Hospitality Marketing Essentials: Travelodge Case Study Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Travelodge's marketing strategies. It begins with an introduction to marketing's role in the hospitality sector, focusing on how Travelodge utilizes the marketing mix to achieve its organizational goals. Task 1 discusses the key responsibilities of Travelodge's marketing functions, including service development, promotion, customer relationship management, and market research. Task 2 examines the interrelationships between marketing and other hospitality functions, such as front office, food and beverage, and housekeeping, exploring both positive and negative aspects of these interconnections. Task 3 delves into the ways hospitality organizations apply their marketing mix. Task 4 proposes a marketing plan for Travelodge. The report incorporates relevant references and examples to support its analysis.

Hospitality
Marketing
Essentials

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
P1 : Discuss Key responsibilities of Marketing Functions of Travelodge.............................3
M1: Interrelation of Micro and Macro marketing functions..................................................5
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................6
P2: What in the importance of interrelationships between marketing and other hospitality
functions.................................................................................................................................6
M2: Critically examine the positive and negative aspects of interrelation of different
functional units.......................................................................................................................7
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................1
P3 Ways in hospitality organisations apply their marketing mix...........................................1
M3 Different tactics applied by hospitality organisations......................................................3
TASK 4............................................................................................................................................4
P4 & M4 Marketing plan for Travelodge...............................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5
.........................................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Marketing plays a very important role in an organisation. A good market strategy havehas
has a power to make the company or break it (Baker and Magnini, 2016). It can be defined as
activities which are associated with buying and selling of the products along with other activities
such as advertisement, distribution of the products and so many so. Marketing also plays a
crucial role in hospitality sector. A hospitality industry is consists of hotels, lodging, events,
theme parks, etc. This assignment will discuss about the role of marketing in the hotel sector and
how these organisations like Travelodge uses marketing mix in order to achieve the
organisational goals.
Travelodge is a private company that deals in hotels and hospitality industry throughout
the world (Cobanoglu and et. al., 2011). Some of the countries that the company operates in are
United States, UK, Canada, Australia and many so. It is the second biggest in the budget range
hotels and third largest in hotel chain in UK with the total number of 32,600 bedrooms till 2010.
TASK 1
P1 : Discuss Key responsibilities of Marketing Functions of Travelodge
The key responsibilities of marketing functions are as below:
Travelodge Hotels Ltd.
It is a well known private organisation that serves in hotel industry.The respective organisation
is the third largest hotel chain in UK and second largest budget hotel chain in the world.
Roles & Responsibilities How is it executed in the Travelodge
1.Service Development Keep updating their Services and hotel
accommodation quality to engage more
customer and keep up with other competitors.
2. Promotion Offering incentives such as one night extra
accommodations when bookings are low are
plans of promotional activities.
3.Customer Relationship Various loyalty programs to ensure high level
of repeat business and stable Revenue of the

respective company.
4. Market Research Identifying trends that can affect the price of
Travelodge such as increasing demand of low
cost accommodations, business travellers, etc.
Service Development is one of the most effective way to attract more customers and keep
up with the competitors in the hotel market is to keep modifying their services quality. The
marketing department of Travelodge is introducing new themes in the room with more updated
amenities in order to attract high earning customers as well.
Promotion is very important for the hotel industry, speciallyespecially during the time of
off season and low bookings (Desai, 2013). Hence, marketing team of Travelodge offers various
attractive packages like one night extra with the booking of 3 nights. Such offers help the
customer to invest in the deals which helps the respective organisation earn good revenue even
during the low booking times.
To have a stable profit and repetitive business, it is important to build a strong
relationship with customers. Therefore,the customer relationship team of marketing of
Travelodge offers various loyalty programs which helps the customers to earn points from their
invested money and redeem them in their next bookings. This helps in maintaining a good
loyalty between client and Travelodge and ends in providing benefits for both.
There are various factors that builds the appeal of a hotel to the customer (Florence and
et. al., 2015). These can be the location of hotel, reputation, access to roads, airport and many so.
Hence, the research team of Travelodge conducts a research to ensure the trends that can affect
the sales of the hotel such as increasing demand of low cost accommodations, business travellers,
etc.

M1: Interrelation of Micro and Macro marketing functions
Role Responsibility How do they Relate to each other and
to the Micro Marketing environment
1.Promotion The key responsibilities
of promotions is to ensure
that the Travelodge is
targeting the right
customers.
The promotional activities attractsattract
more customers and helps in educating
them about about new offers. This
ultimately helps in raising the growth
level of the respective company.
2.Customer
Relationship
The customer relationship
team is responsible for
building a healthy
relationship with
customers to ensure
future business of the
concerned organisation.
It is important for the company to
maintain customer relationship with the
consumers or hotel guests. Hence,
providing loyalty programs and various
schemes helps in maintaining healthy
relationship which leads to more
frequent visits and high earning for
Travelodge.
3. Market Research The market research
helps in figuring out
various elements which
can help in raising the
sales of the respective
organisation.
The market research helps in identifying
the latest trends of the market along
with a close analysesanalysis on the
concerned company's Competitors.
Further, this helps in offeringin offering
a competitive price in order to attract
more customers.
Illustration 1: Organisational chart
Sources: Organizational chart for leisure firm. 2018

Role Responsibility How do they Relate to each other and
to the Macro Marketing environment
1. Promotion Apart from targeting the
customers, it is also
responsible for
convincing and attracting
more customers.
The promotional activities can be done
according to the Social factor of macro
environment of market which studies
the lifestyle, taste and preferences of the
society. This will help in better targeting
and attaining more response for
Travelodge.
2. Market Research It's key responsibility is
to understand current
trends which will help to
raise the profit level of
the Travelodge.
The technology has a direct relation
with market research as the better
technological tools will attain better and
more accurate results.
3.Service
Development
The duty or responsibility
of service development is
to modify the product or
services that is offered by
the company to fulfil the
customer's needs.
A better quality of service will lead to
more customer proffered services which
will further result in increase in number
of sales. Thus, more sales will help in
obtaining more economical growth of
the country.
TASK 2
P2: What in the importance of interrelationships between marketing and other hospitality
functions
There are various departments in the concerned hotel which helps in efficient running of
the hotel. It is consist consists of 4 operational department which are house
keepinghousekeeping, F&B, Kitchen or production and front office department (Guilding, 2014).
Along with these, there are various are various secondary departments which are also very
important to run a hotel. These are sales and marketing, HR, Accounts and finance and many
more. Marketing department is a functional area that is responsible for generating new business
for Travelodge hotels. It could be in the form of functions, room sales, restaurant sales and many
so. The marketing department also handles the advertising, sales promotions and publicity of the

respective hotel chain. However, it has a direct or indirect relation with other functions of
Travelodge such as front office, house keepinghousekeeping, F&B, and many so.
Marketing and Front office department - These two departments do work together.
The key role and responsibilities of front office department of Travelodge is to conduct check in
and check out process, handling queries, etc. There are various marketing activities that are
conducted by front office department of Travelodge such as loyalty program engagement,
providing various discounts at the time of check out, and educating the customer about upcoming
events and offers. Hence, a smooth communication is important between these departments.
F&B and Marketing - Food and Beverage, also known as F&B is responsible for setting
up table, serving food and drinks and preparing dishes (Hassanien and et. al., 2010). As various
food dishes are prepared and presented in such attractive ways which helps to attract more
customers. The marketing team of Travelodge promotes those dishes in order to attract more
customers in the restaurant of the hotel which ultimately leads the total revenue of the respective
hotel.
Housekeeping and marketing department - Housekeeping maintains the decorum of the hotel
by maintaining the hygiene and quality of the concerned hotel's services. Additionally, this
department is responsible for placing amenities in the rooms, maintenance of gardens and
swimming pools. This helps the marketing to promote the quality and ambience of Travelodge
which helps to attract more sales.
M2: Critically examine the positive and negative aspects of interrelation of different functional
units.
The functional departments of the respective work together in order to attain high
revenue and growth. However, there can be certain positive as well as negative impact in the
Travelodge depending on how smoothly these departments works together. The positive and
negative outcomes are mentioned below.
Department Positive Negative
Marketing and Front Office A smooth communication
between these 2 departments
will help in educating and
promoting more schemes of
If the marketing and front
office doesn't have a clear
communication, the front
office would not be able to

the respective hotel as front
office is the department which
has a direct dealing with the
customer and have the power
of influencing the clients
(Kastenholz, Carneiro and
Marques, 2012).
deliver right information about
the offers and schemes due to
which the customers will stay
unknown about the offers they
can reveal.
Marketing and F&B A good harmony between the
mentioned 2 departments will
help the hotel to discover new
trends of serving and menu up
gradation which will help
Travelodge to keep up with
market trends.
If the marketing team doesn't
provide appropriate data and
promotion, the F&B of the
hotel will not be able to grow
and stand in the competition.
Marketing and Housekeeping The proper management of
housekeeping will help to
maintain the cleanliness and
quality which will help the
marketing team to easily
promote the respective hotel.
The maintenance of the hotel
will raise the prices of the
services that are provided by
Travelodge due to which, the
customers will look for other
cheaper alternatives.
Marketing and Kitchen By the result of research
provided by the marketing
team in context of customer's
food preferences and latest
substitutes, the company can
attain more customers and
lower down the cost of
production.
It is not possible to satisfy
every customer's taste as every
customer's preference is
different and not all the
customers are comfortable
with the changes, which is why
the planning and changes
sometimes fails.

TASK 3
P3 Ways in hospitality organisations apply their marketing mix
Element of
Market-mix
(7Ps)
Travelodge Holiday Inn
Product
Travelodge hotels limited, operates
in hotels and hospitality industry
throughout UK ( Crick and Spencer,
2011). Being a private company it is
a second largest in hotel sector and
third largest in hotel chain in UK
having huge number of bedrooms.
A British-owned American brand of
hotels and a subsidiary of
intercontinental hotel groups,
Holiday Inn was founded in US.
They provide services like lodging,
food services, arrangements and
accommodations for meeting, time
shares and conventions.
Price
Here the prices are charged
according to quality and facilities
provided by the hotel group. The
prices may very according to
different locations of Travelodge
hotels and marginal cost is also
added in it. After analysing whole
expenses and inputs Travelodge
design and use premium pricing
strategy to stand above the
competitors.
The amount of money charged by
the suppliers for the materials as
well as the facilities that are
provided by Holiday Inn needs
thorough analysis. It is done to
design and plan their pricing that is
computed in many ways, like cost-
plus and geographical pricing
(Pappa, 2014).
Place
Travelodge are situated in more than
500 locations in UK and
approximately 15 hotels in Ireland
and Spain and having its
headquarter in England, UK.
Holiday inn is an intercontinental
hotel group that serves in more than
thousand locations all over the world
where it is headquartered in
Denham, UK.
Service can easily be replicated due Being a intercontinental hotel group,
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Promotion
to which its promotion play crucial
in differentiating service offering of
Travelodge in customer's
perspective. Therefore Travelodge
group invest heavily in advertising
their services as it is necessary to
attract customers in this highly
competitive sector. For example,
promoting Loyalty programs,
special packages for long staying
guests.
Holiday Inn uses high promotional
tools to differentiate themselves in
nearly identical offerings. They also
design different advertisements
according to location and customer
segments. For example creating
digital guides to educate the
customer regarding various events
and many more.
People
People plays inseparable assets of a
company especially in service
sector, where people are service
providers and customers. In
Travelodge staff is divided into
front and back office staff. To
provide quality of services
Travelodge has invested much
amount in providing training to their
staff to perform their specific job
role as well as customer service
training is also given to them.
Management at Holiday Inn provide
training to their employee with end
purpose to serve satisfactory
services to the customers. They also
provide cultural and behavioural
training to their staff to meet
requirements of customer
expectations. Along with this, there
are various benefits that have been
provided to the employees such as
medical insurance, retirement plans,
etc. (Pappas, 2015).
Physical
evidence
Travelodge have their hotels in UK
and other locations like Spain and
Ireland. Their attractive
infrastructures and building as well
as services attracts its potential
customers.
Holiday Inn is a huge chain of
intercontinental hotels having eye-
catching buildings and structures
that are full of different features like
fine dine restaurants, bar and
swimming pools.
Travelodge ensures the standard of
services that are delivered to its
This service blueprint followed by
Holiday Inn is concerned with
2

Process
customers repeatedly, for which it
follows a service blueprint that
carries details of service delivery
process. It defines service script as
well as greeting phase used by
Travelodge staff.
process in which service provided to
service receivers. This determines all
processes from pre, post and during
the service duration.
M3 Different tactics applied by hospitality organisations
Service marketing tactics that can be used in hospitality industry considers outbound and
direct techniques that communicate straight with perspective of customers and users of an
organisation (Perera and Perera, 2018). These tactics may include automation of marketing,
CRM, social media, SEO, advertising etc. Some of marketing tactics applied in different
situations of Travelodge to achieve their business goals and objective as well as profitability are
as follows:
Marketing automation and CRM in Travelodge, marketing automation replaces high-
touch manual processes with automated one by support of technology. It brings all online service
marketing channels together into single centred management system to create, manage and
measure marketing programs. In addition to it customer relationship management is a valuable
system that can be used by Travelodge for tracking and organizing customer's information. In
situations during peak seasons CRM model can help Travelodge to stay connected and organized
with customers, regardless of complexity in operations. During off-seasons the CRM system of
Travelodge functions as information provider about clients and opportunities.
The target audience of Travelodge must be able to land on its website without any issue
which help in attracting or increasing customer's trust and perception towards organisation.
Search engine optimization (SEO) will help in designing effective websites as online marketing
has high-growth opportunities for Travelodge (Pike, 2015). SEO comprises of major components
such as on-site and off-site SEO which help customers to communicate with Travelodge more
satisfactorily. For example while searching for hotels, on-site SEO will help customer as this
technique uses targeted keywords for communicating the content of website which will appeal to
target audience. Keyword focuses on services that are offered by Travelodge and helps search
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engines to come up with more relevant data to searchers. However when clients searches for
specific specialization of hotels, they’ll land on Travelodge's website.
TASK 4
P4 & M4 Marketing plan for Travelodge
(Covered in Poster)
CONCLUSION
This report concludes that marketing plays significant role in achieving goals and
objectives at service industries and it is highly interlinked with all other functions and operations
performed in hospitality firm. Apart from this, it shows that marketing-mix of services offered by
hotel industries deeply influences its planning processes and marketing decisions. Furthermore,
this project analyse the efficiency of marketing-mix in service industries to serve more
efficiently. This report also carries effective business plan that assist a hospitality company in
launching their new services in market.
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