Analysis and Recommendations for Marriott Hotel's Marketing Management

This report provides a detailed analysis of Marriott Hotel's marketing management strategies, including its branding approach, market positioning, and marketing mix (Product, Price, Place, Promotion). It examines the company's background, its use of the STP marketing model (Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning), and its efforts to differentiate itself in the competitive hospitality industry. The report also assesses the effectiveness of Marriott's current marketing mix, highlighting both strengths and weaknesses. Furthermore, it offers actionable recommendations for improving Marriott Hotel's marketing strategies, emphasizing the integration of advanced technologies and adaptation to evolving customer trends to enhance brand value, customer base, and market share. The report concludes by underscoring the importance of continuous innovation and strategic adjustments for sustained success in the dynamic global market.

Marketing Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Background of the company...................................................................................................3
The branding strategy addition to how company positioning themselves at the market place4
Marketing mix of Marriott Hotel............................................................................................5
Recommendations for improving marketing strategies of Marriott Hotels............................8
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES:.............................................................................................................................12
Books and Journals...............................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Marketing management has been termed as a process of managing the marketing
elements, fixing the objectives of company, formulating the strategy step by step, making
effective decisions for the growth of company. Further, management motivates and manages
employees to execute the plan in effective manner. Marketing management is associated with
place, product, price and promotion to drive the attention of customers towards the activities of
company (Belhassen, Caton and Vahaba, 2020). Marketing has been determined as promotional
activities which marketers of a company perform to promote the product and services in target
market for the accomplishment of company goals. Whereas, management refers to managing
marketing activities to planning, organising, implementing the technology and executing in
current market place to add values to potential customers to increase their experience. Marketing
management is the combination of both term in order to promote the brand in international
market in effective manner. It helps the company to increase their customer base, profitability,
brand value and market share in order to win in competitive market for future growth. To define
the concept of marketing management effectively the selected company is Marriott Hotel which
is most famous hospitality organisation in UK. It was founded in 1975 by J. Willard Marriott to
provide the hospitality services at large scale to complete their mission successfully.
This report covers the branding strategy as well as how a company positioning
themselves with in a particular industry. Further, it defines the evaluation of their current
marketing mix like 4Ps or 7Ps based on the branding approaches and positioning. At last, it
highlights the recommendations on how an organisation can improve its marketing strategies by
using advance technologies.
MAIN BODY
Background of the company
Marketing management has been determined as the process of planing addition to
executing the plan, pricing, distribution, and promotion of products and services to meet the
company objectives. It is generally the practical implication of marketing strategies, techniques
along with methods to gain competitive advantage over competitors. For the better understanding

of this concept the chosen organisation is Marriott Hotel which is a world famous hospitality
firm and operates in many country (Bholat, Gharbawi and Thew, 2020). It was established by J.
Willard Marriott in 1975 to offer hospitality services to meet the needs of people. There are
around 7000 hotels of Marriott in all over the world and offers variety of services to gain leading
position in market. More than 120000 employees are works in all hotels of Marriott to provide
best hospitality services to people world wide. The company offers variety of services such as
dining, accommodation, spa, restaurant and fitness centre facilities along with they serve as a
hosts venue for meetings, weddings and events. It is known for its Luxury Affordable services
which provide most flexible offers for travel plans of travellers and potential customers. The
Mission of Marriott hotel is to improve the lives of clients and guest by enabling and creating
unsurpassed vacation addition to leisure experiences. The main aim of company is to increase
their brand value and image in all over the world to rule the hospitality industry for long term.
For this management and professional continuous making the effective branding and marketing
strategies to promote their brand effectively.
The branding strategy addition to how company positioning themselves at the market place
Branding strategy has been termed as plan of company to expand their business in new
market and make the product and services more innovative in order to differentiate the brand
with others. Branding strategy including all aspects related to a brand such as pricing policy,
marketing strategy, product quality and uniqueness along with many others which increase the
brand value of a company (Brennan and Vos, 2021). The brand strategy of Marriott Hotels
includes effective price strategy, digital marketing innovative room services and luxury dinning
which enhance the experience of customers. The advertisement and promotional strategy of
company is based on digital marketing which is very popular in nowadays. This helps the firm to
spread awareness about their services, new innovation and expanding strategy in whole world to
drive the attention of users. In this they make a promo code to provide their regular guests as a
offer by sharing it on promotion page of their app or website. In the pricing strategy of Marriott
Hotels, professionals make premium strategy in which they provide good or comfortable room
services, better quality food at reasonable price in order to offer value based services and prices
to targeted customers.

The branding strategy is to provide luxury services to their guest with comfortable rooms,
items, innovative facility and many others to meet the expectations of clients. In order to make
effective strategy management of Marriott Hotel used STP marketing model which is termed as
segmentation, targeting and positioning to set their target market and position their brand at good
level in hospitality industry(Chithradevi and Nadda, 2022). In segmentation they targeted those
who like to explore world for their personal, business and travelling purpose. The family and
travellers are the main target segment of company. For targeting they use differentiate strategies
to make their services and food items unique or different in order to increase the experience of
customer base.
The positioning strategy of Marriott Hotels includes three important aspects such as
culture, wellness and culinary. It is important for company to define and communicate brand
boundaries in order to spread awareness about the innovation of their services. The culinary
aspect of company focuses on fine dining addition to the provision of standard quality of drinks,
food and beverages (English and Fleischman, 2019). The wellness has allow the management of
Marriott Hotels to build a strong image among targeted segment related to their promises for
fitness and healthy eating. Whereas, culture helps the clients to develop their understanding
about different cultural elements like music and art. The management make sure to make their
clients believe in different or unique advantages related with its services (Marriott Hotels’
Marketing Management, 2022). The current positioning strategy of Marriott Hotel is based on
affordability and benefits for customers. They position themselves in hospitality industry as a
organisation which offers affordable luxury. They also make sure to choose those locations for
their hotels which will have appropriate transportation facilities so that their customers will reach
their hotels easily. In order to survive in competitive and dynamic market they must modified
their positioning strategy by conducting deep research about recent customers trends to meet
their requirements effectively. They must use their local culture like art, dance, food and many
more with innovation in their organisation to make more attractive their brand which leads to
increase in customer base and brand value in international market.
Marketing mix of Marriott Hotel
Product- This is the element of marketing mix which describe the main features and
description of the offerings of the company. Marriott is one of the most popular chain of hotels in
the world. The main three services of this hotels are divided as core services, actual services and

augmented services. Among all of these the maximum revenue is generated by core services of
the hotel. They provide accommodation services according to the needs and wants of their
customers. These accommodation services are then selected into four categories like luxury,
premium, select and lounger stays. They also provide bar and dinning facilities for their
customers to have their meals (Grant, 2019). The main reason for the success of the Marriott
Hotel are t6heir locations, environment, services which they offer according to the convenience
of customers which further help them to gain competitive advantage. Due to COVID pandemic,
they have faced various issues like fall in revenue due to government restrictions but they come
back with effective strategies and by following all legal rules and regulations such as social
distancing, sanitization and many others. They mainly focus on their hygienic factors and keep
their rooms and other areas of hotel clean effectively so that their customers will not face any
issue.
Price- This element of marketing mic consist of monetary value of the products and
services which is essential to pay customers to use the product and services of the chosen
organisation. They follow premium pricing strategy where they keep the prices of their services
higher due to their brand name (Khan, Islam and Hassan, 2020). The prices differ from customer
to customer according to their needs and wants. The prices of their services and products cover
all the cost like their promotion and maintenance cost. Their another important aim for keeping
their prices high is to earn maximum revenue for the company and become industry leader.
Hence, their price cover all cost, therefore they make sure to cut the overall cost by reducing
wastage, implementing effective lightening system, establishing sustainable building and many
others. This will help in maintaining the low price of their services so that they will attract more
customers toward their products and services. Secondly, Marriott also follow competitive
strategy where their prices are also depend on the pricing strategies of their competitors. For
example, if the competitor of Marriott lower their prices than Marriott also focused to change
their prices.
Place- This is the element of marketing mix which will help to determine the location at
which the customer will buy the products and services. In simple words, it is the location of the
company. In context of Marriott Hotels, they are expanded in over 100 countries and their main
locations in most of the countries are near airports, highways, near central market and crowded
areas so that they will gain more opportunity to get on the spot bookings by their customers

(Marriott’s Product Element and Extended Marketing Mix, 2020). They also follow mixed
strategy which means the Marriott sold their products directly to their customers through website
and their physical locations as well as they can sold their products and get them promoted by
third party which are travelling agencies, advertising agencies and many others. Most of the
customers prefer to book their hotel services through online mode (Kollarova, 2018). Hence,
they are supposed to make their website easy to use by their customers so that they will gain
more bookings. The main aim of choosing the place by the Marriott is to satisfy their customers
and gain maximum revenue for their organisation within the industry.
Promotion- Here, companies promote their products and services to aware their
customers about their main offerings and the benefits of using their products and services. In
context of Marriott, they are totally based on digital promotional techniques for their hotels.
Being an international hotel, they have maintained the quality of their website in such a way
which will help their international customers to understand the usage of website. Their website
has the list of the products and services which they offer and the prices of their offerings to
aware their customers (Lin and Kim, 2020). They also follow social media marketing to promote
their brand by uploading pictures and videos on their social media channels. They also conducted
online promotional campaigns for their customer's awareness. They also have various discounts
and offers for their loyal customers to maintain their loyalty for the hotel and it also help them to
generate interest for other customers to become the loyal customers of the hotel. Marriott also
collaborated with the Snap chat influencers to make series that resemble travelling
documentaries. They supposed to use other social media influencers and ask them to promote
their hotels by paying them a fee for this (Liu, Borazon and Santamaria, 2021). Using social
media influencers is considered as beneficial for them because they are having a huge number of
followers on social media who follows them and get influenced by them easily. On the other
hand, they also share positive and good reviews of their customers on their website as well s on
their social media accounts.
People- This element of marketing mix consist of maintaining good relationship with all
those people who are connected with the business and they are most important for organisational
growth. In context of Marriott, their mainly focused to maintain good relationship with their
customers so that they will gain customer satisfaction (Maali, Rakia and Khaireddine, 2021). For
this they make sure that they will quickly respond to their customers. They also make sure that

they will train their employees well who will further help them to serve best services to
customers. Marriott Hotel are also focused to provide well-being environment to their employees
and for this they have hired a doctor to provide health services to their employees. The company
has more than 1,00,000 employees all over the world (Marriott Marketing Strategy & Marketing
Mix, 2021). Hence, it is essential for them to focus on the well-being and safety of their
employees. They also provide other facilities like leaves, life insurance and discounts for them
and their families for Marriott Hotel services. They are also maintaining their good relationship
with their stakeholders by providing them high returns on their investments. They also make sure
to maintain good relationship with their suppliers by becoming their loyal clients.
Process- In context of Marriott, various branches of this hotel has launched Alexa in their
rooms which can control the playlist as per the needs and wants of their customers. Each room
has the Alexa devices which are connected to reception desk to place enquiries and order for
further services (Mogaji and Yoon, 2019). This help the hotel to gain high customer satisfaction.
They also make sure that their customers will not face the issue for waiting too long to accept
their booking for the hotel. In case, they are having no room for their new bookings then they
recommend their customers to transfer their booking to another branch of Marriott Hotel as per
their preferred location. They also adopted some specific kinds of technology for their check-in
and check-out procedure so that their customers will reach the hotel and quickly conducted the
proves of check-in and reach to their rooms.
Physical evidence- It consist of those evidence of the organisation which will help their
customers to analyse that the company is true and loyal and actually exist in the corporate sector.
In context of Marriott, their biggest physical evidence are their buildings and resorts (Mulholland
and Turner, 2018). Services have their own importance to gain high customer satisfaction but
physical evidence plays their own role in gaining high customer experience which further help
them to influence their customers to return back and retain their experience. Other physical
evidence of the Marriott Hotel are their booklets, towels, soaps, staff, logo and many others.
Recommendations for improving marketing strategies of Marriott Hotels
 Management of big data- It consist of collecting, managing and using the information
for organisational growth. Here, company can collect a huge number of information like
inventory data, customers data that what they are purchasing at what time and many
others. In context of Marriott Hotel, they are required to use high quality of software to

manage their big data which is related to the information of their customers and their
purchase history. With the help of this data, they reach to their customers and send mails
about new services or new opening of their hotels. It is essential for them to manage their
big data appropriately so that they will make right decision for their organisational
growth (Munjal and Singh, 2021).
 Reward for direct booking- The direct booking of customers for a hotel is like jackpot
for them because in context of direct booking they are not supposed to pay the fee to third
party like travelling agencies or any other (Quesado, 2022). Hence, it is recommended to
the Marriott Hotel that they must provide reward system for those customers who directly
book their hotels through their website or directly reaching at their hotel sites. Here, they
must gave discounts and offers to such customers to influence them and encourage them
for direct bookings.
 Use Google analytic or any other software- It is essential for the Marriott Hotel to use
google analytic or any other software for managing the performance of their website and
social media accounts. Few examples of software are Hubspot, WordPress, SquareSpace
and many others (Reilly, 2018). These software will help the hotel to analyse which key
word is used by their customers to search for their specific facilities and how many
customers are visiting their website and face issue to book their rooms. These software
are helpful for Marriott Hotel to analyse whether they need to make any changes or not
for the designing of their website and managing their social media accounts.
 Take advantage of social media channels- Today most of the customers use social
media platforms like Instagram, Facebook and many others to collect the information
about any organisation and their performance. Hence, Marriott Hotel is recommended to
use these social media platforms to promote their services and attract customers with
their effective and attractive contents (Soria and Teigeiro, 2019). They are required to
hire a separate team for managing their social media accounts who make sure that the
company will share only precise and attractive content with all required information.
They are also recommended to hire a professional photographer to click the attractive
photos of their hotels to upload them on their social media channels.
 Pre-reserve parking- This is the technology which help the hotel to gain high customer
satisfaction by pre-serving their parking areas while booking the rooms. This will help

the hotel to save their cost of hiring the employee for managing their parking activities.
Secondly, it will also help to gain customer satisfaction because with the help of this
technology the customers can directly park their vehicles because they know the place of
their parking (Wang, 2020). Hence, this will save time for customers. This facility
should be given by hotels on their official websites and free of cost to their customers.
This will make Marriott Hotel unique from their competitors which further help them to
gain competitive advantage.
 Consider customer's review and recommendations- Today most of the customers are
sharing their customer experience on online mode that whether they like or dislike the
product or services. In context of Marriott Hotel, they are supposed to focus on the
reviews and recommendations which their customers provide them. This will help them
to analyse the areas where they need corrections for enhancing their brand reputation.
This will further help the Marriott Hotel to analyse the current trends and needs of their
customers to fulfil.
 Voice control rooms- This is the current trend in hospitality industry where most of the
hotels are converting their rooms as voice control rooms by adopting high tech
technology. This same technology is also recommended to Marriott Hotel where they use
the sensor within their rooms to control the lightening system, heating and cooling down
of water for bath and many others. For example, this technology will help the customers
of Marriott Hotel to get highly satisfied because when they enter the room them they can
speak loudly to switch on the TV and TV will automatically switch on. Secondly, a tired
customer can speak to prepare water bath then the sensor will automatically adjust the
temperature of water for customers according to the external temperature.
 Mobile room keys- This is another current trend in hospitality industry where most of
the hotels are switching to allow their customers to open and close the door of their room
through mobile feature. A scanner will be placed at each door of the room and BR code
will be only given to customers who are staying in the room so that only they can open
and close the doors. This will secure the safety of customers and help them to gain their
trust. On the other hand, this strategy will further help the hotel to reduce the usage of
plastic in preparing their plastic keys for door operations. Hence, this will consider as

sustainable change for the Marriott Hotel where they use digital keys to open and close
the doors of the rooms instead of plastic keys.
 Placing the camera outside the door- It is also recommended to the Marriott Hotel that
they must place a camera just outside the door of each room and provide the access of
this camera to the customers so that they will get to know that who is knowing their door.
With the help of this technology a customer can easily see the person outside their door
on the monitor disk placed inside the room or on the screen of their mobile phones. This
will further ensure the safety of customers at Marriott Hotels (Wang, 2020). Hence, this
will further help the hotel to gain the trust of their customers and make them happy with
hotel facilities.
CONCLUSION
It has been concluded that, from the above presented information that marketing
management plays a most important role to achieve the meet the desired result of company.
There is various objectives of marketing management such as profitability, satisfying the
demands of customers, creating a good public reputation, maximising the market shares as well
as attractive new customers. It helps the organisation to promote their new innovation, product
and services at target market to attract targeted audience. The branding strategy of company
includes all the elements which helps a company to promote their brand a large scale to meet the
desired results. It has been analysed that positioning plays most significant role in branding
strategy of a company which enable the marketers to promote their brand to targeted segment
with innovative manner to gain competitive advantage over competitors. Marketing mix is most
effective tool which include 7Ps such as price, product, place, promotion, process, people and
physical evidence which are inter connected with each other as well as work together to increase
the brand image of an organisation in global market. In Hospitality industry it is most essential
for professionals to considered all these 7Ps while making their marketing strategy to gain
leading position in hospitality industry. Marketers of hospitality firm must modified their
services, pricing strategies, promotional techniques, employees skills, business process and
other to increase the customers experience at maximum level. They must use advance and digital
technology in their business operations such as digital marketing, advance technology in their
financial activity to reduce cost, and many other which helps them to reduce issues or problems.

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