Travelodge Case Study: Business Environment and Strategic Analysis

This report presents a case study of Travelodge, a leading independent hotel brand in the UK. It begins with an introduction to Travelodge's mission, services, and organizational culture, followed by an analysis of its functional organizational structure, highlighting its benefits such as job role focus, specialization, and team self-determination, as well as drawbacks like potential silo creation and hampered interdepartmental communication. The report then delves into a business environment analysis, including a SWOT analysis that identifies Travelodge's strengths (good market image, commitment to sustainability), weaknesses (weak market share, lack of advanced technology), opportunities (business expansion, technology adoption), and threats (market competition, government instability). A PESTEL analysis examines political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental factors impacting Travelodge's operations. The report concludes that both SWOT and PESTEL analyses provide valuable insights into the company's strategic position and performance within the hospitality industry.

Understanding Business
Organisation

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
Organizational Structure..............................................................................................................3
Business Environment Analysis..................................................................................................4
SWOT Analysis...........................................................................................................................4
PESTEL Analysis........................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Understanding business organization requires developing knowledge regarding various
aspects related to business such as it environment, organization structure and its internal
strengths and weaknesses. Travelodge hotels limited is the largest independent hotel brand that
operates in the hospitality industry throughout UK. It works with the mission of delivering
affordable travel for all. The hotel provides a range of options that suit the budget of various
types of customers and thus is the low cost choice for business as well as leisure travel (Our
company, 2022). Travelodge comprises of more than 11000 employees who work together to
provide the best quality of services to the customers. The company has a supportive culture that
has worked thousands of people to grow their careers. The benefits of having a diverse
workforce have been well recognized by the organization (Our company, 2022). Travelodge
plans to expand further at various locations.
The present report will present a case study of Travelodge by exploring various aspects
related to the it. the organizational structure of Travelodge and its benefits to the organization
will be discussed. The case study will also provide information about the analysis of business
environment. Following it, SWOT and PESTLE Analysis of the chosen organization will be
provided.
MAIN BODY
Organizational Structure
Travelodge hotels has a functional organizational structure. The highest level of
responsibility lies at the top and a hierarchy flows from top to bottom. There are separate
departments, each of which performs a specific function. Within the departments, the employees
are organized on the basis of their specific skills. There is separate management of each specific
department. The main departments of the organization are HR, marketing, accounts, revenue,
customer service, housekeeping etc. these are further divided into separate sections on the basis
of the functions performed. For example, brand marketing, customer experience, e-commerce
and digital marketing.
Benefits of functional structure
 Increases focus on Job Role: The benefits of this structure is that it allows the employees
to focus on their role (Koohborfardhaghighi and Altmann, 2017). As the employees are

groups according to their skills and work in specific departments they are better able to
focus on their roles. This helps Travelodge in improving the quality of its services.
 Encourages specialization: Functional structure is beneficial for Travelodge as it
encourages specialization. Thus the skills of the employees get refined and they get an
opportunity to become expert in the area in which they are working.
 Makes teams self -determined: The functional structure also provides the benefit of
making the teams as well as the departments feel self-determined. Hence, it helps in
improving staff morale which further helps in improving their productivity.
Demerits of functional structure
However, the functional structure also has some drawbacks. These have been explained below:
 Creation of silos: It may lead to creation of silos within the organization which may have
negative impact on Travelodge.
 Hampers interdepartmental communication: It also hampers the interdepartmental
communication which may lead to delay in the tasks and decline in productivity (Seghir,
2017). It can also lead to emergence of various clashes within the company.
Business Environment Analysis
Business Environment is defined as the sum or the collection of the internal and external
factors such as customer needs, expectations, employees etc (Möller, Nenonen and Storbacka,
2020). The aggregate functioning of all forces and factors helps in understanding the
organization’s ability regarding the growth and development of the organization in significant
manner and at individual level.
SWOT Analysis
Strengths – The strengths which Travelodge Hotel constitutes is determined by examining the
positive points which are – The Travelodge is having good image at market place. It also helps in
providing the customers better quality of services and facilities in appropriate and signified
manner (Benzaghta and et.al., 2021). The organization is also very committed in the
sustainability campaign which is Travelodge Green Programme. There are also affordable room
rates for the customers which is provided to them. The organization can combat the emerging

situations such as Covid or pandemic by framing appropriate strategies which helps the
organization in its operations and overall functioning.
Weaknesses – The major weakness of Travelodge is that it has weak market share which
analyses that it depends upon the strong brand name. It does not adopt the advanced technology
practices and tools which is the major weakness of Travelodge. These are the weaknesses which
makes the organization vulnerable.
Opportunities – Travelodge can expand its business to other countries which depicts that there
is possibility of growth and development of the business at large scale and in significant manner
(Teoli, Sanvictores and An, 2019). It can adopt new technologies so that high quality of services
and facilities are provided to the customers and the organization is also benefitted from it. These
benefits can be exploited in the manner which will help the organization in creating value at
large scale and in the market.
Threats – The major threat to Travelodge is that there is very competition in the market and
there is government instability which becomes the threat and affects the overall growth and
development of the organization. These are the threat to the organization which have become the
point of analysis in significant manner and at large scale.
Therefore, here depicted and described the SWOT analysis will help in providing the
exact details of the Travelodge.
PESTEL Analysis
Political Factors – There are some favourable and unfavourable factors which impacts
Travelodge. A policy statement was created by Travelodge which helped in determining the
concerns regarding commitment of privacy for their customers (Pan, Chen and Zhan, 2019).
There are 80 apprentices which are of Travelodge and are participating in the hotel course across
UK. The political environment includes rules and regulations which are set by the government
which are to be followed by the organization in significant manner largely.
Economic Factors – The economic factors have direct impact on the organization and this helps
in analysing the concerns regarding Travelodge as well as the concerns with the customers in
appropriate and significant manner. Due to the economic factors, Travelodge is providing the
services and facilities to its customers in cheaper rates as it is hotel chain in UK. This helps in

creating value and increase in the perspectives related to the economic growth and development
at large scale.
Social Factors – Travelodge is observed and analysed as the socially acceptable hotel. The
social factors have helped in constituting the major points which are related to addressing and
creating value in the society of the hotel (Matovic, 2020). There are some changing trends which
have been analysed and have identified as important and the unfavourable aspects are the
changes in the trends which makes the operations and the perception of the customers difficult to
be observed at large scale.
Technological Factors – As there are regular changes in the technological trends, the
unfavourable aspect is concerned with the UK business in which Travelodge Hotel is being
affected by the E – commerce techniques. The main tool and technique which is used by
Travelodge is boking rooms through online sites and web pages such as on the official website of
Travelodge. This makes the market more competitive as there are new and different ways which
are adopted and are identified by the organization in appropriate and significant manner.
Legal Factors – There are some of the legal aspects which are both identified as internal and
external and these are mentioned by creating value for the legal factors being identified for
Travelodge (Nurmi and Niemelä, 2018). There are many laws and regulations which are
affecting the business of Travelodge. The legal aspects such as new laws which are framed time
and again. This is the unfavourable aspect which is being considered within the perspective of
Travelodge business.
Environmental Factors – The environmental factors are important for the Travelodge as it
helps in understanding the key concepts and points which are in detail of how the environment
should be and this constitutes the environment of Travelodge which should be protected by the
harm both the external and internal environmental harm and destruction. This will help in
establishing the main points to be addressed to customers.
CONCLUSION
Thus, it has been concluded from the above report that SWOT and PESTEL analysis were
being done and performed which helped in providing the details and information about the
Travelodge Hotels in effective and efficient manner and at large scale. The details and
information regarding Travelodge was identified through the strengths, weaknesses,

opportunities and threats the company is incurring. This helps in understanding the concepts
related to PESTEL analysis by denoting the concepts related to Political, economic, social,
technological, environmental and legal factors which are defined and identified. Travelodge
SWOT and PESTEL analysis helped in assessing the condition of hotel chain at large scale. This
helped in understanding about the aspects related to how the organization was creating value
within the hotel chain.
Therefore, this helps in understanding the concepts related to what are the conditions and the
measures related to SWOT and PESTEL analysis in significant manner. Proper analysis of
Travelodge has been made and this has helped in understanding the basis related to knowing the
concepts of Travelodge in proper manner. It also helped in indicating the concepts related to
SWOT and PESTEL analysis in significant manner appropriately and usefully.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Benzaghta, M.A. and et.al., 2021. SWOT analysis applications: An integrative literature
review. Journal of Global Business Insights. 6(1). pp.55-73.
Koohborfardhaghighi, S. and Altmann, J., 2017. How organizational structure affects
organizational learning. Journal of Integrated Design and Process
Science. 21(1). pp.43-60.
Matovic, I.M., 2020. PESTEL analysis of external environment as a success factor of startup
business. ConScienS. p.96.
Möller, K., Nenonen, S. and Storbacka, K., 2020. Networks, ecosystems, fields, market systems?
Making sense of the business environment. Industrial Marketing
Management. 90. pp.380-399.
Nurmi, J. and Niemelä, M.S., 2018, November. PESTEL analysis of hacktivism campaign
motivations. In Nordic conference on secure it systems (pp. 323-335).
Springer, Cham.
Pan, W., Chen, L. and Zhan, W., 2019. PESTEL analysis of construction productivity
enhancement strategies: A case study of three economies. Journal of
Management in Engineering. 35(1). p.05018013.
Seghir, K., 2017. Business and organization for sustainable societies. In Business and society in
the Middle East (pp. 17-30). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Teoli, D., Sanvictores, T. and An, J., 2019. SWOT analysis.
Online
Our company. 2022. [Online]. Available Through: <https://www.travelodge.co.uk/about/our-
company/>. [Accessed on 16 September 2022].
1