MC4061QA: Analyzing Virgin Holidays' SWOT & Marketing Challenges

This report presents a comprehensive SWOT analysis of Virgin Holidays, a company owned by the Virgin Group, operating globally in the tourism sector. It identifies the company's strengths, such as its strong brand name and sustainability initiatives, and weaknesses, including communication gaps and over-reliance on the UK market. Opportunities for expansion and technological advancements are discussed, alongside threats like the Covid-19 pandemic and market competition. The report further analyzes these threats through the lens of the principles of service marketing, particularly the 4Ps (Product, Price, Place, Promotion), and provides recommendations for overcoming these challenges, such as maintaining service quality during the pandemic and expanding business operations. The analysis draws on secondary research to provide a balanced assessment of Virgin Holidays' current position and future prospects.

Principles of
marketing

Contents
INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................................3
TASK......................................................................................................................................................3
Discussing the SWOT analysis of company...................................................................................3
Identification of the Weakness and Threat which can be faced by the organisation..................5
Analyse the threats through the lens of principle of service marketing......................................5
CONCLUSION.........................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES..........................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
The marketing refers to actions which is taken organisation for attracting large base pf
customers in order to offer them product and services of company through help of high-
quality messaging. The marketing term defines to association of activity, procedure of
creating, delivering and communication the products and services which offers value to
customers, clients, partners etc. There is study of consumer behaviour, strategic planning
which is involved in principles of marketing (Morgan, N.A and et. al., 2019). The main
motive of marketing is to make analyses of customer demand and needs. The following
report is based on the Virgin Holiday. This is company which is owned by the virgin group
that offers holidays globally with destinations. In 1985 the company was established
Headquartered in Crawley, England, UK. In the report it will discuss the SWOT analysis on
selected company and key service marketing challenge faced by them. Further, this report
will focus on evaluating threat through lens of principles of service marketing along with this
recommendation is provided in order to overcome with challenges.
TASK
Discussing the SWOT analysis of company
SWOT analysis refers to a tool which company take use for evaluating what the
company can do in best way along with develops effective strategies for the future. The prime
aim of conducting SWOT analysis is to benefit organisation in context to Virgin holidays for
developing full awareness regarding all elements that are involved in making of decision. The
strength and weakness are internal and opportunities and threats are external factors which
affects company and assess current and future potential. This framework also helps in
evaluating company competitive position. In context to Virgin Holiday the SWOT is been
done-
Strength- It helps in describing what an organisation excels and what separates from
competition.
 Brand name- In context to virgin holiday it has strength of strong name in countries
like UK, USA and Australia. The company name is enough in promotion of product
and making successful brand in market. The company with have advantage of getting
good recognition and publicity without making more advertisement as it offers quality
products and services (Gupta and et.al.,2019).

 Sustainability- In context to Virgin holiday the formulation of several strategies
helps company in improving its sustainability. They make investment of money in
important areas such as technology, improving customer experience, technology
advancement etc which leads to strength in sustainability.
Weaknesses- This factor stop organisation in performing at optimum level and suggest
business for improvement in order to remain competitive.
 Communication gap- The lot of communication gap exits between the company in
virgin holiday which is weakness. The communication between different sector of
business is very weak and only websites is approach to company.
 Dependent on local market- The management of company mainly relies on the
market of UK in order to generate revenue and this is because of Brexit and Covid-19.
The company sales are impacted directly and 50% of revenue in company come from
local market which needs to develop effective strategies.
Opportunities- This defines to favourable external factors which helps an organisation in
gaining competitive edge.
 Expansion of services- In aim of increasing the growth of revenue the virgin holiday
has opportunity of examining its business operations and functioning globally. It cm
also add premium services for attracting large customer base. The products such as
mobiles, airlines and media can be extended easily to any country (Suksup, and et.al.,
2020).
 Technological advancements- The company have opportunity of improving it
performance and growth by taking use of advance technology and making customer
easy in understating regrading the services offered by virgin holidays. The nature of
technology is dynamic which is considered s fast growing field.
Threats- This involves several factors which may harm an organisation potential.
 Covid-19 Pandemic- The impact of Pandemic on company was threat as there was
shut down by government which affected travelling. There was decline in company
revenue of virgin holiday by decrease of people travelling and international flights.
The company is also required to comply with standard operating procedures (SOPs) in
respect to pandemic.

 Competition in market- In context to virgin holiday it has threat of increasing
competition in the travel industry. The company has to compete with several
competitors such as British airways. For the company it becomes important to
constantly fight with competition by paying more time and efforts.
Identification of the Weakness and Threat which can be faced by the organisation
The service marketing defines procedure of creating, communicating and delivering
value to customer by sustaining relationship with them that can assist organisation. there are
different types of key service marketing challenges which is faced by Virgin holiday in next
three years that are mentioned below-
 Volatility in geopolitical and economic environment- The economic growth of UK
is affected with the impact of covid 19 in worse manner. In context to virgin holiday.
It has global foot prints which is vulnerable to external forces such as political tension
and economical. The long-term growth of company is been affected in traveling and
along with this political trade dispute is also reason for instability of market (Nian, T.
and Sundararajan, A., 2022).
 Managing the supply chain- The virgin holiday face challenge in managing of
supply chain which is biggest threat in travel industry for next three years. For
fulfilling the demand, the entire supply chain needs huge investment and efforts by
ensuring timely delivering and high-quality services.
 Competition in domestic and international market- This is also considered as
weakness faced by virgin holiday in next three years as there is high competition in
trave industry with the similar company which decrease the opportunity chances.
 Managing and retaining talent in industry- The change in technology on
continuous basis the management of virgin holiday requires to have talented and
skilled workforce in future in comparison to other industries. This can be weakness
for the company in up coming three years as shortage of skilful workers in travel
industry will be challenge for them in the real time as well as in future (Kukartsev,
V.V and et. al., 2020)
Analyse the threats through the lens of principle of service marketing
The principles of marketing involve 4ps of marketing mix which is been discussed below
in context to Virgin holiday.

 Product- This principle of marketing is related to the goods and services which is
offered to consumer for their use by the company. in respect to virgin holiday, it
offers high quality of services by organisation management to its consumers. There
was decline in the revenue of company due to pandemic which affect stability also. It
offers American and international destinations along with involves Boeing and
airbuses.
 Price- This is related to company charging priced from its customers for enjoying the
services. There are various competitors of virgin holiday such as British airways,
American airlines. All are best in class of services they provide and priced higher than
economy. It looks for quality over quantity. It also caters to higher class people who is
willing to pay high prices for services (Кулик, В.А., 2020).
 Place- The products and services of virgin holiday is sold by several distribution
channels. The tide of the business with the world airport supports them in directing
smooth operations. It serves to only 29 destinations and has limited flights of around
39.
 Promotion- The travel industry is very competitive in market where company is
required to follow proper strategy of making services. In context to virgin holiday, it
can take use of traditional and digital platforms such as TV, newspaper, social media
in order to promotion of the brand. The company has also launched several social
media campaigns for gaining customers and connecting with them (de Ruyter, K and
et. al., 2021).
Recommendations
 The virgin holiday is been well known for its image globally which makes company
in able to offer high quality of services by follow-up of all the rules and regulations of
government in respect to Covid 19 on regular basis which can help them in facing this
situation in very effective manner.
 The company have the opportunity of business expansion which plays an important
role in expanding the business operations in proper manner. The company also enjoys
competitive advantage over the competitors and with this it can overcome from the
weakness of dependency on local market.
CONCLUSION
It is been concluded from above analysis that marketing is an essential part for the
business which helps the organisation to perform its activities in very effective and

appropriate manner. The report concludes the analysis of SWOT of virgin holiday along with
the threat which is faced by organisation in the upcoming three years. Further in report
principles of service marketing is concluded.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Morgan, N.A and et. al., 2019. Research in marketing strategy. Journal of the Academy of
Marketing Science, 47(1), pp.4-29.
Gupta, A., Gupta, N. and Gupta, M., 2019. British Airways-A SWOT and PESTLE Analysis-
The impact of Europe 2020 policy. NOLEGEIN-Journal of Corporate & Business
Laws, 1(1), pp.1-11.
Suksup, C., Pimdee, P. and Sirijarupat, P., 2020. Educational human resources management
strategy SWOT analysis for Thailand’s OBEC. International Journal of Innovation,
Creativity and Change, 13(1), pp.105-120.
Nian, T. and Sundararajan, A., 2022. Social Media Marketing, Quality Signaling, and the
Goldilocks Principle. Information Systems Research.
Kukartsev, V.V and et. al., 2020. Features of evaluating the effectiveness of industrial
enterprise marketing activities. In IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and
Engineering (Vol. 734, No. 1, p. 012081). IOP Publishing.
Кулик, В.А., 2020. The need to use marketing in large production companies of the Republic
of Belarus.
de Ruyter, K and et. al., 2021. Reimagining marketing strategy: driving the debate on grand
challenges. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, pp.1-9.