Tourism Marketing for Developing Countries

Question: Describe about the Tourism Marketing for Developing Countries ? Answer: Introduction Background of the study The report seeks a deep insight towards preparation of a marketing plan for Thomas Holiday Group. The marketing plan would exhibit the application of theoretical framework such as Pestle analysis, Porters Five Forces and McKensey 7s model would impart practical information about the situation analysis of the organization. Upon identification of the key objectives set for Thompsons Holiday Group, the marketers would segment the market, target the audience and position their products and services for gaining supremacy in the competitive market (Hollensen 2015). The implementation of the marketing mix would assist the organization to promote their products and services in a successful manner. The application of Ansoff Matrix would devise marketing strategies for future growth and sustenance of Thompson Holiday Group. Background of the company The particular report emphasizes on Thomas Holidays Group, which is one of the most renowned travel operators in the hospitality sector. The organization started its journey in the year 1965. Roy Thompson, the owner of the Thompson Holiday Group came from a background of a lower middle class family. Upon identification of effective businesses strategies and policies, Thompson established the travel agency, which was a instant success in the hospitality sector. The owner takes active participation in expanding their business globally in various multinational companies. The innovative marketing strategies, techniques and exquisite situational analysis of the firm, assisted the organization in fulfilling the perceived needs and demands of the consumers using the services of Thompson Holiday Group. Competitors of Thompson Holiday Group Competition and rivalry is always prevalent in the tourism industry. While Thompson Holiday Groups are so far successful in maintaining their competitive advantage, it often faces challenges from the competitor brands such as Expedia, UK, Divequest, Ampersand Travel and carrier holidays. The cost effective holiday destinations with the essence of quality service is the secret recipe of success for the organization in the tourism sector (Wilson and Gilligan 2012). The economical and political scenarios of UK are relatively favorable for the tourism sector, and therefore, Thomson Holiday Group is in no position to relax. Slightest of mistakes could influence the consumers to the organization to shift towards competitor brands. Consumers of Thomson Holiday Group The inclusions of consumers are the most determinant factors of success for the organization. The marketers of Thompson Holiday Group seek a deep insight to prioritize the consumers at an utmost level. The marketers keep on updating the consumers about the new arrivals and specifications of the holiday packages. The marketers always serve the interests of the consumers by offering the best available services (Kohler and Logemann2016). The consumer feedbacks are taken into serious consideration and if any tentative situation arises, the management takes immediate actions to resolve the issues. The consumers usually comprise of family members, bachelors, married couples, high school students, retired persons and unmarried couples. Market Share: Thompson holidays have always enjoyed a strong market share due to its strong brand value and extraordinary services at best price. Current market share of the company is 13%, which is huge as compared to its closest competitors. Their marketing experts have successfully done the market research and as per that, the company has implemented all strategies related to marketing. This is the reason why they have seen huge profits in the year 2011 and 2013 and in the year 2014, they have received best service providing company award in UK. Figure: Market share of Thompson Group in contrast to competitor brands (Source: Chen 2016) Values: The Company has made sure that their customers gets best services from them. From arranging best hotels for the customers to arranging best transport facilities no company can be compared to Thompson holidays (Stone and Gould 2016). As per the recent research, organized by one of the most popular tourism magazine, around 65% off the people feels that Thompson Holidays provides best services than any of its competitors like Dive Quest or Expedia UK. Moreover the employees of the company who directly deals with the customers are extremely well behaved and well mannered and they give quick responses to any kind of queries raised by the customers as a result of which the customers gets more influenced. Environmental analysis Macro environmental analysis PESTLE Analysis With the assistance of the detailed PESTLE analysis (as mentioned in the appendix 1, the marketing managers of Thompson Holiday Group identifies the below mentioned factors that influences business the most. Political Factors: As discussed in the Appendix, the potential impact of political factors is relatively higher for Thomson Holiday Group. Therefore, any alteration in the political scenario could pose a threat for the organization in the competitive market. The relative importance of the political factors is also on the higher side and therefore, Thomson Holiday Group needs to comply with the rules and regulation of the government such as tax policies, social welfare policies, environmental policies, trading policies etc Economical Factors: As per the discussion in Appendix, the potential impact of economic factors is relatively on the higher side for the organization. The economic factor of UK will play a vital role for determining the sustainability of Thomson Holiday Group. The marketers of Thompson Holiday Group needs to consider several factors such as inflation rates, taxation policies, marketing trade cycles, distribution trends, overseas economic trends and unemployment policies for gaining supremacy in the competitive market. The relative importance for the UK economy is quite high as the organization aims to expand in the global market. Social: The potential impact of societal aspect is medium of Thomson Holidays Group. This is because the marketers will opt for the targeted consumers beyond any culture, religion or geographical boundary. However, it is an opportunity for the organization to make effective utilization of societal impacts. Since the relative importance is medium, the organization will not prioritize any specific society or culture (Chen 2016). Due to its mass appeal, consumers would automatically get attracted to the brand and acquire their services in an effective manner. The marketers of the organization will focus on demographics, lifestyles, social issues, educational levels and attitude of individuals for gaining supremacy in the competitive market. Technological: The potential impact of technology on Travel and tourism sector is on the medium side. However, UK is a developed nation and the technological implosion would assist the organization to meet the requirements of the consumers in a successful manner. The relative importance for technological change is medium and therefore, the marketing managers would make effective utilization of media platforms to address valuable information to the consumers. The inclusion of public forum and social media also leveraged the profit margins of the organization, which acts as an opportunity for the organization. Legal: The potential impacts of the legal factors are high for Thomson Holiday Group. Thompson Holiday Group needs to comply with several legal legislations such as health and safety act, data protection act, right to information and employment acts, so that both the consumers and the employees could take necessary legal steps if necessary. Ignorance about the legal factors would pose a significant threat for the organization. The relative importance for the legal factors are relatively high and therefore, the organization needs to give special impetus on competition law, environmental law, foreign trade regulation, consumer protection legislation etc.1 Environmental: The potential impact of the environmental factors has its highest regards in terms of Thomson Holiday Group. Natural calamities and climatic alterations could often hamper the business transactions of Thompson Holiday Group (Briggs 2016). It can pose a huge threat for the organization as the overall situation is unpredictable in nature and Thompson Holiday Group does not have much control over the climatic hazards. The relative importance for considering environmental factors is one the higher side and therefore, the organization needs to contribute towards corporate social responsibility for ensuring sustainence in the competitive market. Porters Five Forces The theoretical business analysis framework of Porters five forces assists Thompson Holiday Group to assess their contemporary business scenario in an effective manner [appendix 2]. Upon assistance of this theoretical framework, the organization would be able to analyze their competitive position of their brand in the competitive market (Chen 2016). This framework would critically analyze the business scenario and probe for areas of improvement in marketing strategy. The theoretical application would assist the marketers of Thompson Holiday Group to ensure long-term sustenance through enhanced marketing strategies. Buyer Power: The bargaining powers of the buyers are on the higher side in terms of low pricing strategy of the organization. They would tend to drive down the price of the products and acquire them at lower prices. Supplier Power: The bargaining powers of the suppliers are higher for the premium consumers. However, in case of middle, class consumers, the bargaining power of the suppliers are one the lower side. In most of the cases, the suppliers are efficient to create market urgency Competitive Rivalry: Competitive rivalry tests the ability of the competitor to create consumer demand in the competitive market. The major competitors of the Thompson Holiday Group are Expedia, UK, Divequest, Ampersand Travel and carrier holidays (Weaver and Jin 2016). The marketing managers would keep on changing their strategies and techniques according to the competitive scenario, which helps them to maintain their brand integrity and image Threat of Substitution: It is very much prevalent for the consumers of the tourism sector to switch their decision of consuming products, by shifting to the competitor brands. In order to avoid the above scenario, the marketers of Thompson Holiday Group would implement effective cost effective strategies along with enhanced service quality and value added services to meet the expectations of the consumers. Threat of new entries: The organization has to face immense competition from the competitor brands in order to survive in the tourism sector. The priority of the consumers may often change; therefore, the marketers should implement effective strategies for surviving in the competitive market (Wiedmann and Langner 2016) Taking the competitive scenario into consideration, the managers of Thompson Holiday Group will aim to implement effective promotional activities through various forms of media , describing its service quality and product specifications McKinsey 7 S The management of Thomson Holidays has been utilizing various strategic planning tools such as the McKinsey 7s Model [appendix 3]. The helps to evaluate whether Thomson Holidays can align 7 key elements: strategy, structure, systems, shared values, style, staff and skills for achieving their organisational objectives. The company has been offering their services to more than 30 different destinations and the company has 50,000+ employees to support their business. The company largely considers enhancing their customer support departments for satisfying all the customer segments (Avraham and Ketter 2016). The company encourages teamwork and offers rewatds to the employees with satisfactory performance. The outputs of the Mckinsey 7S Models are as follows: Strategy: To increase market share by offering services according to the needs and expectations of each individual customer and by providing cost-effective tourism services. Structure: Line and Staff Organizational Structure Systems: The management of Thomson Holidays follows few formal systems, where the manageent is mainly concerned with the customer support, booking process and tourism services. Skills: Skills relevant to various tourism services and customer support. Staffs : More than 50,000 employees are working for the company and the company has been creating value for them by offering effective training, growth opportunities and employment benefits or rewards. Styles : Organized and flexibility in management style. Shared Values: The employees of Thomson Holidays belief in teamwork The employees are also motivated to perform towards organizational goals. The strtaegies implemented by the management of Thomson Holidays are viable. The business has a large market share in both domestic and international market. The company should conisder investing twards newer tourism concepts such as sustainabe tourism. However, the strategy is aligned with their organisation goals. Micro environmental analysis SWOT Analysis Refer to the detailed analysis mentioned in the appendix section [appendix 4], it can be said that with the help of direct marketing process, customers of Thompson Holiday Group would be able to provide immediate feedback to the service providers. On the other hand, the employees would be able to interact with the customers directly. As a result, communication barriers occur in between the marketing management team. Consequently, they have to face immense challenges to make an effective decision inside the business. With the help of effective business strategy and policy, this particular organization would get the opportunity to expand their business as well as product in the international market so that Thomsons Holidays Travel can receive the international fame. They have provided free tickets to the people who participated in the contest. These types of strategies have become a treat for the organization like Thomson Holidays Travels. Objective for Thompson Thompson Holiday Group tends to plan an effective strategy, outlined in a marketing plan to achieve the objective oriented outcomes of the organization. The main purpose of setting the objectives is to enhance the profit margin and productivity of the organization in the global market by meeting the requirements of the consumers. The intended objectives of Thompson Holiday Group are as follows: Specific To expand the business in the global tourism market through exclusive variety of tourism services Measurable The objective specially suggests that the organization would like to expand its business to the large demographic area through implementing several varieties of tourism services. The market position of the organization can be measured to show whether the objective has been achieved or not. Attainable Before setting the objective, the organization must assess its capabilities and its marketing potentiality to ensure that the objective is achievable in an effective manner. Relevant The organization should have analyzed its business resources, employees, competitors, and current tourism market to ensure that the organization could achieve the objective within the given time bound. Time bound The tourism organization has set a deadline of 12 months to achieve the objective. Segmentation, targeting and Positioning Segmenting strategy While handling the business in the competitive market, it is essential for the organization to segment their market, target the consumers and position the products accordingly. The STP approach reflects on the profit margin of the organization and ensures long-terms sustenance of the organization in the competitive market. The marketers of Thomson Holiday Group would implement a combined segmentation strategy in terms of Geographic, Demographic and Psychographic Segmentation The marketers would select demographic segmentation as; Thomson Holiday Group could segment its target market based on gender, sex, age, income, life cycles etc. Upon implementation of the demographic segmentation, the organization could segregate the potential consumers that could urge to acquire the products and services of the organization. The organization may address to the consumers with diverse needs (Sezgin 2016). The tourism organization seeks a deep insight to develop holiday packages for married and unmarried couples. Similarly, the organizations also aim to serve the interest of the retired individuals. Upon identification of the demographic segmentation, the marketers could penetrate the needs of the consumers in a proactive manner. The marketers would initiate geographic segmentation, as Thomson Holiday would be able to divide the market into several geographical units such as region, states and neighborhoods. The organization would probe for a mass appeal across the globe (Shao, Morrison and Wu 2016). Therefore, the organization needs to segment their consumers in order to identify their individual interest. Therefore, geographical segmentation could prove to be a profitable venture for Thomson Holiday Group. The marketers would select psychographic segmentation, as Thompson Holiday Group would segregate the consumers under various groups based on social class, personality characteristics and lifestyles. The marketers of the organization recognized that this segmentation is identical for the organization to segregate the consumers under low and premium pricing strategy. Due to the differing requirements of the consumers in regards to economic and social status, the marketers planned varied travel packages for their respective consumers (Tsiotras, Tsiotras and Fotiadis 2016). Targeting The targeted consumers are the most decisive factors of success for the Thomson Holiday Group. The organization has a mass appeal; however, it would aim to focus more on the family members and married couples that could significantly contribute towards the productivity of the organization. Bachelors would tend to enjoy holiday destinations on their own terms. Therefore, at times, the unmarried couples and the bachelors tend to avoid the norms and rules set by the tourism sectors (Pike 2016). The marketers of the organization would make effective utilization of media platform to connect with the family members of the organization. Unlike other tourist companies, the organization would probe for both low and premium pricing strategy according to the nature of situations and changing demand of the consumers. The company would aim to provide the best quality services to the consumers at a cost effective price. Positioning Thomson Holiday Group would take active participation in providing unique services to their consumers, as to position itself as the leading travel company in the UK tourism market. The marketers of the organization would provide valuable information about the tourist spot of interests and accommodate luxurious and comfortable services to the consumers. The organization would try their level best to serve the individual requirements of the consumers through service excellence. The after sale services, empathic and responsive approach of the service staffs gives the organization a competitive edge in the tourism sectors (Korstanje 2016). The organization conducts promotional campaigns at regular intervals to aware the consumers about the arrival of new offers of holidays destination packages. The ultimate vision of the organization would be to expand their global market, for which product positioning is the key to success. Marketing Mix The Marketers of Thompson holiday group implemented the marketing mix to promote their products and services in the competitive market. The 4ps usually comprise a typical marketing mix [appendix 5]. However, the organization implemented the 7Ps of marketing as Tourism sector mainly focuses on the production and service excellence to meet the stimulating needs and penetrating demands of the consumers (Chang 2016). The factors discussed below would allow Thompson Holiday group to frame its objectives and project a fair image in the hospitality sector. Product strategy: It states that tourism products refer to a set of complex services like various physical resources, activities and services. The Thompson Holiday groups would focus on the holiday destination as the center of attractiveness. The natural and social characteristics of the destination are the most decisive factor of success in the competitive market. The Thompson Holiday Group would consider holiday destinations with scenic beauty across the globe. The holiday package usually comprise of trips for the singles, newly married couples, retired persons, families and unmarried couples (Katsoni, Arikan and Dundar 2016). The organization could emphasize on a wide variety of Tourism sectors such as Medical, Urban and Cultural Tourism. The organization would consider value ads in their services, which comprise of medical assistance, complimentary food supply, amusement programs and discounts on travel packages. Price strategy: The Thompson holiday Group would consider a wide range of pricing strategies in order to match the changing demands of the consumers and rising competition in the competitive market. Upon gathering of relevant information from market skimming, the marketers of the organization opted for both premium and low pricing strategy in order to appeal the mass. The low pricing strategy would fulfill the needs and demands of the consumers in a cost effective manner (Frey and Gervers 2016). However, the premium consumers would get lavish facilities and high quality services from the Thompson Holiday Group. The basic ideology of the marketers is to expand their business across the globe by providing services to the consumers according to their needs. Place strategy: The marketers of Thompson Holiday Group would place their products in a way, which is convenient for the consumers to access. In accordance to the tourism sector, the consumers travel a long way to acquire the services afforded by the organization. The marketers of Thompson holiday group would distribute their information in trade fares, web pages and holiday campaigns. Promotion startegy: Thompson Holiday Market initiates promotional activities for making the consumers aware about the 4exdistence o their products and services. In a broader context, the term promotion is replaced by communication. Communication of the Thompson Holiday Group usually comprise of advertising, public relations, personal selling and viral advertising. The marketers also make effective utilization of print media and audiovisual media to gain supremacy in the competitive market (Hutt and Speh 2012). Brochures, banner ads, billboards and hoarding could also serve the interest of the consumers in an effective manner. People strategy: Identification of the right consumers would be the most determinant factors of success for the tourism industry. The marketers of Thompson Holiday Group would aim to attract a diverse group of consumers belonging to both high and middle class society. In accordance to the global expansion of the tourism organization, the consumers of Thompson Holiday Group would comprise of unmarried couples, retired persons, families, bachelor groups, married couples and official employees (Johanson and Mattsson 2012). Process strategy: Thompson Holiday Group would provide easy accessibility of information about the company offering and features to the consumers. The website portal of the organization continuously updates the consumers about the recent features and holidays destinations (Kapferer 2012). The tourism processes would take active participation in conveying messages and services to the consumers in the way they want. Physical evidence: Thompson Holidays Group would always make the content attractive on their official websites through testimonials and photographs displaying the satisfactory attributes of consumers in their respective holiday destinations. The consumers are unaware of the service quality until they avail them. It is vital for the potential consumers to visualize what a product or a service would be like (Morrison 2013). The physical evidence initiates urgency in the mind of the consumers to acquire the products and services of the organization in a successful manner. Other Strategic Choice Ansoff matrix Ansoff had developed the concept of Ansoff Matrix in the year 1957 especially for the article of Strategies for Diversification. With the help of Ansoff matrix, the business experts and the business leaders of Thompson Holiday Travels can make a plan for the future growth of their business analysing the risk factors [appendix 6]. Ansoff Matrix is possessed with four primary elements that include Market development, Diversification, Market Penetration, Product Development. Market Development: Making the target audience beyond going any particular geographical area conducting the situation analysis more systematically Using the popularity of media more effectively Market Penetration Making innovative business strategy to impress the customers Implementing more loyalty scheme and better packages Diversification Planning alternative business strategy so that the service providers can have an option if one of the strategies fail to draw the attention of the customers Product Development Providing better travelling packages to the customers Increasing workforce planning in the manufacturing division Conclusion On the contrary, it concludes that the marketing plan of Thomson Holiday Group allowed the organization to gain recognition in the competitive market. The various marketing strategies implemented prioritized the consumer needs and demands to an utmost level. 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