Code: 9558 Date of Allocation: 21st July 2012 Date of Completion: 24th July 2012 Topic: Hospitality and

Tourism Marketing Strategies Word count: 4250

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................1 MARKETING STRATEGIES OF INTERCONTINENTAL...............................................................................1 Recommend marketing and customer loyalty strategies for a hospitality or tourism organization................................................................................................................ 7 Critically evaluate marketing communication strategies for hospitality and tourism ................................................................................................................................. 10 CONCLUSION............................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
InterContinental Hotels Group is worlds largest hotels company with its headquarters in Denham, UK. It is a British multinational hotel brand. The company has around 4500 hotels in about 100 countries. Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, InterContinental and Staybridge Suites, Hotel Indigo, Candlewood Suites are the various brands of the company. Around 3800 of its hotels function under franchise agreements, 640 are operated by the company itself but are owned separately and about 16 are directly owned (InterContinental Hotels Group, n.d). The company provides a number of services like luxury suites and deluxe rooms, butler and concierge services, restaurant, bars, Health club and spa, conference rooms and banquet halls and etc. It gives out special offers like wine dinners special, shopping weekends etc. Services are rendered to both internal and external customers. Internal customers are people from within the organization i.e. the employees of the hotel. The hotel checks the quality of services by first providing it to its employees and management. External customers are people unrelated to the organization and come to the hotel just for its services. They make payment for the services provided to them. These external customers are of the biggest significance for the hotels as their business depends upon them. They can make or break any company. Development of an organization depends on its external clients only. The brand hotels of the InterContinental Group entertain a huge clientele mainly of the high profile and the elite (InterContinental Hotels Group, n.d).

MARKETING STRATEGIES OF INTERCONTINENTAL

With reference to the InterContinental Hotels Group, public relations and customer loyalty strategies have been discussed. According to experts, An organizations strategy is the fundamental pattern of present and planned resource deployment and ecological communications that indicates how the institute will realize its goals. Before explaining these strategies in detail, getting a clear picture of what marketing strategy shows, is essential. Marketing strategies are very significant for every organization in todays volatile environment. It helps management to use scarce resources in the most efficient manner. Such strategies enable a firm to deal with the dynamic environment. Strategies are focused on one central point, for instance, targeting a particular market segment etc. A business makes it strategies in basically four areas- price, product, place and promotion. These strategies
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are taken up by a company in order to fulfill its goals and objectives. InterContinental takes into account various marketing strategies to bring about customer satisfaction and to make its mark in the competitive environment. Public relations (PR) strategies are aimed at providing a company exposure to the public. These strategies are used to persuade the audiences to make a particular image of the organization in their minds. The principle technique that public relation strategists use is identifying the audience to be targeted and to customize every information to attract that target group. The chief purpose is to attract customers, shareholders, investors, suppliers, government and all related and interested people to maintain an optimistic perspective about the organization and its policies and products. Foremost tricks include delivering speeches at conferences and meetings, using press for this purpose, award functions and communicating with the workforce. According to experts, creating and harnessing relationships with the public generates shared understanding between an organization and its audience (LEtang, 2007). InterContinental Hotels makes use of this strategy to appeal to the concerned parties. Customer maintenance is the utmost important factor when it comes to public relation strategies. This technique of maintaining customers is intended towards reducing customer dissatisfaction. A companys ability to manage its consumers and draw new customers, depends not only on the quality of its goods and services, but it is also dependent upon how good the company is in maintaining relations with them (Appiah-Adu and et. al, 2000). The impression it has in the minds of its stakeholders is very critical in customer maintenance. Consumer preservation has more to it than just fulfilling customer needs. It involves exceeding their expectations at every level and gain their loyalty and faithfulness. Buyer perpetuation unswervingly generates profit for the company. Study suggested that occupied clients produce 1.7 period additional incomes than standard consumers, whereas having occupied staff and busy consumers proceeds a returns with an increase of 3.4 times the standard. Using this marketing tool a company can generate a larger consumer base as compared to its competitors. Public Relations strategists are aware of the fact that simply targeting the public and getting feedback from them is not sufficient. It also includes identifying the objectives, creating responsiveness, collaborating with award functions and other major events in order to generate attentiveness among its consumers (Morris and Goldsworthy, 2008).

Marketing communications and e-marketing activities and strategies

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Communication is the process of providing the customers access to every vital information of an organizations products, services and concerned policies. The strategies that are adopted by InterContinental Hotels for this purpose include information speeding up and hotel visits. The first strategy involves internet based marketing practices. Using this facility interested customers can get much wanted and relevant information. This is a very cost effective strategy and at the same time very manageable. InterContinental Hotels Group updates all the relevant messages and information on its web based program which makes it convenient for its clients to get an overview of the various services and facilities that the group offers. The customers can visit the hotel and get a clear picture of the real services and amenities put on offer by the company (Dikeni, 2001). In its e-marketing practices, the group provides its valuable information to a number of travel agencies, so that the customers can enjoy some bargains and discounts at this hotel if they book tickets from the concerned travel agencies. IHG is a market leader in e-commerce services. It is the first corporation to offer its customers online reservations in the hotel sector, and a pioneer in enabling its visitors to review, cancel or make alterations in the reservations online, notwithstanding the original mode of reservation (Burns, C. & Bush, F., 2000). The Group apprehended quite early that its clients associated its skill to provide outstanding services online with its capability to give excellent experience in the hotel as well. For this reason, it deployed Akamai to make sure that there was uninterrupted flow of bookings and reservations and other customer support tools were part and parcel of the bigger strategy and plan to ensure brilliance in all operations.

Other marketing activities and strategies

InterContinental Hotels engaged in intense marketing practices like placing air balloons on top of its roof to draw the local people, using flyers mentioning its name on airplanes to attract foreign tourists and etc. It also made use of social networking sites like MySpace, Twitter, Facebook, etc. which is a great way of word of mouth publicity (Price and Starkov, 2012).

Critically evaluate marketing strategies in the hospitality or tourism sector

In Hotel industry there are a number of strategies of attracting customers. With the help of such strategies it becomes easy to manage the demand and supply of its services. For this purpose several strategies have been analyzed from a critical point of view:

Competitive Advantage and Sustainable Competitive Advantage It is the differentiating factor of an organization that enables it to stand out among its competitors. It is the value that a firm creates in the mind of its customers i.e. the price they are ready to pay for the services offered to them. Sustainable competitive advantage gives an organization consistent success over time (Chaharbaghi and Lynch, 1999). InterContinental Groups main competitive advantage is its exceptional online services that gives it an edge over other hotels in the industry. Positioning Positioning is useful in creating and sustaining competitive advantage and helps an organization to position itself in the minds of the customers in a clear and inimitable way. The organization establishes different positioning criteria along which the services offered are positioned (Adenso-Daz and et.al, 2002). InterContinental Hotels uses this strategy to appeal to its clients. It uses its corporate social responsibility to position itself as a socially responsible organization in the mind of its customers to attract more customers as compare to its competitors. Service Life Cycle Hotels need to proactively administer the service mix it puts on offer by using an appropriate selection of strategies. IHG has some of its service offerings in the growth phase of its service life cycle. Its strategies are focused on influencing its customers to opt for its brand instead of its competitors. Managing supply and demand There is always a mismatch between the demand and the supply. The services offered by a hotel may sometimes surpass the services demanded by its clients. Similarly the demand might sometimes exceed hotels ability to supply those services. InterContinental Hotel Group the capacity of the facilities, its supporting environment and the personnel in charge of the services are in balance with each other. The process are so designed in the hotel that there are minimum chances of occurrence of a blockage. Therefore managing demand and supply is very of critical importance for hospitality and tourism industry (InterContinental Hotels Group Maintains Competitive Advantage with Improved Responsiveness to Customer Needs. n.d.). Focusing sales team Recruiting an effective marketing team and a good sales force has always been the priority of IHG.
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Customer services InterContinental Hotels provide spa centres and beauty salons to its customers to indulge themselves. The hotel chains have also opened many boutique shops, beauty product shops and gifts item shops in their property to catch the fancy of more and more consumers. E-mail marketing strategy Under this strategy a confirmation mail is sent to the client after his booking has been confirmed. The client can make more bookings using their mail accounts. With the help of this InterContinental Hotels is able to connect to more customers. It also enhances relations between the hotel and its customers (Mohr and Nevin, 1990). Value Based Pricing It means selecting a price in succession to developing estimates of market demand based on how prospective consumers recognize the value of the product or service. IHG has always used this pricing strategy and it has worked in its favour (Stiving, 2011). Direct Marketing strategy Interacting with the customers directly through the use of various forms of media is called direct marketing. This strategy involves distributing catalogues, advertisement in magazines, sending mails, face to face communication and etc. InterContinental Hotels puts advertisements in travel magazines and also involve in face to face communication with its customers who visit the hotel. This provides them first hand information about the services and facilities of the hotel. Service marketing InterContinental Groups hotels also provide different services like free pick and drop facility from airports, concierge facility, butlers, city tours, baby sitting facility and etc at very minimal rates. This catches the eye of the clients and create a positive impression in their minds. Innovation and creativity Innovation is the key to success in todays changing environment. InterContinental Hotels Group has brought innovation in its operations and actions. It acknowledged the fact that there is mounting pressure on companies to give regard to the environment as customers are becoming increasingly aware about environmental issues. They are constantly looking for new ways to constructing and running their hotels in order to lessen any harmful impact on the nature. The headquarters in UK and USA are good examples of this.
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Social media marketing The buzz around social media marketing practices hasnt gone unobserved by the hotel and tourism industry. InterContinental Hotels website has Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn tabs that provides regular information to its clients. It also incorporated Flip.to which enables it to update good and encouraging comments from recent happy visitors and display them on hotels homepage. This improves the credibility of the hotel. Also it increases engagement and communication with the visitors. Regular updates of eminent personalities who visit the hotel are also made on hotels website (Zarrella, 2009). Talent Management Intercontinental Hotels lay emphasis on focus on employing and training the best talent in the industry so they can serve their customer in the most effective manner. Rewarding strategy InterContinental Hotels sends birthday and anniversary goodies to its best customer thus harnessing lifelong relations with the customers.

The role of network and customer relationship marketing strategies for InterContinental Hotels
Relationship marketing is the process of creating, maintaining, and enhancing strong, value-laden relationships with customers and other stakeholders. Its aim is to provide special benefits to selected customers. It will go a long way in building relationships. To achieve this marketing strategy, a marketer has to keep in touch with regular customers, identify most loyal customers, to provide additional services to selected customers, design special recognition and reward schemes, and use them for building long term relationships. InterContinental Hotels always keep eye on its standard customers and provides a range of additional benefits and discounts to them (Brink and Berndt, 2009). The key features in developing a squad to provide customer service are technical proficiency, operational know-how and familiarity of specific field rather than concentrating on interpersonal skills to add to client satisfaction. Maintaining a good relationship with the consumers contributes to the loyalty towards business. A loyal consumer is required to have positive attitude towards the services of an organization so that the relationship continues. InterContinental Hotels always aims at gaining consumer loyalty for its hotel by providing best
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services and satisfying the needs of the customers. Customer satisfaction leads to the increase in number of clients for the hotel as good experiences are always shared among family and friends. It is important for an organization to evaluate customers needs and wants and work in that direction. In order to meet the customers demand, the current services provided by the firm and the required changes should be well understood by the organization (Aaker and et.al, 2004). The feedback provided by the regular customers can direct the organization towards better understandability of its clients needs. Considering the feedback by the consumer earns their loyalty and relationship and makes them realize their value in the organization. InterContinental Hotels conducts various seminar, events, and occasional parties to enhance the relationship. The maintenance of the customers information like birthdates and anniversaries and sending them greetings helps to create friendly relations to interact with them in a better way. This makes the customer more loyal towards the organization.

Recommend marketing and customer loyalty strategies for a hospitality or tourism organization.
Achieving goodwill in market and maintaining the reputation by satisfying the existing customer is a key feature to attract new customers. Along with quality product, a company should have sufficient standard in the market which is created by efficient services. Various surprising schemes and profitable offers creates loyalty for the brand and hence preserves the existing customers. Studies shows that company can earn 1.7 times more profit by engaging regular customers than ordinary ones, at the same time having occupied workers and engaged consumers proceeds a profits of 3.4 times of the standard (Aaker, 2001). This is the process by which a firm can compete with its competitor in best possible way and can generate loads of customers. Some of the main insights in this regard are:
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In normal practice an organization can lose up to 20% of its clientele simply by not paying any attention on buyer associations. This figure might even go up to 80% in certain sectors. Not every company acknowledges the repercussions of this wavering ratio. For instance, one hotel retains 80 percent and the second hotel retains 70 percent of its guests. And annually they draw 30 percent new guests. In the case of the first hotel, it is able to grow 10 percent clients per annum but the second hotel has no growth (Diamantopoulos and Schlegelmilch, 1997).
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Incorporating intelligent promotional campaigns is a key factor in gaining the loyalty of the guests. The cost incurred on such campaigns is optimal compared to the benefits it is going to reap. Following strategies, if properly incorporated into the system, are bound to magnify customer loyalty and have a radical impact on the business:
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Remarkable Customer Service: The crux of hospitality and tourism industry is

providing unmatched services to the customers. The basic competition between hotels is based on this fact that which group can offer better services than other. Word of mouth publicity plays a very important part in promoting the services of a hotel. When a guest stays in a hotel, he lives an experience (Armistead and Clark, 1994). He will tell about the facilities and service offerings to his relatives and friends. Positive comments will work in favor of the whole organization and similarly even a slight dissatisfaction relating to a particular service may ruin the hotels image as well as hamper its prospective clientele. Complete devotion of the hotel staff towards delivering high end services, being proactive, timely delivery and providing what has been promised can lead to customers coming back to the hotel.
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Minimizing Attrition: There is not even a single organization that doesnt lose its

customers. But only some corporations realize this fact while many dont. A large amount of time, money and resources are employed by all the organizations initially to harvest long term relationships with the guests. But over the time, while some lose interest or fail to do so, only some are able to maintain it. The fundamental rule of developing a business is to retain its consumer base and not lose them at any cost (Craven and et.al, 2002). Once this outflow is minimized, a company can witness its growth at an increasing pace.
3.

Recurrent Communications Datebook:

This is a type of calendar which helps a

corporation to stay in regular contact with its clients. Its a planned order of mail, proceedings, phone calls, thank you, special offers, follow-ups, magic moments, and cards or remarks with a special contact etc and it occurs frequently and routinely at definite points in the services, postservices and pre-services process. This makes customers realize that they are important and valuable for the hotel (Choi and Chu, 2001). They are kept informed and all their post services qualms are cleared. This results in satisfaction and they would like to keep coming to the hotel.
4.

Constantly being in mind of the customers: Like for any product, out of sight means

out of mind, same is the case for hospitality industry. Hotels need to keep reminding their
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customary clients about their presence. This can be done by regularly telling the customers about the various packages and offers by dropping in a mail or a message. This will help a hotel in preserving its old valuable clients. This is a great way to create faithfulness.
5.

Reckon lifetime value: Recognizing the revenue generated by serving a specific guest

over a long period of time, say months or even years, a hotel can conveniently concern about that guest and acknowledge his importance. This would help the management to quantify and manage the actual operating costs it has to incur to preserve a particular customer. And this is how InterContinental Hotels makes its financial arrangements (Khan and Jain, 2001).
6.

Courteousness: This is a great way to improve the interpersonal skills of the hotel staff.

The top managers converse with their team members in a very courteous way and coach them the manner in which the workforce is expected to deal with the guests. Certain standards of communication are made and the staff is supposed to use those standard phrases while interacting with the customers whether on phone or face to face. This makes an employee of the hotel efficient in interacting with the guests in a pleasing and warm style. It also teaches them to keep their cool in adverse situations and not to show their frustration in front of the clients. This helps in strengthening the cord of relationship with the customers.
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Service veracity: Exceeding customer expectations with respect to quality of services

and other aspects will ensure success for the organization. Hotels shall follow strict standards of quality, authenticity and dependability. Integrity is of major significance in hospitality sector. No one likes to be cheated and if the customers dont get what they are promised then this puts a question mark on the credibility of the hotel. Customers are bound to be drawn towards a hotel that treats them with gentility. By compulsorily adhering to food and beverage standards and providing only authentic and high quality food and drinks InterContinental Hotels enjoy great amount of customer loyalty in the market.
8.

Feedback; take it as it comes: A large number of customers dont complain to the hotel

itself about anything that they deem unsatisfactory. But they will surely tell others about the discrepancy. Feedback, whether positive or negative is very crucial for every organization. Feedback helps the group to find out its shortcomings and subsequently ways to improve them. Also positive comments boost the confidence of the staff and they would strive to excel in those spheres as well. By keeping suggestion boxes and indulging in face to face interactions

with their customary clientele regarding their services and facilities InterContinental Hotels can work on improving and rendering good service.

Critically evaluate marketing communication strategies for hospitality and tourism

This is step by step process that starts with designing the message to be communicated to the customers. This is the subject matter of communication strategies. It is the message that is going to appeal to the audience; therefore it should be attractive and reliable at the same time. Communicating this message to the customers is the second step. It is the mode of advertising the services to the target audience. Hospitality industry has at its discretion a range of communication strategies which it can use for the purpose of creating awareness about its services. As a large number of marketing tools are available in the present times, choosing the appropriate communication strategy is very vital. This strategy can be called as Marcom. Various tools are available in marketing communication function. Some organizations may depend upon only one medium of communication whereas other companies might adopt a mix of various mediums (Andersona and Vincze, 2000). A company cant be definite about the effectiveness of media mix it is using without the conception of Marcom strategy which is associated with their general direction of strategic marketing. Following are the various communication methods:

a. ADVERTISMENTS:

InterContinental Hotels Group by way of displaying its banner on

boundary wall of football matches and other similar events, and also by placing ads in travel magazines can draw the attention of a number of people (Belch and Belch, 2004).

b. WEB SITE: The webpage of InterContinental Hotels shall contain complete information
about its services, facilities and packages on offer along with their charges.

c. DIRECT MARKETING (ONLINE AND OFFLINE): InterContinental Hotel Group is an

industry leader in online services. Customers can avail the benefit of making and altering online reservations (Clow and Baack, 2001).

d. PUBLIC RELATIONS: Creating and harnessing relationships with the public generates
shared understanding between an organization and its audience. InterContinental Hotels makes use of this strategy to appeal to the concerned parties

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e. TRADE SHOWS AND CONFERENCES: Companies are conducting press conferences

and sharing with the people their growth and other relevant aspects through media.

f. EVENT SPONSORSHIP: Sponsoring a big event or celebration is also a good way to

draw the attention of public.

g. PACKAGING: In order to attract people during off season, hotels are offering lucrative
deals and packages.

h. CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILTY: With increasing awareness among the

public with respect to environment and society, fulfilling ones CSR is an effective communication tool, to let people know of the core values of the organization (Berger, 2010).

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CONCLUSION
Thus from the above evaluation we conclude that innovative and customer focused marketing strategies are of the utmost importance in hospitality sector as the competition is very fierce. InterContinental Hotels with their Public Relations and online marketing strategy is already a leader in the industry. But it should also try some other marketing strategy mix along with its original strategies. Also keeping a check on what the competitors are doing is very crucial. It should focus on exceeding the expectations of the customers by providing timely delivery and also delivering what has been promised in order to harness customer loyalty (Cai and Hobson, 2004). The management should think beyond set standards and try to be a benchmark for other hotels in the industry. With additional benefits, schemes and services provided by the InterContinental Hotels, it can further enhance its iconic image and loyalty in the market ultimately affecting the image of the brand.

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