Marketing Essentials for Travel and Tourism: A Report

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Marketing Essentials for Travel and Tourism
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Table of Contents
Introduction...................................................................................................................... 3
LO1: (P1, P2)................................................................................................................... 4
LO2: (P3)........................................................................................................................10
LO3: (P4)........................................................................................................................17
Conclusion..................................................................................................................... 22
Reference list................................................................................................................. 23
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Introduction
Hospitality industry is one of the booming industries in modern scenario that has high
market demand. In order to create a solid brand, market reputation and wide customer
base, the role of marketing in all aspects of business is undeniable. The term
marketing has come from the word market and in simple words; marketing refers to
the process through which an market can be captured. Modern business ventures have
been adopting effective marketing strategies for better sustaining in competitive market
place.
“Marriott London Park Lane” is one of the oldest and biggest hotels in UK that is run
by Marriott Hotels group. This hotel group is one of the largest hotel groups in the
world. However, the hotel has more than 156 well decorated, deluxe rooms along with
all the luxurious facilities to meet expectations of customers effectively (marriott.com,
2019).
This paper will shed light on different aspects and effectiveness of marketing functions
in terms of increasing organizational profits and maintaining business excellence.
Marketing mix strategy will be explained in context of two hotel organizations and
differences in their using techniques will be assessed as well. Lastly, a basic marketing
plan will be prepared in this study.
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LO1: (P1, P2)
Explain the role of marketing and how it interrelates with other functional units in
a hospitality organisation.
P1 Explain the key roles and responsibilities of the marketing function within a
selected hospitality organisation
Marketing is the core weapon in modern business world to reach out more numbers of
potential customers and influencing their purchasing behavior to buy products from any
particular venture. Effective marketing strategy is crucial to build strong brand image,
attract new customer base and maintain loyalty altogether. Marketing informs the
customers regarding the new product details of any particular business organization to
increase the sales revenue of the company (Kotler et al., 2015). In hospitality industry,
marketing has great effectiveness and it has played a crucial role in making the
hospitality industry one of the emerging business industries in modern context. In
hospitality industry, customer loyalty is the key of business success and majority of the
successful hospitality organizations such as “Marriott London Park Lane” are aimed
at offering maximum satisfaction to the customers and achieving competitive advantage
in market place. However, hospitality sales are completely different from customer
goods sales as marketers should sell both tangible and intangible items. Apart from this
marketing functions are complex, especially in hospitality field and becoming popular
day by day. The role of marketing functions in hospitality foundations like “Marriott
London Park Lane” is as follows:
Market research
In order to meet customer expectations and offer them their required products, business
organizations are supposed to conduct market research about the choice, perspective,
perception and purchasing behaviour of the targeted customers. Through proper
assessment of customer choices and preferences, it must be much easier for hotel
organizations to better fulfil the requirements and demands of the customer base in a
precise manner (Sarstedt and Mooi, 2014). Through interacting with new and existing
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customer base, collecting consumer reviews on multiple online websites and reviewing
organizational sales data, marketing department assists R&D team to properly
determine the customer demands and focuses on offering maximum satisfaction
through their services.
Brand awareness
Brand awareness is one of the major considerations in business context. Organizations
those have high brand reputation in market must have an advantage to gather attention
of huge numbers of customers at a same time, which results in increased sales revenue
of the firm (Huang and Sarigöllü, 2014). If potential customers do not about the
company, they cannot book the hotel as well. Marketing department ensures that
information on restaurants, hotels and resorts is simple to find as well as always up-to-
date. Brand awareness directly impacts on the business excellence and profit
generation of the company.
Figure 1: Functions of marketing
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(Source: Foxall, 2014)
Promotion
Promotion is another important marketing function that directly influences customers
and sales figure of any particular hotel business organization. In modern market
scenario, there are multiple rivals in hotel industry and almost every hotel organization
is offering similar faculties and services (Andrews and Shimp, 2017). Therefore,
promotion is the best technique to grab attention of customers. Effective marketing
campaigns and promotional activities results in high growth and greater profits in
business.
Marketing plan preparation
Successful companies always look for making appropriate and effective marketing
planning for better functioning promotional operations and attracting more numbers of
potential customers in an effective manner. Preparing best marketing plan is one of the
key marketing functions that allows accomplishing sales target effectively (McDonald
and Wilson, 2016). Hospitality organizations like “Marriott London Park Lane” always
prepare a plan to reach their set business destinations.
Price setting
Price setting refers to the process in which price rates of products are being set.
Marketing department gathers information from market regarding rival competitors, their
products and price rates and then sets effective as well as competitive price rates of
products and services that it can attract customers (Alvarez and Lippi, 2014).
Appropriate and affordable price rates of hospitality services allow better customer
engagement.
Design, development and modification of services
Through using the collected market research data, marketing department is responsible
for modifying and developing the services in such manner that it can meet customer
expectations. Marketing department recommend some of the changes to production
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department according to the reviews and complaints of the customers. It assists to
achieve competitive advantage in market (Burns et al., 2014).
Accelerating sales figure and profits
The key marketing function is accelerating organizational sales figure and revenue
simultaneously for better growth and prosperity of the hospitality business. Marketing
personnel promotes new services and dishes in market and informs the customers
regarding the service details (Gregory and Rawling, 2016). They make aware the
people regarding the value of the services. Through this technique, marketing
department speeds up the sales and profit of business organizations like “Marriott
London Park Lane”.
Apart from this, marketing function includes standardisation and grading, maintaining
customer relationship, transporting, storing, increasing growth rate and other vital roles
that are quite beneficial to business ventures in terms of developing the overall business
structure and model simultaneously.
P2 Discuss how roles and responsibilities of marketing relate to the wider
organisational context
The term marketing is associated with multiple vital roles and responsibilities. One of
the major responsibilities of marketing department is managing healthy interrelationship
with all other functional units like finance unit, R&D unit, housekeeping unit, front office
unit, HR unit and others (Feng et al., 2014). Great internal bonding between functional
units of a hotel organization is the symbol of success and high customer engagement.
Marketing operations always impact on different functions of hotel organization. Hotels
like “Marriott London Park Lane” have different functional units such as front office
department, HR department, R&D department, housekeeping department and others for
better maintenance of the visitors and offering them maximum satisfaction.
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Figure 2: Interrelationship between marketing and other functional units
(Source: Barrales‐Molina et al., 2014)
Marketing department and R&D department work together for accurate assessment of
market demands and customer expectations. Marketing department is the core of any
business so that its operations impact over all most any other business activities within
the firm. For instance, finance department and marketing department interacts and
consults regarding the price rates of the services as well as finance department
allocates capital for arrangement of different marketing campaigns. On the other hand,
marketing department accelerates the revenue of the organization, from where finance
department gets funded. Marketing operations and campaigns are mostly directed by
HR department of the organization. HR recruits the most eligible candidates for making
an effective marketing team to influence the growth and profit generation of the hotel. In
addition to this, housekeeping department of the hotel organization maintains the
cleanliness and hygiene around the front office and hotel premises for better customer
engagement and offering rich hospitality experience to customers those are attracted by
marketing department. Front office department is one of the key departments in a hotel
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business front office department and marketing department both work for speeding up
revenue generation of the firm. Marketing operations invite and attract wide range of
customers that are well accommodated and assisted by front office department in order
to offer them all the facilities and increasing customer satisfaction level effectively (Chen
et al., 2015). Front office department arranges attractive decoration and adequate
facilities for just arrived customers in the hotel, which directly increases interest and
satisfaction of customers.
Overall, it can be stated that the marketing operations impact over almost every
functions within a hotel starting from HR practices to finance accounting management
and even front office and housekeeping functions. However, successful hotels chains
like “Marriott London Park Lane” always try to build and maintain a healthy and
strong interrelationship between different functional units, which leads them towards
better business excellence and greater hotel performance. Maintained relationship
between different functional units is such required for sustaining in this competitive
market place in an effective manner.
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LO2: (P3)
Compare ways in which hospitality organisations use elements of the marketing
mix (7Ps) to achieve overall business objectives
P3 Compare the ways in which different hospitality organisations apply the
marketing mix to the marketing planning process to achieve business objectives
Modern hotel business organization use different but effective tools and techniques for
producing better marketing plan. It is referred to the set of activities or methods that are
basically used by business organizations for promotion its brand, product and services
in market. It allows better customer engagement and producing greater marketing plan
to achieve their set business objectives in an effective manner (Huang and Sarigöllü,
2014). “Marriott London Park Lane” is one of the most popular UK based British
multinational hotel organization that is run by Marriott Hotels group across the global
premises, where Hyatt International hotel is an American multinational hotel that has
its presence in more than 110 different locations around the world. Both of these
popular hotel organizations use different marketing mix tactics and strategies for greater
achievement of their business goals. Difference between these two popular hotel
organizations in terms of using the marketing mix strategy is as follows:
Elements “Marriott London Park
Lane”
Hyatt International hotel
Product Product refers to items and
services that are actually
served to visitors. In
“Marriott London Park
Lane” there is verity of
service selection option.
The hotel manages a broad
as well as diversified
portfolio of items and offer
Hyatt International hotel
has wide product portfolio.
The hotel serves different
range of services and
accommodation facilities as
well as tasty food and
beverage items to meet
customer expectations and
sustain in market
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different range of foods,
beverages and multiple
luxurious accommodations
services and facilities for
better customer
engagement and increasing
their satisfaction level
simultaneously (Brookes
and Altinay, 2015). They
provide all the
accommodation facilities
and high standard of food
and beverage items to
customers that they cannot
refuse. This broad and
diversified item and service
list has provided the
company competitive
advantage in market.
effectively. The hotel
prepares traditional as well
as modern dishes for
serving different flavours of
taste so that customers will
come back again to the
hotel to taste new foods
and beverages. This
extended product portfolio
and item menu has
increased the numbers of
potential customers in the
hotel.
Place “Marriott London Park
Lane” mainly conducts
their business operations
and activities in UK
premises. They also use
online sites for booking
hotels or for any kind of
hotel information. Apart
from this, the hotel already
has expanded its existing
business operations in
more than 38 different
Hyatt International hotel is
an American multinational
hotel industry and it uses
both online and physical
market places for customer
engagement and more
numbers of sales. The hotel
foundation already has its
presence in different
international locations and
great popularity worldwide.
Additionally, the attractive
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countries and has wide
range of customer base.
This wide expansion of the
hotel and huge customer
base is one of the key
strengths of “Marriott
London Park Lane”in
terms of sustaining in
market and competing with
rivals.
online site of the hotel
organization also assists to
meet sales target and
accomplish business
objectives (Buhalis and
Amaranggana, 2015).
Price Price rates of products and
services are extremely
important business factors.
Hotels mainly follow
different tactics and
strategies to set effective
and competitive price rates
of their products and
services (Calabrese and De
Francesco, 2014).
“Marriott London Park
Lane” sets premium price
rate of their hotel items and
accommodation services.
Due to high quality of food,
beverage and
accommodation services,
customers do not hesitate
to pay premium price rates
of those services.
Hyatt International hotel is
also a luxurious hotel that
offers high quality products
and services to their
customers at high price
rates. However, the hotel
organization also follows
competitive pricing
strategy to set the most
effective price rates of the
product (Nagle and Müller,
2017). The hotel industry
always has focused on
catering both high-profile
business class as well as
upper class section of the
society. The hotel group
also has eligible research
team for analysing and
assessing the, market
responds and similar
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