A Comparative Report on the Marketing Strategies of UK Hotels (MGMT33)

This report provides a comparative analysis of the marketing strategies employed by Premier Inn and Britannia Hotels in the UK. It examines their approaches to online marketing, including the use of Google Hotel Ads, website management, and email campaigns. The report highlights the specific tactics used by each hotel chain to attract customers, emphasizing their value propositions, promotional activities, and competitive advantages within the tourism and aviation industry. The analysis includes a comparison of room pricing, amenities, and the effectiveness of different marketing channels in reaching target audiences and driving bookings. The report also discusses the challenges and limitations faced by each hotel chain in their marketing efforts. The student assignment discusses the marketing strategies for the hotel industry.

Running head: MANAGEMENT
Management
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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Main Body..................................................................................................................................3
Premier Inn Hotel Leeds at Leeds/Bradford airport Marketing.............................................3
Britannia Hotels’ marketing activities...................................................................................5
Comparison between the two hotels......................................................................................5
Research methods.......................................................................................................................9
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................9
Recommendations....................................................................................................................10
Bibliography.............................................................................................................................11

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Introduction
The report is prepared to discuss and research about the tourism or aviation industry
in United Kingdom and determine about the various marketing actions and tactics undertaken
by the hospitality companies, especially the hotels and inns to sustain competitive advantage
in business. The report will compare the marketing tactics carried out by the two companies
including the Premier Inn Hotel Leeds at Leeds, UK and Britannia LBA Hotels and analyse
the various promotional actions undertaken to gain greater outreach to the customers as well
as generate higher revenue in business much more comprehensively. The objectives of the
research will also be presented here along with the assessment of data collection methods and
analysis techniques that are required to meet the objectives and goals too (Kotler et al. 2017).
Not only this, but also the comparison between the two companies will let us know about
various aspects, i.e., how much both these hotels charge for each room and how different the
marketing actions are that have been undertaken by these two hotels in United Kingdom.
Main Body
Premier Inn Hotel Leeds at Leeds/Bradford airport Marketing
Considering the fact that Leeds has always been a busy city in United Kingdom and
boots of a great atmosphere as well as fun activities going on all around such as people visit
museums, stately homes, shopping malls, Trinity Shopping centre. The Premier Inn has been
one of the largest and most beautiful hotels in Leeds, UK, which consists of smart, stylish,
clean and world class facilities’ rooms that have been made available at great prices. Not only
the rooms are quite modern, but also each and every rooms consists of world class
technologies such as touchscreen room controls, superfast Wi Fi connectivity, Smart
Televisions, Luxurious beds and Monsoon showers, which can cater the needs of people
visiting the hotel quite effectively (Premierinn.com 2020). Not only, does this mean that the

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Premier Inn has targeted mostly ths luxury segment of customers, but also the hotel has
aimed at offering value for money services by making rooms available at lesser prices,
without doing much comprise to the facilities available at each of the rooms. This has helped
in targeting every segments of market comprising of customers to gain access to the rooms
and enjoy the services of the hotel effectively, thereby, raise their level of satisfaction
quotient largely too (Jung, Ineson and Green 2013). The Premier In at hotel also made sure to
carry out its marketing efforts properly by offering exclusive rates for the rooms along with
options for brilliant value meal deals, which make people have a perfect stay at the hotels
falling under Premier Inn hotel chain. The ZIP introduced by Premier Inn has also satisfied
the needs of many by providing small sized rooms and delivering a simple stay for the guests
of the hotel for a price that is unmatchable, i.e., starting from just $19 per night (Leonidou et
al. 2013). The Premier Inn hotels located at Leeds is nearby the Bradford Airport, which has
helped in making the people reach the hotel within few minutes and near both Skiptona and
Harrogate.
It has been found that Premier Inn, being a major hotel chain in UK, has managed
online marketing techniques by advertising about its hotel services on prime time television
as well as on various social networks along with management of an own website too. To
instigate a sense of familiarity and belongingness, the company has also made sure to create
high level of confidence among the consumers and that has been possible by differentiating
itself from its competitors. The marketing approaches have been undertaken to emphasize on
the emotionally led campaigns that have helped in generating interest as well as positive
intent among the consumers to make purchases (De Pelsmacker et al. 2018). The company’s
website not only allows the clients to look into the hotel rooms based on the needs and
preferences, but also has helped them to choose the dates for which they want to stay at the

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hotel and then finally, book the hotel by paying the desired amount of money (Leung, Bai and
Stahura 2015).
Britannia Hotels’ marketing activities
Britannia Hotels in UK consists of more than 61 hotels all over United Kingdom and
an estimated number of rooms of more than 10000. Because of the extensive locations where
the hotel chains are located, it has become easy for Britannia hotels to set up near major
airports, in the coastal areas as well as near the beach front towns and in the locations
surrounded by enchanting views and stunning countryside views as well. One of the most
important way of marketing done by Britannia Hotels is the setting of competitive prices for
the hotel services, which offered value for money convenience and even allowed both the
business and the clients to save a significant amount of money for the quality accommodation
that they would get during their stay at the hotel in UK (Britanniahotels.com 2020). Other
amenities that are quite similar to that of the Premier Inn include restaurants, bars, spas and
other amenities such as the health clubs, free Wi Fi, etc. surrounded by rich décor and a great
ambience. The charge for accommodation at the rooms of the hotel start from $29, while
there are various other options as well such as stay and fly with Britannia hotels at just $55,
which are quite less and competitive considering the present condition of the tourism and
hospitality industry in United Kingdom (Chan 2013).
Comparison between the two hotels
When compared between the two hotels, i.e., Premier Inn Hotel Leeds and Britannia
hotels, it has been found that both the hotels have managed their own websites so as to
generate interest among the customers and kept them up to date about the new offerings and
various hotel services available. The services have been advertised via the company website,

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which also allowed the companies to keep the clients informed about the services available
and also about the charges of each rooms, the amenities and families available for them while
staying at the hotel (Kim, Lim and Brymer 2015). All these information and content provided
in the website further helped the customers to become aware of the services, thereby,
understand whether their demands and expectations would be met or not, based on which,
their buying behaviours would be influenced too. When compared between the two hotels in
United Kingdom, it has been found that Premier Inn at Leeds has captured a huge percentage
of bookings from the new customers with the help of Google Hotel Ads (Li et al. 2015). Not
only does the online marketing, supported by the management of company website helped in
doing so, but also the Goole Hotel Ads made through investments brought measurable
results. Thus, it has been considered as a powerful tool for the purpose of marketing the hotel
services and reach out to newer market segments comprising of the customers all over the
world (Bilgihan and Bujisic 2015).
Few other ways of marketing, especially the online marketing techniques adopted by
the Premier Inn in UK are to integrate the Premier Inn hotel portfolio all across the mobile,
tablets, smart phones and desktops while at the same time, the tailored bidding helped in the
maximisation of traffic to the websites, which further, drove the incremental bookings done
by the people wishing to visit and stay at the hotel. Considering the goals and objectives of
the hotel to reach out to newer market segments consisting of customers, both locally and
globally as well as increase the direct bookings made by clients through the website
PremierInn.com, the company has prioritised on the online marketing tools and techniques
largely (Yang, Pan and Song 2014). The successful results came back pretty quickly as the
online selling options were increased by the hotel for creating convenience for the guests to
access the hotels services online much easily. It has also been found that the bookings made
by the new clients have reached a maximum of 40 percent, which has been much higher than

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the regular paid search ads along with 300 percent strong return on the spending made for the
ads when compared with the non-branded paid search ads (Choi et al. 2016). The Google
Hotel Ads were visible to the people whenever they have appeared to search for the hotel on
desktops, smart phones, etc. and even they were allowed to check in for the hotel reviews,
photos and compare the rates of the hotel rooms with the similar kinds of rooms of some
other hotels too. Thus, this has been quite convenient for people to book the rooms at hotels
and by integrating it with the Google Map, Google+ Local, the clients easily got connected
with the hotel and its properties that support the room inventory management based on the
search criteria put by them on the website during the management of the booking (Wearne
and Morrison 2013).
Though there are multiple advantages, still it has been true to believe that he Google
Ads is not always an effective tool for marketing as not all the times, the search engine
visitors look for the Google ads to search for a hotel as there have been introduction of
multiple travel search engines nowadays. The quality score seemed to affect the cost per click
and the success of the marketing campaigns could not be tracked or monitored effectively,
which could raise the chances of lesser traffic generation to the website as well ths hinder the
capabilities of online marketing to a large extent (Premierinn.com 2020).

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While the management of website and Google Ads played a vital role in the
marketing efforts put by Premier Inn in UK, Britannia Hotel LBA prioritised more on the
promotions via the company managed website. The company has partnered with a marketing
agency named Click Consult for ensuring that the paid search strategies are implemented
properly, which could allow the company to reach out to new customers. Moreover, the
online marketing has further been facilitated with the company aiming to make customers
believe that the prices of their rooms are much lower, when compared to similar kinds of
rooms made available by other hotels. Britannia Hotel has been found to follow the online
marketing associated with the sending of emails or even develop and implement the B2B and
B2C email campaigns through automation programs (Britanniahotels.com 2020). This has
reduced the costs of managing traditional marketing techniques while at the same tea,
prevented the ad hoc promotional campaigns and techniques thereby, facilitated the sending
of emails with the use of HTML, thereby, ensure generation of leads, manage segmentation
of customers, ensure testing for quality of services and manage databases and records

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effectively too. Moreover, the website managed by the company combine the content
representing the prices and features of the various rooms available along with the other
facilities and amenities that they could get during their stay at the hotel (Kotler et al. 2017).
The designing of promotional banners and updating the recent offers for the services have
been presented in the website, which has generated enough traffic and even made access for
more client to sign up to the website, follow the brand and remain connected and
acknowledged abut the latest offerings of Britannia Hotel. By signing up to the website, the
company has kept the customers up to date and sent them mails demonstrating the charge and
facilities newly made available to deliver a great experience for the guests visiting the hotel
(Leonidou et al. 2013).
In spite of the positives, there have been few negatives as well such as the commercial
emails became spams for the consumers and sometimes, the poorly designed emails were not
delivered properly to the clients, which made them unable to know about the latest offerings
of Britannia hotel (Leung, Bai and Stahura 2015). Though the link of the website could been
sent to the clients, still sometimes, due to the size of the webpage, it became difficult for the
clients to open the webpage on smart phone and tablets, with the need to access that webpage
in a better device such as the laptop and desktop.
Research methods
The primary research methods have been used here for the collection of data and
information relevant to the research while the secondary research methods also assisted the
research t acquire further information that might be relevant to the research conducted here.
The primary research methods include the collection of both qualitative and quantitative data
and information. The quantitative data has to be gathered with the help of distributing the
survey questionnaires to the respondents consisting of the various questions revolving around
the concepts of marketing, thereby, acquire the data in h form of their responses and

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feedbacks provided in the questionnaires during the survey process. The qualitative data has
been gathered by interviewing the managers, based on their convenient time schedule with
the use of non-probability sampling technique (Kim et al. 2015). The secondary data and
information have been gathered with the assessment of various secondary sources of data
such as the journals, articles, newspapers, documents and websites containing information
and data about the marketing efforts put by the two hotels in United Kingdom.
Conclusion
The report combined the marketing efforts put by these two hotels, i.e., the Britannia
Hotel and Premier Inn hotel and compared them to understand how innovatively both these
hotels have contributed to the market excellence while operating in UK. While the Premier
Inn was more focused on the management of online marketing supported by Google Ads and
website management, the Britannia Hotel has been found to focus more on email marketing
and also adding new content to make people know about the costs of rooms and other
amenities available at the hotel. Both these marketing efforts have been effective in their own
perspectives, though some drawbacks were experienced as well, which raised he potential of
these two hotels to prioritize on the social media marketing to enhance outreach to the
customers effectively too.
Recommendations
 It is recommended to prioritise on the social media marketing, which could allow the
hotel chains to successful reach out to the more customers in different market
segments. This would create awareness among them to influence their buying
behaviours as nowadays, most of the people are quite tech savvy and have been
associated with the use of social networks more often.

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 Going live with the management of great content and designing the website to create
better user interface and accessibility has been recommended as well
 Differentiating the services from the competitors could also be a great option for
enhancing the marketing performance for the hotels across United Kingdom
 The management of global distributions system and promoting the services via online
travel and tourism agencies would tend to be more effective and reliable to reach out
to wider groups of audiences and generate higher level of traffic effectively too
 The green marketing would be new trend and by making customers know about the
environment friendly approaches undertaken by the hotels should create positive mind
sets among people and encourage them to make purchases
Bibliography
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