Marketing Report: Marriott's Strategies and Marketing Mix Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Marriott International's marketing strategies within the hospitality industry. It begins with an introduction to marketing and its role, emphasizing its interrelation with other functional units within the organization. The report then delves into the elements of the marketing mix, including product, price, place, promotion, people, process, and physical evidence, illustrating how Marriott utilizes these components to meet customer needs and achieve its objectives. A significant portion of the report is dedicated to outlining a basic marketing plan for Marriott, including an executive summary, vision, mission, objectives, and a marketing audit utilizing SWOT analysis. The report also touches upon the segmenting, targeting, and positioning strategies of the hotel chain, providing a holistic view of Marriott's approach to marketing and its impact on the company's success.

Marketing Essentials in
Hospitality

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
LO 1 ................................................................................................................................................1
Role of marketing and its interrelation with other functional units............................................1
LO 2.................................................................................................................................................2
Elements of the marketing mix...................................................................................................2
LO 3 ................................................................................................................................................4
Basic marketing plan to meet marketing objectives...................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Marketing refers to a set of activities which comprises of activities like creating,
communicating, delivering and exchange of the goods and the services provided by a company
and offer value to their clients, customers, society and partners and all the entities engaged with
the business. Marriott International is an American multinational diversified hospitality
organisation founded by John Willard Marriott in 1927. this chain of hotel manages and
franchises a large portfolio of the hotels and related lodging facilities. It is the largest hotel chain
in the world comprising of more than 6500 properties in 127 countries and around the world
over 1.2 million rooms. The report will outline the role of the marketing function and its relation
with the other department of the hospitality organisation. Further the report will highlight the
elements of the marketing mix. At last the report will suggest a marketing plan to meet the
marketing objectives of the organisations.
LO 1
Role of marketing and its interrelation with other functional units
Marketing refers to a management process which is responsible for identifying,
anticipating the needs and desires of the customers and then satisfying those needs by delivering
the products and the services to satisfy the needs of the consumer and with that the company
also earns the profits. The role of this function is to perform market research, making market
plan, market development, market penetration etc. and also involves looking out for advertising,
pricing, promotion, distribution of sales etc. It is very important function in any type of the
organisation (Piñeiro-Otero and Martínez-Rolán, 2016). It is also interrelated with other
functional departments also. Its relation with other departments are as follows-
Marketing with operations and production- marketing needs to closely work with the
production department to ensure that the product manufactured is according to the quality,
specification and the requirement of the consumers. The marketing department sets the deadline
of the production department.
Marketing with the finance department- there is a major relation between these two
departments. The finance is a department which provides money to each and every part of the
organisation. Whereas marketing is the most expensive department because this involves
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promoting the product which involves huge money flow. For this requirement of money to be
fulfilled the marketing department has to rely upon the finance department only.
Marketing with the human resource department- every department needs manpower to carry
on the work of the organisation. All this manpower is recruited by the human resource
department. The marketing department also conveys the requirement of it to the human resource
department which then works according to the needs of the marketing department. They finds
and recruit those employees who are possessing the specification and skills required by the
marketing department (Uhl and Gollenia, 2016).
LO 2
Elements of the marketing mix
Marketing mix refers to a set of the controllable marketing tactics and marketing tools.
The elements or the components of the marketing mix are product, price, place, promotion,
physical evidence, people and the process. The people of marketing department uses these
components and blends all the components to produce what the target market requires and
wants. For understanding the concept of marketing mix in detail let us take an example of a
cake mix. All the cakes are made with help of the same ingredients but then also all the cake are
not of same size and shape, it is because of the quantity used of the ingredients. In the same way
all the companies also uses the same marketing mix but the quantum used is different and
because of this all the products are different from each another. That is the reason behind the
significance of the of the marketing mix because the success of any product depends upon the
perfect blend in the elements of the marketing mix. The marketing mix of the Marriott hotel
chain is discussed in the following points:
Product- the first and foremost component of the marketing mix is the product. Product is
defined as any goods or the services which are created and offered in the market to attract the
customers and the target markets to satisfy the wants, desire and the needs of the customers.
Marriott 's success is totally dependent upon the ability of the organisation that how well
the organisation satisfies the needs and the wants of the consumers. According to a the customer
ratings they have given 4.3 out of 5.0 ratings because the customers are more satisfied with the
products and the services provided by the Marriott. Also through a survey it has been noted that
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90 % of people have recommended Marriott when they were asked which is the best hotel in the
world.
Price- it refers to any amount or consideration measured in terms of money which the customer
has to pay in exchange for the product or the service used by the consumers. Among all the 7 P
this is the only P which generates income for the organisation rest all the P 's represents the cost
for the company. The customer before buying the product or the service compares the price
which he has to pay and the benefits which he derives from consuming the product or the
service. If it matches then only the customers buy the product or uses the service.
Hotel Marriott charges a very high price for the product and services provided by the
hotel chains from the consumer. But in return provides its customers a very stylish, luxurious
and sophisticated products and services which easily satisfies the needs and the demands of the
consumers (Cornwell, 2014).
Place- the choice of location, finding of the right place and the right channel to distribute the
products and the services is the most important business decision in today's competitive world.
All the Marriott hotels are concentrated on the city gateways and this is a competitive advantage
for the company. Marriott uses the world most effective, efficient and powerful system of the
distribution channel which encouraged the customers to trust their brand. With increase in the
technology, Marriott has also started distributing the goods and services to the consumers who
can now easily access and check the menu, location, products and the services through the
internet.
Promotion- promotion includes all those activities and tools through which the marketers
undertakes the process of informing the consumer about their and services to encourage and
influencing the potential customers to buy the products and the services. With the revolution of
the internet Marriott now uses the internet for most of its sales promotion activities. Sales
promotion done with the help of the internet is very useful because of the fact that the internet
reaches the large and wide range of the customers with one single medium (Pike, 2016).
Marriott also launched CANVAS which is an initiative through which the bartenders,
entrepreneurs and global chefs were brought to UK for food and drinks pitch from around the
whole world. The aim was to place Marriott in the minds of the growing number of its
customers.
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People- it refers to all the people who are involved and related to the business in some or the
other way. These people includes employees, management, employees etc. and all those people
also who in some way or the other affects the organisations working. Having the right people
employed at the right place and for the right job who are capable of providing the customers the
best services so that it has a positive impact on the business. Marriott knows the importance of
having the right people and managing them is very important and because of this importance the
hotel provides time to time training, development programmes and tries to motivate them to
provide the customer with exceptional services.
Process- it refers to the methods and ways and the process through which a product or the
service is provided to the customers and also they should have thorough knowledge on whether
the service helpful the customer or not (Luchs, Griffin and Swan, eds., 2015). The hotel must
create the process tat is defined and to make sure that the consumer receive exceptional service
whenever they visit the hotel.
Physical evidence- it refers to the material part of the service. It may refer to the environment in
which the services are delivered and where the firm and the consumer interact with each other,
and any of the tangible component that facilitate performance or the communication of the
services (Baker and Magnini, 2016). Marriott says its environment and services are of the
opulence that gives the customers and lasts for always a create memories for always.
LO 3
Basic marketing plan to meet marketing objectives
The marketing plan is a blue print which outlines the distribution and promotion of the
product in a company. The marketing plan of the Marriott hotel is as follows:
Executive summary- the marketing plan will outline the vision, mission and the objectives of
the hotel. Also it will discuss the marketing audit and the 7 P 's of the hotel. Also it will
highlight the segmenting, targeting and the positioning of the hotel. Also it will discuss the
financial aspect with the help of the budget. And at last it will do monitoring and controlling
part.
Vision- the vision of the Marriott is 'to become the premiere provider and the facilitator of
leisure and the vacation experience in the world'.
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Mission- the mission of the hotel is 'to enhance the live of the customers by creating and
enabling unsurpassed vacations and the leisure experiences.
Objectives- the major objectives of the Marriott is to 'achieve a 20% reduction in the energy and
the water waste usage by 2020'. Another objective is to 'target to triple the number of signed
deals for the game changing design brand W hotels in Europe by 2020'. Marriott expects the
largest portion of its room growth will come from its affordable lifestyle brand Moxy hotel. For
this the hotel made the objective 'of adding an additional 22,000 signed rooms for Moxy by
2020'.
Marketing audit- it refers to the systematic, comprehensive, analysis, evaluation and
interpretation of the business marketing environment , its goals, objectives, etc. to ascertain the
areas of problems and opportunities and to recommend a course of action to increase the firms
performance (Eng, 2017). It can be done by using either SWOT or PESTLE analysis.
SWOT analysis is an analytical tool which is used for scanning the internal and the external
environment of the organisation. Internal environment consist of the strengths and the
weaknesses and the external consists of the threats and the opportunities.
Strengths- the strengths of the Marriott hotel are as follows-
 It has developed a strong position regarding its consumers as well as winning the loyalty
of those consumers.
 It has a strong position in the market because of the diversified and expanded business all
over the world.
 Also it is leading in the whole world market because of strong financial position and
because of strong financial position the company is able to get easy debt available if it
needs it.
Weaknesses- there are many weaknesses of the Marriott also. These are as follows-
 The Marriott International Corporation is experiencing backwardness in the infrastructure
in the field of information and technology (IT) management.
 Due to the huge extended business the company is becoming weak in their management
system as they are supposed to be pathetic in their performance.
 Competition from a long established hotel chains leads to limited market share.
 Globalisation, expansion and higher numbers of competition may lead to brand dilution.
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Opportunities- there are some opportunities lying in the business environment only the thing is
that the company has to analyse and grab those opportunities. Some opportunities are as follows-
 There are many different types of planning tools and software available in the market
which can be used to make strategies for the company to purchase or acquire different
types of assets that generates revenue.
 The company should try to merge with the other businesses and the firms in all over the
world especially in countries of the Europe.
Threats- with opportunities there are some threats also. These are-
 Because of large number of hotels in different areas of the world so there exists a high
rate of the substitution for the customers (Kühnapfel, 2014).
 A high rate of the fluctuations are found in the prices in the market because of the intense
competition because of foreign hotels operating in our country.
7 P 's- once the marketing strategy is developed there comes 7 P 's. It includes the following
components-
 Product- the first and foremost component of the marketing mix is the product. Product
is defined as any goods or the services which are created and offered in the market to
attract the customers and the target markets to satisfy the wants, desire and the needs of
the customers. According to a the customer ratings they have given 4.3 out of 5.0 ratings
because the customers are more satisfied with the products and the services provided by
the Marriott.
 Price- it refers to any amount or consideration measured in terms of money which the
customer has to pay in exchange for the product or the service used by the consumers.
Hotel Marriott charges a very high price for the product and services provided by the
hotel chains from the consumer. But in return provides its customers a very stylish,
luxurious and sophisticated products and services which easily satisfies the needs and the
demands of the consumers.
 Place- All the Marriott hotels are concentrated on the city gateways and this is a
competitive advantage for the company (Cabrera and Williams, 2014). Marriott uses the
world most effective, efficient and powerful system of the distribution channel which
encouraged the customers to trust their brand. With increase in the technology, Marriott
6

has also started distributing the goods and services to the consumers who can now easily
access and check the menu, location, products and the services through the internet.
 Promotion- promotion includes all those activities and tools through which the marketers
undertakes the process of informing and promoting the product and the services to the
consumer. With the revolution of the internet Marriott now uses the internet for most of
its sales promotion activities. Sales promotion done with the help of the internet is very
useful because of the fact that the internet reaches the large and wide range of the
customers with one single medium.
 People- it refers to all the people who are involved and related to the business in some or
the other way (Fine, 2017). These people includes employees, management, employees
etc. and all those people also who in some way or the other affects the organisations
working. Marriott knows the importance of having the right people and managing them is
very important and because of this importance the hotel provides time to time training,
development programmes and tries to motivate them to provide the customer with
exceptional services.
 Process- it refers to the methods and ways and the process through which a product or
the service is provided to the customers and also they should have thorough knowledge
on whether the service helpful the customer or not. The hotel must create the process tat
is defined and to make sure that the consumer receive exceptional service whenever they
visit the hotel.
 Physical evidence- it refers to the material part of the service. It may refer to the
environment in which the services are delivered and where the firm and the consumer
interact with each other, and any of the tangible component that facilitate performance or
the communication of the services. Marriott says its environment and services are of the
opulence that gives the customers and lasts for always a create memories for always.
STP- it refers to segmenting, targeting and positioning of the product.
 Segmenting- it means dividing the market into the smaller groups to help the company to
know how it can allocate and offer products and services to satisfy the needs of a
particular segment. Marriott uses different types of segmenting techniques like geo-
demographic, behavioural and psycho graphic segmentation (Hashim and Hamzah,
2014).
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 Targeting- it refers to evaluation of the different types of segments to chose one from
among different types of segments and target that segment only. Marriott targets more
than one segment which includes travellers seeking for the luxury and quite ambience,
with high quality cuisine and good customer services.
 Positioning- when a company wants to position its goods and the services they must first
find out the diverse customers value preposition which will give the company a
competitive advantage to efficiently and effectively build the position.
Budget- it refers to the estimation made of the revenue and the expenses for a specified period
of time in the future. After all the product development, pricing, promotion, segmenting, comes
making the budget (Kahn, 2014). It includes all the sources through which we ca generate
income and all the sources where we have to spend money like transportation, marketing etc.
The budget of this is as follows
EXPENSES AMOUNT
Reservation expenses £50
Contract cleaning expenses £90
Laundry and dry cleaning expenses £45
Guest transportation expenses £70
Food and beverage expenses £95
Monitoring and controlling- the last step is to monitor that what we have intended in the
marketing plan is going in accordance with the actual working or not. If the work is not
according to the planned work then corrective measures must be taken by the management.
CONCLUSION
Marketing refers to a study and management of process of identifying, anticipating and
satisfying the customers requirement in such a way that the needs are also satisfied by
consuming the product or the service and the company also earns the required amount of the
profits. Marriott is a leading brand name in the hospitality sector which provides stylish new and
upgraded hotels and travel offers and opportunities. The report outlined the role of the marketing
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function and its relation with the other department of the hospitality organisation. Further the
report highlighted the elements of the marketing mix. At last the report made some suggestion
related to a marketing plan which must be able to meet the marketing objectives of the
organisations.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Baker, M.A. and Magnini, V.P., 2016. The evolution of services marketing, hospitality
marketing and building the constituency model for hospitality marketing. International
Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management. 28(8). pp.1510-1534.
Cabrera, S.A. and Williams, C.L., 2014. Consuming for the social good: marketing, consumer
citizenship, and the possibilities of ethical consumption. Critical Sociology. 40(3).
pp.349-367.
Cornwell, T.B., 2014. Sponsorship in marketing: Effective communication through sports, arts
and events. Routledge.
Eng, P., 2017. Erste Schritte im Online-Marketing. Wiesbaden: Springer Vieweg.
Fine, S.H., 2017. Marketing the public sector: Promoting the causes of public and nonprofit
agencies. Routledge.
Hashim, N. and Hamzah, M.I., 2014. 7P's: A literature Review of Islamic marketing and
Contemporary Marketing MIx. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences. 130. pp.155-
159.
Kahn, K.B., 2014. Product planning essentials. Routledge.
Kühnapfel, J.B., 2014. Nutzwertanalysen in Marketing und Vertrieb. Wiesbaden: Springer
Gabler.
Luchs, M.G., Griffin, A. and Swan, S. eds., 2015. Design thinking: New product development
essentials from the PDMA. John Wiley & Sons.
Pike, S.D., 2016. Destination marketing organizations–research opportunities in an era of
uncertainty. In Book of Abstracts-6th International Conference on Tourism.
International Association for Tourism Policy (IATOUR).
Piñeiro-Otero, T. and Martínez-Rolán, X., 2016. Understanding Digital Marketing—Basics and
Actions. In MBA (pp. 37-74). Springer, Cham.
Uhl, A. and Gollenia, L.A., 2016. Business Transformation Essentials: Case Studies and
Articles. Routledge.
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