Intercontinental Hotel Marketing Plan: Unit 15 Hospitality Report

This report delves into the core principles of hospitality marketing, examining the key roles and responsibilities of the marketing function within the Intercontinental Hotel. It explores how marketing relates to the broader organizational context, highlighting the interdependencies between the marketing department and other crucial units like finance, human resources, and research and development. The report then compares the application of the marketing mix by Intercontinental and Marriott hotels, analyzing their product offerings, pricing strategies, distribution methods, promotional tactics, processes, personnel, and physical evidence. Finally, it culminates in the creation of a basic marketing plan tailored for a hospitality organization, designed to meet specific marketing objectives and drive business growth. The report provides a comprehensive overview of marketing strategies within the hospitality industry, focusing on practical applications and comparative analysis.

Unit 15: Hospitality
Marketing Essentials

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................................3
TASK 1...............................................................................................................................3
P1 Explain the key roles and responsibilities of the marketing function........................3
P2 Discuss how roles and responsibilities of the marketing relate to the wider
organizational context. ...................................................................................................5
TASK 2...............................................................................................................................6
P3 Compare the ways in which different hospitality organisations apply the marketing
mix to the marketing planning process to achieve the business objectives..................6
TASK 3...............................................................................................................................8
P4 Produce a basic marketing plan for a hospitality organization to meet the
marketing objectives.......................................................................................................8
CONCLUSION.................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Marketing refers to the set of activities which a company undertakes to communicate
introduce and promote offering. It maybe in the form of product or service. The hospitality
industry covers three main areas which includes tourism, hotels and food and beverage. The
hotel sector contributes maximum to the economy so in order to earn maximum profit it begins
to promote its services so that potential customers are attracted (Alford, 2018)The marketing
department is entrusted with the most essential duty to promote the services in order to generate
revenue and earn maximum profit. The organization chosen for this report is Intercontinental
hotel, a multinational hospitality industry which has 213 hotels in different locations worldwide.
The headquarter of the company s situated in UK. This report shall cover the roles and
responsibility of marketing together with its inter link with other departments. Further the
marketing mix of two hotels is discussed in order to make comparison and a marketing plan for
the hotel.
TASK 1
P1 Explain the key roles and responsibilities of the marketing function.
The marketing department undergoes many roles in order to make its business grow. The
InterContinental hotel has a creative marketing department which has following roles to play in
their everyday operations which are discussed below-
Role of marketing
 Market research –The main role of marketing department is to research the latest
customer trends in order to provide the services they need. The marketing department of
the Intercontinental hotel is entrusted with the role of considering all the factors which a
customer undertakes in order to select a hotel for availing its , so Intercontinental hotel
does research through its industrial database, monitoring the customer review and also
takes customer feed backs face to face (Avila-Robinson and Wakabayashi, 2018). This
helps the hotel to make the services better for the customer to give them best experience.
 Spread awareness – Brand awareness has been considered as the most essential work for
hotel industry. The Intercontinental hotel spread it brand awareness in order to pass

information to its potential customer so that they become aware of what hotel is serving.
For this the marketers of Intercontinental hotel make sure that all information relating to
hotel services are available on different mediums so that potential customers can access
them and attract to the hotel.
 Building customer relationships –In order to ensure good business, building good
customer relation is important. The marketers of Intercontinental hotel make sure that it
creates such programs for the customers like loyalty programs so that trust and
confidence is build in the minds of the customers for the hotel. A better loyal customer
will promote the hotel and its services either through social media or word of mouth
which will help the hotel in generating high revenue base.
Responsibility of the marketing
Apart from the roles to play, there come several responsibilities of the marketing
department so that it can provide business to the hotel. The marketing managers of
Intercontinental hotel plays several responsibilities which are as follows-
 Putting the facilities – Promotion is an essential responsibility of every marketing
department. The marketing manager of Intercontinental hotel make sure that it organize
such promotional activities for the hotel so that its services is promoted in such a way that
its occupancy can be increased during the low booking days (Baker and Magnini, 2016).
Secondly the marketing manager must make utilization of conference hall that it is filled
and such events must be organized in order to generate more business for the hotel apart
from accommodating the rooms in the hotel.
 Liaison with managers and staff- Every department is interlinked with each other. The
marketing manager of Intercontinental hotel has a responsibility of planning its activities
in such a way that it coordinate with other teams like in order to plan its promotional
activities it has to work according to the event management team so that it can attract
more and more events in low booking days. It also works with customer service team by
taking customer reviews and feed backs so that it can make improvement in its activities
to promote the services effectively and efficiently so that further business is promoted
which can result in more profitability and growth (Beck, 2017)..

 Overseeing budgets- The marketing unit of Intercontinental hotel has a major
responsibility of overseeing the budget of marketing and promotions so that it can be
done in the allocated budget. The marketing manager must make sure that it does not
exceed the allocated budget in order to advertise its services.
P2 Discuss how roles and responsibilities of the marketing relate to the wider
organizational context.
Every department of an organization is dependent on the other in order to work
effectively. The marketing department of Intercontinental hotel is interlinked with other
departments in order to work efficiently and promote the services and amenities of the hotel
efficiently. A positive inter relation makes the services consistent with same standard of quality
in the services. The following is the inter link of marketing with other unit of the organization-
 Marketing and Finance department - This unit is interested with the role of managing
the funds of the business. The finance department of Intercontinental hotel allocates
budget to each department. The marketing unit has to closely work with this department
to ensure that it has sufficient funds to meet its promotion and distribution activity
(Chandiok and Sharma,2017). The main task of marketing unit is to conduct research and
promote it activities and services in such a manner that the outcome of the research is
achieved and services are offered to the potential customers. They both manage to work
together so that promotional activity can be carried on within the allocated funds.
 Marketing and Human resource department– This unit is interested with the role of
recruiting the right person at right time at right job. The marketing department of
Intercontinental hotel works closely with this department to ensure that creative and
skilled employees are recruited under this unit so that innovative and creative ideas are
welcomed and customers are attracted by the creative promotional tactics in order to avail
the services of the hotel so that it can generate higher revenues and profitability (Dileep
and Mathew,2017).
 Marketing and Research and development department- The R&D unit is entrusted
with the role to conduct research on latest technology which the hotel can incorporate
into its premises so that it can provide high quality service to the customers. The
marketing unit promote and communicate the new technological advancements to the
customers so that they can get attracted to avail the service.

Illustration 1: Interrelationship between different departments
TASK 2
P3 Compare the ways in which different hospitality organisations apply the marketing mix
to the marketing planning process to achieve the business objectives.
Marketing mix refers to the strategic tool which every hospitality industry uses to promote its
offering. It includes the promotional tactics which are adopted by the hotel. It consist of 7 Ps
which are as discussed below with a comparison of Intercontinental hotel with the Marriott
Hotel-
 Product –It refers to the services which the hotel offers to its customers which includes
accommodation, food and beverage, recreational activities and many other.
 Price – It refers to the value which customer pays in order to avail the service which is
offered by the hospitality industry.

 Place –. It refers to the way hospitality industry distribute it services. It basically means
the geographical distribution of the services.
 Promotion- It refers to the promotional tactics which a hospitality industry undertakes in
order to promote its services which it offers to generate profits. For example advertising,
digital marketing, word of mouth, etc.
 Process- It refers to the process of providing the services which a hospitality industry
undertakes in order to provide best service to its customers.
 People- It refers to the workforce of the industry who perform their to duties to provide
best service experience to the customers.
 Physical evidence- It means the infrastructure of the hospitality industry or in simple
words it refers to all those things which a guest sees and get attracted to avail the service
(Dixit, Lee and Loo, 2019).
The following is the marketing mix of Intercontinental hotel together with Marriott hotel
for better comparison-
Marketing
mix
Intercontinental hotel McDonald's
Product The Intercontinental hotel provides
main services like accommodation,
food and beverage and the recreational
activities.
The fast food restaurant McDonald's
serves burgers, fries, shakes,
sandwich, chicken, desserts, drinks
and salad to its customers. It provides
wide variety of options to its
customers. The product range varies
country to country. For instance, in
India the restaurant offers Indian
vegetarian fast food according to the
demand of the local market whereas
in other countries like UK or USA it
offers non vegetarian fast food to its
customers.
Price The intercontinental hotel uses hybrid
pricing strategy to attract its premium
The restaurant McDonald's uses wide
range of pricing strategy like it uses

customers. It is a luxury hotel that has
elite and high class customers so it
uses premium pricing to offer its
services.
competitive value driven price for
their food in order to stand with the
competitors. The prices may vary in
different McDonald's store due to
many factors. It set the price with
demand based methodology but do
not fix price for franchisees as they
set price by seeing the local market.
Place The Intercontinental hotel is a global
business which has hotel in multiple
locations. It provide its services in
different countries so customers can
avail the service by booking the
services from travel agents and it also
allows website booking to offer it
services (Fotiadis, Mombeuil and
Valek, 2018).
The restaurant McDonald's have
different strategies of distribution in
different countries. It offers home
delivery in some countries like UK
with the name McDelivery. It uses
intensive distribution where it uses all
possible channels for the distribution
like takeaways, sit in and many other.
In USA it has contact 3with UberEats
so that home deliveries can be made
easy.
Promotion The hotel is global business which
offers high standard quality services.
The Intercontinental hotel uses
traditional marketing strategy like
word of mouth from its customers to
promote its amenities and services. It
also uses digital marketing like social
media, emails, regular messages to
promote its services.
The popular fast food restaurant uses
many promotional tactics like
television, newspaper, internet,
magazine to communicate with its
customer. The restaurant also uses
techniques of sales promotion like
discounts and coupons so that
potential customers can be attracted.
It also uses promotional activity like
buy 6 ice tea and get 6 stickers free or

a combo offer so that it can attract
wide range of customers.
Process The hotel has a modern technology
equipped mediums to provide services
which are required to be managed by
the skilled and professional staff. The
intercontinental hotel uses technology
driven equipment like contact less
key, check ins in order to attract the
customers.
Process is the set of activities which
are performed to achieve something.
The restaurant McDonald's undertakes
many activities in order to deliver the
product to the customers. For
instance, the process of food
production is very transparent in
McDonald's as it is visible to the
customers. Other aspects of process
involves how consumers places order,
how long does they wait to collect the
order or how they are treated by the
care assistants, etc.
People The Intercontinental hotel has a
skilled, creative and talented
workforce who manages the activities
of the business It has skilled and
knowledgeable staff to build strong
customer relation in order to have
customer loyalty.
The popular fast food restaurant
McDonald's have biggest employees
both in UK and USA. It has
approximately 120000 employees in
UK and around 70% of the restaurants
of McDonald's are operated and
owned by women and local
businessmen. The restaurant invests
highly on the training and
development of its employees so that
it can build the efficient staff to deal
with the customers.
Physical The hotel has an elite, high class Elements of customer experience and

evidence infrastructure which depict its quality.
It has vibrant colours throughout its
infrastructure to attract it customers. It
uses attractive logo to catch the
attention of its potential guest
(Kandampully and Solnet, 2019).
physical environment visitors. The
interiors of the fast food restaurant
McDonald's is very attractive which
attracts the customers and also it
maintains high quality hygienic and
clean interiors in its outlets so that it
can place an impression on the minds
of customers.
TASK 3
P4 Produce a basic marketing plan for a hospitality organization to meet the marketing
objectives.
Executive summary
The Intercontinental hotel is a global hospitality industry designed to provide services
and amenities to its customers. It has its hotel in 213 locations across the world. The headquarter
of the Intercontinental group is in England. This marketing plan is designed for the
Intercontinental hotel to expand its business in London. The hotel wants to open a new branch in
London so that it can provide its services to its existing loyal customers and the potential
customers (Matura, 2018).
Situation
SWOT analysis
Strengths
 The brand value of the hotel is the
biggest strength. This attracts the
customers only by its brand name.
 The Intercontinental hotel has its
geographical presence which has been
Weakness
 The Intercontinental hotel no economic
hotel which can attract middle class. It
has elite high class people as target
customers
 The hotel has poor information system

made specifically by focusing on
priority markets.
 It has a strong implementation of its
strategies with digital outlook.
which lacks security.
 The hotel faces problem in operating
large number of hotels. The major
concern for the hotel is coordinating
with all hotel at one time.
Threats
 The major threat to the hotel is its
competitors. There are many luxury
hotels situated worldwide which gives
tough competition to the hotel in almost
every location.
 The Intercontinental hotel is dependent
on the intermediaries to provide its
services (McCartney, 2020).
Opportunities
 The intercontinental hotel has an
opportunity to increase its international
tourist travels. It has its business
worldwide which makes opportunity for
the hotel to increase its global market
share.
 The hotel can work on its technology so
that it can adopt technological driven
bookings for making its customer easy
to book.
Objectives
The major objectives for the Intercontinental hotel in expanding its branch hotel in London
are-
 To capture the market share with 30% in next 12 months.
 To earn profit of 40% in next 6 months. To generate sales by 70% in next 18 months.
Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning
Segmentation
The Intercontinental hotel has segmented its market according to its customers according
to its services which are grouped in luxury, upperscale, upscale, economy or budgetted and
midscale. It offers services to the business and leisure customers internationally.
Targeting

The target customers for the Intercontinental hotel are the elite high class guest who are
willing to pay for the luxury services. The hotel aims to target business guest and upscale class
people (Purvis, 2016).
Positioning
The intercontinental hotel has positioned itself with the luxury services and amenities. I
aims to provide best service experience to its guest. It does not compromise with quality of its
service make its brand different from the others.
Tactics
Marketing mix
The 7Ps of the marketing mix of Intercontinental hotel are as follows-
 Product- The intercontinental hotel offers services in three areas, accommodation, food
and beverages and recreational activities like gym, spa, swimming pool. It also offers
outdoor sports facility to take of its leisure guest.
 Price- The intercontinental hotel shall have the premium pricing strategy for the
customers to attract its target customer which are elite high class people willing to pay for
the luxury services and amenities.
 Place- The hotel have its presence in 213 locations worldwide. It will allow its customers
to book its services through online booking portal like website, travel websites and many
more. It shall allow walk in bookings also subject to availability.
 Promotion- The hotel shall promote its services with the use of traditional marketing
strategy like advertisement in television, radio and newspaper. It will use digital
marketing strategy like internet, email, social media to increase its brand awareness.
 People- The Intercontinental hotel shall have the skilled and talented workforce to
provide better service to its customers. It focuses on building customer relations which
shall be done by the trained and skilled employees (Shulga and Busser, 2020).
 Process- The hotel shall have the high technological driven equipment to make the stays
of the guest comfortable by providing contactless check ins and check outs. It encourages
digital payment for making their stays easy and relaxing.
 Physical evidence- The intercontinental hotel have the luxury ambience which high
quality furniture and infrastructure to attract the potential customers.
Budget Allocation