Hospitality Marketing Essentials Report: Marketing Analysis and Plan

This report delves into the essentials of hospitality marketing, using the Hilton London Bankside Hotel as a case study. It begins by explaining the key roles and responsibilities of the marketing function within a hospitality entity, highlighting current and future marketing trends such as micro-influencers and personalization. The report then examines how marketing roles relate to other functions within a hotel, including human resources and finance, emphasizing the importance of effective interdepartmental relationships. A comparative analysis of how different hospitality firms apply the marketing mix to their marketing planning processes is presented, contrasting the strategies of the Hilton London Bankside Hotel and the Mercury London Bridge Hotel. Finally, the report culminates in the development of a basic marketing plan designed to meet the specific objectives of a hospitality enterprise, covering product, price, place, and promotion strategies. The report underscores the significance of marketing in driving customer engagement and achieving organizational goals in the competitive hospitality industry.

Hospitality Marketing
Essentials
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
P1. Explaining key roles together with responsibilities of marketing function in a hospitality
entity............................................................................................................................................3
P2. Discussion of the ways roles and responsibilities of marketing are related to other context
of company..................................................................................................................................6
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................7
P3. Comparison of how distinct hospitality firms apply marketing mix to marketing planning
process for reaching organisational objectives............................................................................7
TASK 3..........................................................................................................................................10
P4. Producing basic marketing plan to meet objectives related to marketing of hospitality
enterprise....................................................................................................................................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................13
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................14
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INTRODUCTION
All businesses whether small, medium or large, makes effective utilisation of marketing
for generating awareness and influencing target consumer group to engage with their offering
(Chuang and Hu, 2017). Marketing is an essential tool for business concerns as it comprises
understanding marketplaces, building profitable relations, delivering quality, fulfilling demands
and implementing customer driven strategies. In present scenario, awareness for marketing
essential is high. For improving knowledge for hospitality marketing essential, Hilton London
Bankside Hotel is chosen enterprise. It is situated at London, UK for providing amenities and
services such as on-site restaurant, indoor pool, fitness center and many more to vacationers or
travellers.
The report focuses on role of marketing and its interrelations with other units of functions
within the company. It also compares how organisations in hospitality industry uses marketing
mix elements to achieve objectives. At last, detailed marketing plan is developed for meeting
objectives of hospitality firm.
TASK 1
P1. Explaining key roles together with responsibilities of marketing function in a hospitality
entity
Introduction of marketing concept with current along with future trends
The concept of marketing is involves identification of needs of consumers and
accordingly producing products, ideas, services and others which will have potentials to fulfil
target audiences while making profit. In Hilton London Bankside Hotel, concept of marketing is
used for focusing towards wants and preferences of consumers for developing effective
marketing strategies which satisfies target market group and helps managers to accomplish
objectives of enterprise. The current trends in marketing of In Hilton London Bankside Hotel are
as follows:
 Micro influencers: At present, marketing any product or service of company by brand
ambassadors and social influencers is in trend (Dixit, Lee and Loo, 2019). These are the
population on social media that have relations with organisations as well as are paid for
promoting commodities on their personal profiles. Marketers of Hilton London Bankside
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Hotel considers the trend as legitimate marketing strategy to connect with larger clients
through celebrity promotions.
 Personalisation: Artificial Intelligence as well as machine learning have driven
enhancement of more effective analysis of data which makes working easier for
marketers of hospitality industry to provide hyper personalisation to customers through
unique journeys together with content personalisation. In In Hilton London Bankside
Hotel, marketers have already leveraged certain Marketing Automation to serve
customers at all stages of user journey.
There are various predicted or future trends of marketing by marketing department of In
Hilton London Bankside Hotel which are as follows:
 Virtual reality: In future, virtual reality will emerge as clear winner for offering more
interactive, engaging together with personal experiences. Through this tool, marketers of
Hilton London Bankside Hotel will be able to engage storytelling for connecting
customers with the brand by emotional intensity unimaginable with digital media.
 Blockchain’s potential: The trend is touted as technology which bring dramatic
transformation to various range of sectors. With blockchain, marketing department of
Hilton London Bankside Hotel will address certain of its large concerns addition to
challenges. Moreover, it will help in resolving privacy concerns, building consumer trust,
enhancing transparency in context to recognising bots.
Overview of marketing process
Marketing process includes the ways through which a business devises values for
customers as well as builds stronger customer relationships with the hope of capturing values in
return. The marketing process of Hilton London Bankside Hotel is as follows:
Stage 1: Understanding marketplaces and customers: It is the foremost stage of
marketing process in which marketing team identifies needs, demands and choices of customers
for building suitable offerings (Dowson and Bassett, 2018). In case with Hilton London
Bankside Hotel. Marketers understand customers for building want satisfying product and build
value laden relationships.
Stage 2: Designing marketing strategy: Herein, marketers of Hilton London Bankside
Hotel designs customer driven strategy by focusing on areas like defining target market and
choosing value proposition.
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Stage 3: Constructing integrated marketing plan: In this stage, organisational
marketing stage defines which group of customer will be served and how to create values.
Further, marketers of Hilton London Bankside Hotel constructs integrated marketing plans for
intending values to target audience.
Stage 4: Building profitable relationships: Herein, main emphasis of marketing
department of Hilton London Bankside Hotel is customer relationship management for providing
superior values and satisfactions to customers.
Stage 5: Capturing values from customers: Organisational marketers also works on
producing high equity for customers that is total combined lifetime values of prospective and
potential customers. In this stage, marketing staff of Hilton London Bankside Hotel arranges
resources for carrying out the whole marketing process and exerting control.
Roles and responsibilities of marketing functions in organisational context
The roles of marketing function of Hilton London Bankside Hotel are explained below:
Organising and conducting campaign management for initiatives: It is role of
marketing department of company to identify goods and services in proactive manner to
emphasis on sales cycle and producing communications which leads to word out (Verdoy. 2013).
In Hilton London Bankside Hotel, marketing function performs role of organising and
conducting campaigns for promoting any initiative undertaken by managers.
Monitoring and managing pages on different online platforms: Marketing function
have role of contributing managing together with maintaining social media pages properly.
Within Hilton London Bankside Hotel, marketing function perform the role to manage different
social media accounts along with carefully watching what is posted by customers or others
online.
Along with role, marketing function of Hilton London Bankside Hotel have certain
responsibilities towards the brand that are as explained:
Work addition to brand values: Brand is considered as representation of feelings which
a commodity and company shares represents. In case with Hilton London Bankside Hotel, it is
responsibility of marketing function to draft and disseminate images, ideas as well as messages
which best communicate the values of brand in market.
Innovation: In modern era, customers are required to be surprised through higher offers,
great discounts and many more every day as they are more demanding with companies. It is
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responsibility of marketing staff of Hilton London Bankside Hotel to work on innovative
promotions, customer retention techniques, affiliated programs and improving conversions of
actions effectively.
Tracking trends together with monitoring competition: For an enterprise, it is
significant to have knowledge about their position in market and competition. This is a
responsibility of whole marketing function of Hilton London Bankside Hotel to watch
competition calmly for learning what to be done in best aspects and recognising mistakes for
avoiding falling.
P2. Discussion of the ways roles and responsibilities of marketing are related to other context of
company
Marketing function is part of organisation and is connected with other functional units
effectively. With this, it is analysed that marketing function is required to back up with other
operational functions to help the organisation meeting its objectives (Gibson and Parkman,
2018). In association to Hilton London Bankside Hotel, there are various functions or
departments that work, guides and lead each other to develop, produce, promote and serve
customers with high quality amenities. The hotel managers follows hierarchical structure within
which all information passes from top authorities to lower employees. In this hotel, different
functional units that operates are human resource management, marketing, front office, finance
and many more. The interrelated ways in which responsibilities along with roles of marketing
function with wider functions of Hilton London Bankside Hotel are underneath:
Marketing department with human resource management: Within a company, role of
human resource management is to recruit, select, training, compensation and retaining employees
for other departments. Similarly, marketing function of Hilton London Bankside Hotel
communicate with human resource management to design job advertisement and others to grab
attention of qualified candidates. At same time, human resource management of the hotel
provides training and compensation to marketing staff by coordination with the function
properly.
Marketing function and Finance function: In all businesses, finance function play roles
of managing money, devising budgets, arranging funds and using available financial resources in
best possible manner. Similarly, marketing function of company play role of researching about
market, analysing through tools, making sheets and many more. In this, marketing function of
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Hilton London Bankside Hotel influences and interrelates its roles with finance function by
tracking trends, analysing competition and providing graphs about positions of company in terms
of revenue along with other aspects. Similarly, finance function interrelated its responsibilities
with marketing function by devising budget for marketing programmes, arranging required
funds, controlling its expenses and assisting in promotion of brand to meet its strategic and
organisational objectives (Gunawardane, 2020).
Value and importance of marketing role in business
Marketing role is most valuable and important for modern businesses. in Hilton London
Bankside Hotel, the marketing role of important as it conducts market research, understand about
customers, shares information with other functions, builds relationships with target audience and
takes the company to great heights through suitable promotions. At same time, marketing role of
Hilton London Bankside Hotel is valuable because it creates employment, acts as source of
organisational innovation and guides in development of entity in competition.
Conclusion based on critical analysis of significance of effective relationships among distinct
functional departments
From the presented information, it is concluded that effective relationships within
different functional departments of Hilton London Bankside Hotel is significant as builds trust
and mutual understanding between departments to carry out activities towards organisational
objectives. For example, the information that is shared by marketing function with other
functional units such as human resource management, finance and many more improves
operational efficiency. It results in delivering better customer services, increasing
communication efficiency, avoiding conflicts and grabbing opportunities for advancement in
professional areas.
TASK 2
P3. Comparison of how distinct hospitality firms apply marketing mix to marketing planning
process for reaching organisational objectives
Within a business, marketing mix is used as a tool to focus towards various elements which
go to promote a brand together with its offerings. The concept of marketing mix is delineated to
set of tactics which are adopted for promotion or generating awareness about offerings and the
company (Gursoy and Chi, 2018). Within Hilton London Bankside Hotel, marketing mix is used
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as a technique to generate awareness among target audience and selling offerings or multiple
accommodation programmes to end consumers. The goal of the hotel is to make huge profit
through selling various things including accommodation packages, room services and so on for
maximising customers. In context to different hotels, use of marketing mix elements with
distinct tactical methods for attaining identified goals are as follows:
Comparison Hilton London Bankside Hotel Mercury London Bridge
Hotel
Product Product is defined to any physical commodity or
intangible service and experience. In relevance to
Hilton London Bankside Hotel, product strategy is
related to consumer based service development
through which managers offers best possible
services for achieving objective of retaining
consumer loyalty. The services or products that are
provided by the entity within eth strategy includes
suitable transportation mode, comfortable
accommodation, different tour packages and
various options of food along with drinks (Hastings
and Domegan, 2017).
In Mercury London
Bridge, followed product
strategy is diversification
strategy for providing
authenticate hospitality
together with luxurious
services such as spacious
rooms, wide offerings, in
door restaurant and
modern facilities for
achieving objectives.
Price For achieving objectives, administrators of Hilton
London Bankside Hotel uses premium pricing
strategy to set prices of offerings more than
immediate rivals as it helps in cultivating larger
market by just selling amenities bit higher in quality
than others.
Within Mercury London
Bridge Hotel, prices for
offerings are set as per
value added pricing tactic
so that amenities are
offered with pricing
option which is dependent
on kind and service
offered at the place.
Place It signifies the location the entity selects permit
access of products. In aspect to Hilton London
Bankside Hotel, it allows its customers to enjoy its
The place at which
Mercury London Bridge
Hotel permits its
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facilities from its headquarter that is Great Suffolk
Street, United Kingdom. Its presence entails
traveller’s delight along with business destinations
(Melissen and Sauer, 2018).
customers to have access
of its offering is
Southwark Street, United
Kingdom. From this, it
customises desires of
travellers.
Promotion Hilton London Bankside Hotel is a hospitality
entity have chosen to select unique promotional
activities or tactics to deal with situation of Covid-
19 and stand against the crowd. Its promotional
activities includes tradition and digital media of
newspaper, radio, travel magazines, social media
and relationship marketing that achieves its
objectives through innovative market indulgence.
Marketing Consulting
Group of Mercury London
Bridge Hotel uses
promotional techniques of
social media platforms,
mail order marketing, free
accommodation
programmes and branded
promotional gifts for
reaching towards
objectives.
People In Hilton London Bankside Hotel, there are huge
number of people which contributes in achieving
business goals. All these people are assets of
company that works in departments of finance,
marketing, administration and hence forth that are
trained by on the job and off the job training
methods.
Marketing team of
Mercury London Bridge
Hotel recruits and selects
people that are specialised
in accounting, room
cleaning, bar tending,
reception and many more.
Physical
evidence
The physical evidence which are given by Hilton
London Bankside Hotel to its customers are all
services received. Moreover, their receipts, tracking
information, brochures, etc are also part of physical
evidence (Jena, 2020).
In Mercury London
Bridge Hotel, physical
evidences provided to
clients and guests are
finest dishes, antique art
collection and attractive
interior.
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Process The management team of Hilton London Bankside
Hotel uses multiple kinds of processes in workplace
to expose integrates selling. The stages to sell the
packages of the hospitality company includes
prospecting and qualifying, preparation, approach,
presentation, handling services or amenities, closing
sale and follow up (Lashley and Chibili, 2019).
The process adopted in
Mercury London Bridge
Hotel to provide amenities
to end consumer are
devising content, posting
in on platforms,
influencing decision
making of customers,
result analysis, providing
services along with
measurement of
satisfaction.
TASK 3
P4. Producing basic marketing plan to meet objectives related to marketing of hospitality
enterprise
Marketing plan is referred to a comprehensive document which highlights overall marketing
efforts for some organisational product or service (Muralidharan and Raval, 2020). As Covid-19
situation have left deep scars on entire hospitality industry, managers of Hilton London Bankside
Hotel are planning to initiate workings as they were performing earlier. For this, marketing team
of the hotel have developed an idea of “Hilton London Bankside Fly” which will assist travellers
for instant bookings, less personal interactions, easy check-ins and payments in convenient
manner. For this, Marketing Consulting Group of Hilton London Bankside Hotel have developed
the marketing plan that is below:
Executive summary: It provides an overview about larger document that determines what
actions are taken for particular idea. The executive summary of marketing plan of Hilton London
Bankside Hotel includes overview of company, its mission and goals, integrated marketing mix,
situational analysis, target customer, predicted budget and monitoring of the plan.
Overview of company: Hilton London Bankside Hotel is hotel organisation that operates
under Hilton Hotels and Resorts. The hotel offers attractive travel and accommodation packages
to its customers (Hilton London Bankside Hotel. 2020). The customers of the entity are facing
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issues in booking rooms, making payments and so on due to pandemic of Covid-19. To help
them, Marketing Consulting Group of the hotel have planning to develop a mobile application
that is “Hilton London Bankside Fly” through which customers will be able to engage
themselves in instant bookings, faster payments, convenient check-ins and outs.
Mission and goals: Mission of Hilton London Bankside Hotel is to become well popular
hospitality business that satisfies all requirements of travellers through best or quality of
offerings.
The goal of Hilton London Bankside Hotel by installing the mobile application is to increase
sales of accommodation packages by 15%, enhance customer base by 18% and to improve ROI
by 10% till 2022.
Situational Analysis: Marketing Consultancy Group of Hilton London Bankside Hotel is
using SWOT model to analyse current situations or circumstances. SWOT analysis of Hilton
London Bankside Fly is below:
Strengths:
 Hilton London Bankside Fly have
potential to serve nearby 650 customers
at a time.
 The mobile application assist
businesses to develop unique brand
identity.
Weaknesses:
 Hilton London Bankside Fly requires
qualified staff to operate or manage it.
 The application fails to analyse what
type of facilities they are searching for.
Opportunities:
 Hilton London Bankside Fly have
opportunity to improve portfolio of
service of Hilton London Bankside
Hotel.
 It has competence to improve
awareness about the brand across the
globe.
Threats:
 In tough situation, like Covid-19,
changes of legislations from poliotical
leaders have huge probability to impact
on its launch.
 Higher competition from similar
applications used by other hotels is
threat for it (Yang, 2016).
Strategy: For Hilton London Bankside Fly, managers have used strategies of elements of
marketing mix that are as follows:
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Product: The key product of Hilton London Bankside Hotel to deal with Covid-19 pandemic
is Hilton London Bankside Fly.
Price: For Hilton London Bankside Fly, value based pricing strategy will be used by Hilton
London Bankside Hotel to offer services as per availability and perceptions of customers.
Place: Hilton London Bankside Fly can be installed in mobile or other devices of customers.
Also, to make less personal contacts, managers of Hilton London Bankside Fly will provide
service through the application at its official premise.
Promotion: Hilton London Bankside Fly will be promoted through advertisements, pay per
click strategy, email marketing, billboards and social media platforms.
People: The people or human resource to manage or operate the application will be highly
qualified Information technology managers and its team.
Physical evidence: The physical evidence for Hilton London Bankside Fly will be images or
text of receipts, PDF of bookings and brochures.
Process: The process for installing application is downloading it form internet, filling
necessary details and using it for requirements (Wirtz and Lovelock, 2016).
Financial predictions: The predicted budget for Hilton London Bankside Fly is:
Monitoring and evaluation: To measure the results of marketing plan for Hilton London
Bankside, KPI indicators that are sales analysis, customer relationship management, etc will be
used to analyse gaps in actual results than forecasted results. Also, benchmarking will also be
helpful to control measures through analysing how other companies are using similar mobile
application and devising strategies to deal with gaps (Gunawardane, 2020).
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