost of per lead acquisition
o Customer lifetime value
o Return on marketing investment
o Site traffic and lead ratio (Fotiadis, Mombeuil and Valek, 2018)
CONCLUSION
From the above report it can be concluded that marketing plays a major role in driving
sales and increasing the brand awareness through various marketing strategies employed by
Holiday Inn hotel. The key roles and responsibilities were accessed for marketing functions like
promotions, sale, marketing information etc. and key functions were identified as research,
strategies, tactics and planning. The comparative marketing mix analysis was done for holiday
inn and its competitor in the UK, premier inn in context to product, price, physical evidence,
promotions, place, people and processes. A basic marketing plan was made in order to expand
the company by targeting new markets and increasing its brand awareness in the UK, along with
employing digital marketing strategies.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Blythe, J. and Martin, J., 2019. Essentials of marketing. Pearson UK.
Chernev, A., 2020. The marketing plan handbook. Cerebellum Press.
Dolnicar, S., Grün, B. and Leisch, F., 2018. Market segmentation analysis: Understanding it,
doing it, and making it useful (p. 324). Springer Nature.
During, S.M.P., 2016. Monitoring and Evaluation Research. Social Marketing Research for
Global Public Health: Methods and Technologies, p.139.
Fotiadis, A., Mombeuil, C. and Valek, N.S., 2018. Designing and implementing a marketing
plan. The Emerald handbook of entrepreneurship in tourism, travel and hospitality: Skills
for successful ventures, pp.297-311.
Išoraitė, M., 2016. Marketing mix theoretical aspects. International journal of research
granthaalayah, 4(6), pp.25-37.
Lanier, P. and Lanier, M., 2017. Marketing Essentials for Independent Lodgings. Business
Expert Press.
Law, R., and et.al., 2018. Systematic review of hospitality CRM research. International Journal
of Contemporary Hospitality Management.
Perera, R., 2017. The PESTLE analysis. Nerdynaut.
Pogorelova, E., and et.al., 2016. Marketing Mix for E-commerce. International journal of
environmental & science education, 11(14), pp.6744-6759.
Pricilla, D., 2019. The Marketing Essentials. pdf.
Records, R.R., 2020. UNIT-7 INTER-DEPARTMENTAL CO-ORDINATION.
Wu, Y.L. and Li, E.Y., 2018. Marketing mix, customer value, and customer loyalty in social
commerce. Internet Research.
Yadav, R., and et.al., 2016. The influence of green marketing functions in building corporate
image. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.
Online
Hotels Allocate More Budget for Digital Marketing and Social, eMarketer, 2017, Available
through: <https://www.emarketer.com/Article/Hotels-Allocate-More-Budget-Digital-
Marketing-Social/1015655.>
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