Hospitality Management: Universal Studios Singapore Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Universal Studios Singapore (USS), a prominent theme park in Southeast Asia. It begins with an introduction to USS, its offerings, and its target market, which primarily comprises individuals aged 15-34. The report then delves into USS's business positioning strategy, highlighting its focus on key aspects to compete in the market. It examines existing markets and segments, including Singapore residents and tourists, segmented by demographics, psychographics, lifestyle, and behavior. The report further analyzes USS's marketing and promotion strategies, including product, price, place, and promotion strategies. It assesses sales techniques, existing capabilities, and competitive advantages, including loyal customers, strategic location, and strong brand equity. The report also conducts a SWOT analysis of USS, identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Finally, it discusses existing and future development strategies, including growth and operating models, and offers recommendations for future development directions, providing valuable insights into the park's operations and potential for future success.

Running head: UNIVERSAL STUDIOS SINGAPORE 1
Universal Studios Singapore
Institution
Student
Date

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Business Positioning Strategy..........................................................................................................4
Existing Markets and Segments...................................................................................................5
Marketing and Promotion Strategy..............................................................................................6
Sales Techniques..........................................................................................................................9
Existing Capabilities....................................................................................................................9
Basis of existing competitive advantage....................................................................................10
Existing Competition.................................................................................................................10
Existing and future development strategy.....................................................................................13
Existing growth strategy............................................................................................................13
Existing operating model...........................................................................................................14
Recommendations regarding future development directions.....................................................15
References......................................................................................................................................18
Appendix........................................................................................................................................21

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Hospitality Development Management
Universal Studios Singapore
Introduction
Universal Studios Singapore (USS) is a theme park geographically situated in Singapore within
Resorts World Sentosa on Sentosa Island. This company is the only and first theme park in
Southeast Asia featuring 24 rides, attractions, and shows in seven themed zones. It applies a
modernized world class operational concept to create, develop, and manage delightful and
memorable guest experiences. For instance, USS employs, an all-embracing and immersive
theming ranging from costumed characters, restaurants, shops, décor, shows, merchandise, and
streetscapes (Universal Studios Singapore , 2019). It also caters for youths and families of all
ages because it is geared towards a huge market. Surveys are conducted regularly to ensure
visitor profiles are properly captured to determine their spending patterns and behaviors. In order
to ascertain that the whole visitor encounter is efficiently curated and choreographed, all aspects
of a park’s operations are well taken care of. To leave nothing to chance, Universal Studios
Singapore employs exceptionally qualified operation managers; with a majority of them having
prior experience in other world class theme parks like Universal Studios Orlando and Disney
World. USS theme park offers a wide array of services not just attractions, shows, and rides.
These include street entertainment, dining, shopping, restrooms, and socialization services. USS
has identified their target market to comprise of people aged from 15-34 years old. This group of
individuals is known to be outgoing, gregarious, and is susceptible to be thrill-seeking, and also
amenable towards new conceptions. They as well use up much of their time in social media
platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and they commonly use media, for instance

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magazines, television. People in this target market are segmented in terms of their demographics,
psychographics, lifestyle, and consumption behavior. The chosen target population is recognised
by Universal Studios Singapore to be the biggest consumer segment by their high spending on
taking part in socialization services and entertainment.
Business Positioning Strategy
A vital step in developing core operational strategies in a corporation depends upon the way it
positions self in the market. Kapferer, (2012) points out that positioning strategy refers to when
an entity selects one or two significant key aspects to focus on and shines in those aspects. Thus,
Universal Studios Singapore’s positioning strategy concentrates on the way it shall compete in
the marketplace. A good example hospitality business positioning analysis framework is shown
below:

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Figure 1: Hospitality business position analysis framework. Adapted from C. Lovelock, Services
Marketing, Prentice Hall, 1984.
Existing Markets and Segments
The existing market for USS comprises of Singapore residents who mainly comprise of students
belonging to higher or tertiary education institutions. This market also consists of Professionals,
Managements, Executives and Businessman (PMEBs). Currently, Singapore population
according to Singapore Department of Statistics 2019 is about 5,858,275 and Universal Studios
Singapore theme park targets about 28.4% of it. This implies the size of this firm’s existing
market is about 1,663,751. In this market, USS segments the customers based on their
demographics, psychographics, lifestyle, purchase behavior, and consumption behavior. Based
on demographics, this company groups the customers according to their age sets but generally,

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they target Singapore residents aged between 15-34 years old. A majority of these individuals are
exposed to social media platforms where USS markets most of their products and services. In
terms of psychographics, USS targets people who have mutual consequential relationships in
terms of behaviors and characteristics. Individuals in this segment belong to Generation Y alias
Echo Boomers who are believed to be sociable, outgoing and always looking for innovative and
new concepts. They partake extensively in social media socializations and are also extremely
interested in out-of-door activities concerning entertainment and sports. In regards to lifestyle,
USS aims at reaching carefree individuals and students who spend most of their time in fun
activities. They also spend long hours surfing the Internet and maintaining their social networks.
Based on purchase and consumption behaviors, USS targets those people who spend heavily
participating in socialization and entertainment activities. Their main motivation to purchase a
product or service is usually related to their needs for rewarding and pampering oneself and their
friends (Quan, May Ivy, & Yu Lin, 2013).
Marketing and Promotion Strategy
Reid & C Bojanic, (2009) defines promotion strategy as the plan and tactics a corporation
implements in its marketing plan with a purpose of augmenting demand for its products and
services. I believe that these promotion strategies have played a pertinent role in the marketing
mix (product, price, place & promotion) of Universal Studios Singapore:

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Figure 2: By Martin (August 5, 2014). Understanding the Marketing Mix Concept – 4Ps.
Retrieved from: https://www.cleverism.com/understanding-marketing-mix-concept-4ps/
Product: Universal Studios Singapore is one of the leading popular theme parks with a global
attraction. This company provides tourism services in exchange for a minimal fee. It offers wide
array of hospitality or hotel related services. It offers its guests with restaurants, shops, and
thematic universal studios with diverse thematic music which helps to boost their moods. USS
also provides attraction rides and shows such as a hyper-realistic 3D thrill ride and an indoor
movie special effects show (Simon, 2019). They also offer street entertainments such as outdoor
live sing-and-dance performances and live street B-Boy performance. USS also provides dining
services such as Drive-in styled diner serving all-American favorites, an Italian restaurant
specialised in serving original New York pizzas, Japanese and Indian inspired bento sets, and
Japanese and Indian inspired bento sets. They also provide shopping services in various shops
such as The Dark Room, Star Characters, and That's a Wrap (Universal Studios Singapore ,
2019).

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Price: Universal Studios Singapore is in aggressive competition with Skyline Luge, Hong Kong
Disneyland, and Wild Wild Wet. Hence, it maintains the prices of its services competitive.
Universal Studios Singapore needs to amuse their clients (Quan, May Ivy, & Yu Lin, 2013).
Thus apart from offering novel entertainment features in their park, they are also charging prices
lower than their main competitor, Hong Kong Disneyland. Although USS Company is still not as
trendy and renowned as the Hong Kong Disneyland theme park, it is competing well enough to
make a name for itself through proper pricing strategies. I believe with a diminutive twist of their
business strategies, USS will outshine most of their competitors in the marketplace.
Place: Universal Studios Singapore (USS) is a theme park located in Singapore within Resorts
World Sentosa on Sentosa Island. Within its first six months of operation, it attracted more than
1 million visitors, and was ranked as one of the top 10 gated attractions which helped the
Singapore tourism sector to attain a record high visitorship for the year 2011 (Quan, May Ivy, &
Yu Lin, 2013). This Company is planning to go global by opening more studios and themes
resorts at other places outside Singapore. USS has a broad distribution system. It uses online
shops, physical stores, Internet, and televisions to distribute its products. Digital Versatile Disc
(DVDs) of recently released movies are easily available in supermarkets, retail stores, and other
intermediaries. New movies or Television Shows are instantaneously available for downloading
streaming (Universal Studios Singapore , 2019).
Promotion: The logo of Universal Studios Singapore features a globe with the phrase Universal
Studios inscribed in the front. This logo bears a resemblance of the way everyone and everything
in the entire world fits into this world of Universal Studios. It is indeed an iconic logo. The font
of this logo’s typeface is bolded and bares the color of gold (Universal Studios Singapore ,
2019). As a result, the brand does not require any promotion since its services are subjects of the

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promotion itself. Universal Studios Singapore acquires an immeasurable amount of publicity
from their series of theme parks recognized everywhere in the world. This brand has generated
an image in the marketplace that is thrilling to individuals of every age. Any connection with this
particular brand for people emerges a matter of reputation for them (Singapore U. S., 2019).
Sales Techniques
Universal Studios Singapore uses an arsenal of effective selling techniques. These techniques
enable the company to create revenue and sell its products and services more effectively.
Primarily, USS uses retailing or merchandising selling techniques. At Resorts World Sentosa, a
customer can find all the shopping outlets in Singapore's most recent destination from vital
essentials to pure indulgence. According to USS, A day at their park is not complete without a
visit to one of their shops, where a customer can find everything from elite merchandise to fun
memorabilia. The Company makes the retailing and merchandising process easier by supplying
all their customers with retail vouchers (The Klook Team , 2016).
Existing Capabilities
There are various resources and competencies behind the success of Universal Studios Singapore
barely nine years after its inception. This company, for instance, has a financially sound, strong
cash flow as well as tangible assets or possessions from Resort World Sentosa (Singapore G. ,
2012). This enables it to meet its business financial requirements with ease and with no struggle.
It also allows the firm to fulfill its financial obligations as they fall due thus maintaining the
loyalty of its stakeholders such as creditors and suppliers. USS also has a well-established
reputation or business image and robust brand equity (Quan, May Ivy, & Yu Lin, 2013). It is
among the most outstanding hospitality organizations not just in Singapore but in the entire

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world. I tend to think that with time its reputable business image will earn this corporation
loyalty of more and more customers. Furthermore, USS develops a wide reach by using movie
themes as theme park rides, thus outshining most of their competitors using other orthodox
techniques. These are some of the resources and competences which contribute to unique selling
points and means through which value is created in Universal Studios Singapore.
Basis of existing competitive advantage
There are certain conditions and circumstances which puts Universal Studios Singapore in
superior or favorable position. USS, for example has loyal customers who loves their products
and services require no loyalty program to keep these clientele dependable. Most of them are
seen to enjoy the relationship they have with this theme park as well as people who work in it
(Universal Studios Singapore, 2012). I think also the location of USS at the central district of
Singapore gives it a competitive advantage. This location enables the park to tap clients from all
corners of the country with fewer struggles. This strategic location plays a significant role in the
corporation’s profitability and general success. It has adequate access to materials,
transportation, and workers. Besides, USS practices social network trend of circulation and
sharing. Unlike in most of their competitors, USS uses Internet-based social media platforms
such as Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook to stay connected with stakeholders such as
employees, customers, suppliers, creditors, and prospective clients (Lim, Tay, Chen, & Chia,
2012).
Existing Competition
Disneyland Hong Kong is the leading competitor of Universal Studios Singapore and thus it
splendid to carry its SWOT analysis so that we can establish current position correctly.

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Universal Studios Singapore SWOT analysis
STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES
 dependable Customers
 Situated in the middle region of
Singapore
 Entrenched repute and robust
brand equity
 Develops an enormous or wider
reach through the use of Movie
themes as theme park rides
 Inadequate provision of products and
services categories
 Lack of ample exposure in advertising
media
 Weak and dormant social networking
and online presence
 Inflated Ticket Pricing for Target
Market
OPPORTUNITIES THREATS
 Materials for promotional can be
provided continually
 Social Network trend of Sharing
and circulation
 Mounting Singapore population
residents with high disposable
income and higher purchasing
power
 Using conventional media plans as
a frequency to remind their target
 Consumer preference
 Natural Disaster
 increasing competition
 Economic predicaments
 Technical glitches leading to reduction
of sales revenues

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audiences of Universal Studio
Disneyland Hong Kong SWOT analysis
STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES
 Well-Built Brand Recognition
 First Mover Advantage
 Assorted Income Models
 Talent Management
 High employees turnover
 High expenditures of replacing existing
professionals
 Niche local monopolies and markets
 Stumpy investments into Disneyland
Kong's consumer oriented services
OPPORTUNITIES THEATS
 quick growth of Economy
 growing government regulations
 Lowering of the price of novel
product initiates
 Lower inflation rates
 varying political environments
 Shortage of skilled human resources
 Commoditization of the products
segments
 increasing technical expertise