Holiday Inn: SWOT Analysis, Future Threats, and Service Marketing

This report provides a comprehensive SWOT analysis of Holiday Inn, evaluating its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats within the competitive hotel industry. It identifies key weaknesses and threats facing Holiday Inn over the next three years, including data security concerns, the impact of Brexit on labor, and the effects of the Russia-Ukraine war on tourism and supply chains. The report also analyzes the theoretical principles of services marketing, particularly the service marketing mix, and offers recommendations for overcoming these challenges, such as implementing cybersecurity tools and refining marketing strategies. The analysis emphasizes the importance of understanding both external and internal factors to enhance the hotel's productivity and maintain a competitive edge.

Individual Written
Report

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Analysis of the Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats faced by Holiday Inn...........3
Identification of the Weaknesses and Threats for Holiday Inn for the next 3 years. .................5
Analysis of the theoretical principles of services marketing and recommendation to overcome
challenges. ..................................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Businesses are said to be engaged in providing goods and services to the customers to
fulfil their neds and wants. For businesses it is important to analyse the different factors which
are affecting the business operations directly or indirectly. SWOT analysis helps the businesses
to analyse the internal factors which will help them to attract the customers. This report is about
Holiday Inn which is an American chain of hotels (Hopkins and et. al., 2021). The hotel is
headquartered in Denham, Buckinghamshire and has 1173 active hotels. This report describes
the SWOT analysis of the Holiday Inn to make effective strategies. Further in this report
organizational structure has been analysed and than the PESTLE analysis is discussed.
MAIN BODY
Analysis of the Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats faced by Holiday Inn.
It is important to analyse the external and internal factors of the organization, so that the
marketers at Holiday Inn can make effective strategies to attract customers. The analysis can be
done by using SWOT technique as it helps the marketers to evaluate all the points which are
affecting the business operations. SWOT analysis of the Holiday Inn is analysed below-
Internal factors External factors
Positive factors Strengths
 Holiday Inn is best at
providing
accommodation to its
customers.
 Holiday Inn has
acquired trademarks,
patents and copyrights.
 The staff is well trained
and are good at
problem- solving, and
teamwork.
Opportunities
 Hotels can use bio
degradable materials,
which will help them in
saving millions of
dollars in the disposals.
 Holiday inn can get
advantage over other
hotels as they use
digital check- in and
check- out. This will
enhance the customer

 The hotel is entering
new markets and has
1200 hotels around the
world.
experience.
 Holiday Inn can use
facial recognition
technologies and
mobile control so that
customers will get user
friendly and smooth
experience while
visiting the hotel.
 The marketers at the
Holiday Inn can
analyse new markets
for expanding their
business. They can
focus on developing
countries, as the
government provide
various subsidies and
have lower tax rates.
Negative factors Weaknesses
 The hotel industry are
having a lot of
competition. Increase
in competition have
reduce the market share
of Holiday Inn.
 The hotel is trying hard
to increase penetration
in the developing
economies.
Threats
 Decline in the tourism
industry due to the
COVID- 19 pandemic
and terror activities is a
great threat for Holiday
Inn.
 Various renowned
brands are offering
services to the
customers like Ramada
Inn, Hilton and

 The workforce is well
trained but are lacking
in proper
communication. The
guests arrive at Holiday
Inn from all over the
world and are
communicating in
different languages
(Ismoilova, Mirkhadja
and Nabieva, 2021). So
it is difficult to be
fluent in every
language.
Marriot. Thus the
customer base is
divided and the hotels
have to compete for the
same set of the
customers.
 Hotel laws and
regulations are a great
threat for the hotels, as
they have to ensure that
the food served is safe
and is up to the
standards of food and
drug administration.
Identification of the Weaknesses and Threats for Holiday Inn for the next 3 years.
For Holiday Inn it is important to analyse and evaluate the weaknesses and threats which
they will be facing in their coming future. With the rise in the competition among the hotels, the
marketers are need to be ready for the future challenges which will be coming in the way of the
Holiday Inn. Some weaknesses and threats which have to be faced by the Holiday Inn are
mentioned below-
 Data security- Data security has been a big concern for every business, as information is
critical to every business organization. The hotel industry is aiming at securing their data
from getting hacked. Holiday Inn is having vast customer base and their data is stored
with the company in their devices. It is important that the personal information of the
customers is safe with the hotel, so they will not face any legal regulations.
 BREXIT impact- Due to the exit of United Kingdom from the European Union, the
hotel industry has been greatly affected. The Holiday Inn has been affected by the
BREXIT as their has been huge shortage of the labour within the company. Most of the
staff is migrated to European countries. Around 300,000 workers have lost their jobs,
which had created the shortage of staff in the company (Swanson, and LaLuzerne, 2018).

For Holiday Inn it is important that they focus on this issue as it is hard to find skilled
labour in a short period of time. In the next 3 years the the human resource managers
have to focus on recruiting the skilled force, so that the business can yield productivity.
 Impact of Russia- Ukraine war- The war has affected the tourism industry as there are
various restrictions on airlines. Due the restrictions on the airlines the people are not able
to move from their houses, thus the hotels are not getting any visitors. Russia is the
largest country in the world, thus many countries are dependent on Russia for the flow of
goods and supply chain management (Vatandost, Namamian and Ghobadilemoki, 2023).
The Holiday Inn has been affected by the war as raw materials costs have been increased
which are exported from Russia. There is a food shortage around the world because many
food items are being stopped from exporting by the Russian government. Thus in the
coming future Holiday Inn have to analyse other countries for importing raw materials.
Analysis of the theoretical principles of services marketing and recommendation to overcome
challenges.
Service marketing mix- In service marketing mix the people, processes and the physical
evidence is also added in the 4 P's of marketing mix. For the service marketers it is important to
analyse the people factor as the business is engaged in providing the facilities to the people. So,
marketers should have complete knowledge about the people whom they are delivering the
services.
Recommendation to overcome the challenges faced by the Holiday Inn are discussed below-
 Use Cybersecurity tools- It is important for the Holiday Inn to have top- notch
cybersecurity tools which are available in the market. Business can analyse several tools
and choose the best tool which is effective in decreasing the firewalls and malware. The
personal information of the clients has to be secured as there are several information like
mobile number, payment card information and address details. The PCI DSS is engaged
in providing the security measures regarding the payment card information. So it is
important to use strong data encryption within the hotel.
 Marketing strategies- The Holiday Inn is engaged in marketing their hotel brand by
using different strategies like using advertising, radios, televisions, mobile marketing and

digital marketing. The company can club their promotions with the travel agencies for
providing the accommodation services at low costs if they are travelling via that
particular air company. It is important for the marketers to target the right audience so
that they can have more profits.
 Marketing mix- The marketers at Holiday Inn can use the marketing mix to enhance
their marketing strategies as they can help in offering successful products (Zhu, 2021).
The marketing mix heps in overcoming the challenges which are faced by the Holiday
Inn. The marketers can analyse from where they can get the raw material at lower costs,
so that they can offer their customers with better quality at low costs.
CONCLUSION
From this report it is concluded that it is important for the businesses to have a complete analysis
of their external factors and internal factors. Through this analysis the businesses can get to know
in which fields they are best and the fields which require some modifications. SWOT analysis
can be used to analyse the different factors as it analyses all the factors which are affecting the

business. This report concluded the evaluation of the challenges which have to be faced by the
hotel in the coming future. So it is important that these challenges are overcome by the marketers
to increase the productivity of the hotel.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Hopkins, C.D., Ferrell, O.C., Ferrell, L. and Hopkins, K.H., 2021. Changing perceptions of
marketing ethics and social responsibility in principles of marketing. Journal of
Marketing Education, 43(2), pp.244-259.
Ismoilova, G., Mirkhadja, D. and Nabieva, F., 2021, November. The Role of Processing
Information in Digital Marketing. In 2021 International Conference on Information
Science and Communications Technologies (ICISCT) (pp. 1-4). IEEE.
Swanson, S.R. and LaLuzerne, M., 2018. Perceptions of Marketing: An Analysis of Differences
and Commonalities Among Business and Non-Business Majors.
Vatandost, T., Namamian, F. and Ghobadilemoki, T., 2023. Principles of marketing ethics and
Internet banking service strategy based on perceived value of customers. Political
Sociology of Iran, 5(12).
Zhu, X., 2021. Research on marketing channel strategy of luxury enterprises in China: taking
Louis Vuitton as an example.