MC4061: Marriott Hotel SWOT Analysis and Service Marketing Report

This individual written report provides a comprehensive SWOT analysis of Marriott Hotel, examining its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats within the hospitality industry, particularly in the UK. The report identifies key service marketing challenges, including rising costs, data security issues, the impact of the global pandemic, and the effects of Brexit. It utilizes secondary research and analysis to assess these challenges and proposes strategic recommendations grounded in service marketing principles, such as endorsements, word-of-mouth marketing, personal selling, and considerations (discounts and trials). The report emphasizes the importance of adapting to changing market conditions, maintaining customer trust, and implementing effective marketing strategies to ensure Marriott's continued success and revenue generation in the face of adversity. The analysis aims to help the hotel navigate challenges and maintain customer occupancy rates.

INDIVIDUAL WRITTEN
REPORT

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
SWOT analysis of Sainsbury......................................................................................................4
Organization's key service marketing challenges.......................................................................5
Theoretical principles of services marketing .............................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
The file is based on the SWOT analysis of hospitality sector organisation,Marriott. Marriott is a
hotel chain having presence in many countries internationally. It addresses organisation's key
service marketing challenges based on secondary research and analysis. The threats in service
marketing are analysed of the hotel and how the strengths and opportunities help overcome the
threats.
SWOT analysis of Sainsbury
The analysis focuses on the strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities of the company. On
these factors, the company can realise its potential, work on the weaknesses and use further
opportunities to evade the threats.
Strengths
Marriott is one of the largest hospitality chain operating in UK. The company has an employee
strength of over 1,44,000 employees. Marriott has a leadership which is experienced for a long
time and has provided suitable guidance at all times to the company. The company has excellent
brand marketing strategies and advertising through means of electronic and print media.
Company has a large presence in hospitality chains across UK. Company has been listed on
stock exchanges (Leiber, Stensaker and Harvey 2018). The company sponsors several social and
environmental events too.
Weaknesses
The rising food prices has caused a rise in Marriott catering products too which is impacting
sales. The company needs to decrease its operational costs to maintain the profit margin. It has to
also find ways to minimize transaction costs by reducing on the supply chain and going for a
simple logistics approach to bring down the product costs. It also could not manage brand
switching well, as there is competition prevalent and despite many promotional offers given, this
situation still needs improvement. There was a hack of customer data few years back which
showed that company did not have updated system software (Vlados, 2019).

Opportunities
Marriott can enter in collaboration with brands and go for joint ventures too. . The company can
enter new markets in other continents where customer base is high and the economies are on a
rise like Asia and Africa. The company can grow its presence in villages as the rural market
potential remains to be tapped in form of motels. The demand in rural areas is also high and
people there are also going for luxury after a rise in income.
Threats
The increasing globalisation has caused competition to rise as people are getting access to many
product brands of outside nations. Quality thus has to be all time maintained in the services. The
rising competition in hospitality sector also needs to be checked as there are new entrants also
offering products at less prices. Local competition of rest houses has to be checked in a way that
it does not affect the profitability of the company. The threat of pandemic and UK Brexit has
also been a threat to be faced by the organisation (Vlados, 2019).
Organisation's key service marketing challenges
The organisations weaknesses in respect to transaction costs going high of food, apart from this
the information of customers was hacked of the customers. The threats in the form of global
pandemic, UK Brexit are to be addressed over a span of time in 3 years.
On doing secondary research through internet and company's websites these points were found.
The weaknesses can be addressed in the way that the costs can be controlled with hotel directly
dealing with suppliers. This way the hotel will be able to cut down on costs and thus reduce
catering costs. Although since the chain of logistics is long, it will take some time to reduce the
chain. Company can also start a practice of dealing directly with farmers to avoid the process
chain where rural areas are nearby (Rony and Awal, 2020). Talking of information being
hacked, company will have to change its security settings in the system and make it hack-proof.
Customers also like to keep their information confidential and would trust the organisations
where they can be kept secure. This would require taking up a cyber security system and testing

its system. Organisation's IT cell would have to develop such a software which can take some
time but at least provide a working period of 3-5 years.
The global pandemic is a threat which has been looming over most of the organisations.
The hotel will have to use and implement safety measures in hotel which can provide a sanitised
environment for its staff and customers. Use of mandatory masks and sanitisation measures have
to be implemented. The company will have to advertise the implemented measures through
advertising and promotional measures on website of the hotel. The addressal of the issue will
take time and this may require another 2-3 years to get the occupancy of bookings as before
through safety measures implementation monotonously (Rony and Awal, 2020).
UK Brexit is another threat which needs to be addressed. It means that the corporate
executives coming for business conferences will no more coming as before with trade ties being
changed. The hotel will also not get to host parties for the corporates of other European nations.
Thus, the hotel will have to take up a different customer segmentation which can fill up the
vacuum created. It can be on the privileged customers who are coming as tourists. The hotel will
have to come up with different discount offers for tourists to get them attached with their hotel.
This will be requiring additional time to fill up the vacuum and position itself as one of the best
tourist hotels. This can be achieved in a period of around 3 years.
Theoretical principles of services marketing
According to service marketing theory, following points have to be taken care of:
a) Endorsements: They involve testimonials from previous customers who justify the products
or services of the organisation. This is also done by roping in the celebrities who customers look
up to. This can be done for hotel also. The presence of hotel in many countries considering it to
be one of the strengths thus can be recommended that at the time of global pandemic,
endorsements through feedback of customers who have stayed at the hotel along with celebrities
endorsing the hotel as a safe place for tourists can bring the occupancy rate high again.
b) Word of mouth: This is one of the wide-spread tool used in service marketing and this can be
done through customer referrals. It is also to be said the second main category of service
promotion. High-quality work and offering high customer service is the key in hospitality
industry. This ultimately motivates the customers to give referrals to their social circle of friends

and relatives and thus encourage them to visit the hotel. Similarly, this is also done by online
feedback websites. Also, companies offer incentives in the form of discounts for customer giving
referrals and making more people join the services of the company. This can help the hotel to
bring up their promotion scale and add up customers. This can also help to combat the threat of
UK exit from EU and add up new customers.
c) Personal selling: It remains one of the powerful toll for promotion in service marketing. The
businesses give training to sales executives to provide guidance to customers to showcase the
products and services in the best light. The hospitality industry trains its executives in a way that
the people are given not only a good briefing but excellent presentation about the variety of
facilities provided at the hotel. The sales staff are queried by the customers to find out how their
needs can be met while the staff use tailored measures to suit the requirements of the customer.
Marriott strengths are its employees who are given frequently training sessions to
convince the customers about the service and facilities provided at the hotel. This can also be
used as an opportunity for the company to brush up the skills of its employees (Mathews,
Pattnaik and Panda, 2018).
d) Considerations: The considerations are given in the form of discount on services for a period
of time or a free trial period. This is done to persuade customers to try out the service as
influenced by the sales executive. Offering of competitive pricing and discounts on frequent use
of services is yet another consideration in hotel industry.
Marriott can give these considerations in their services to help gain customer occupancy
in the threat period of pandemic. Due to its strength being one of the largest chain, it can
maximise revenue in many countries through these measures.
CONCLUSION
It can be concluded that the hotel industry has many new challenges to be faced considering the
pandemic and political changes, They would have to find a stable solution which can make the
functioning in a new manner altogether which can convince customers as well as maintain the
same revenues for organisation as before.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Leiber, T., Stensaker, B. and Harvey, L.C., 2018. Bridging theory and practice of impact
evaluation of quality management in higher education institutions: a SWOT
analysis. European Journal of Higher Education, 8(3). pp.351-365.
Vlados, C., 2019. On a correlative and evolutionary SWOT analysis. Journal of Strategy and
Management.
Rony, M. and Awal, R., 2020. Front Office Operation and Service Features of Haikou Marriott
Hotel.
Mathews, N.E., Pattnaik, M. and Panda, S., 2018. Six Sigma Analysis in Indian Hospitality
Industry: Marriott Hotel.
TAKACS, J. and VADUVA, S.A., 2017. A swot analysis of the global hospitality
industry. Revista Economica. 69(6).
Seffar, O., CHALLENGES OF SCALING A SMALL BUSINESS IN THE HOSPITALITY
INDUSTRY: IMPLICATIONS FOR BOUTIQUE HOTELS.
Gürel, E. and Tat, M., 2017. SWOT analysis: a theoretical review. Journal of International
Social Research. 10(51).
Kudriavtceva, A., 2019, March. SWOT-analysis of digital technologies for an industrial
enterprise. In IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering (Vol. 497,
No. 1, p. 012012). IOP Publishing.