Holiday Inn Hotel Service Marketing Mix - Essay Example

HOLIDAY INN HOTEL SERVICE MARKETING MIX Insert Insert Introduction Marketing mix refers to marketing tools employed by firms to achieve its objectives of marketing in their target market. The aim of most companies is to establish a mix of products or services, which will ensure consumer satisfaction of needs and wants. The marketing mix should also give a business a distinctive status in the target market. Therefore, firms struggle to create marketing strategies through utilization of the marketing mix, which will develop a justifiable competitive advantage thus leading to profitability and growth in the end. The dynamic state of the market for services and products require firms to monitor frequently the environment as to adapt the marketing mix. It will provide the firm opportunities and to reduce the impact of threats. In this case, Holiday inn Hotel has to make adjustment of the traditional 4Ps marketing mix that entails product, price, promotion, and place and adopt more Ps, which include process, physical evidence, and people to achieve its marketing objectives. Marketing objectives Useful marketing objectives must be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely (SMART) (Wilson and Gilligan, 2004). The marketing objectives should be based on the situational evaluation of the environment of the company (Lambin, et.al. 2007). In this case, Holiday Inn should use its strengths to eradicate its weaknesses and respond to threats in the industry (Doyle and Stern, 2006). Moreover, marketing objectives should aim at exploiting market opportunities that will enable the company compete efficiently and attain a higher market share in the industry (Kotler, and Keller, 2011). The first marketing objective of Holiday Inn should be to enhance its presence in the upcoming markets such as China and Dubai by 15 percent in the next five years. The Asian market offers abundant growth and profitability opportunities due the high growth in consumer revenues, good infrastructure and growth in tourism numbers; therefore Holiday Inn should expand its presence in those markets. The hotel brand has huge financial resources and human talent thus it is possible to use its learning experience in the hospitality market to attain high market share in Asia (Ariffin and Maghzi, 2012). The second marketing objective for Holiday Inn is to increase the current bed occupancy by 25 percent in the next five years. The goal is specific and attainable since the global tourism travel numbers are increasing while the wealthy global economy will lead to a rise in international business travel. Previous research by Bowie and Buttle (2013) has demonstrated that hotels earn most of their revenues from room occupancy and related services and thus Holiday Inn should focus on improving this aspect of its service offering. The advancements in online reservation systems and growth of social media can be harnessed to promote the hotel to millions of potential customers globally. The hotels are located near airports and highways; meaning it is possible to achieve this objective within the next five years. The third marketing objective of Holiday Inn is to extend the physical evidence of the services and provide additional benefits to consumers. Although Holiday Inn hotels offer calm, convenient and relaxing environments, the current consumers are interested in sleeping in stylish designed and modern architecture hotels that has attractive and appealing exteriors. The hotel industry is highly competitive and Holiday Inn should differentiate its service offering by using attractive lighting, ample parking lots, nice furniture, free cable TV connection, laundry services, cool music and air conditioning (Morritt and Weinstein, 2012). The hotel can start offering related services such as free airport transfers, limousine rides, and secretarial services for the guests (Lamb, 2002). The hotel should position itself and promote its theme as the most convenient and comfortable hotel for business and luxury travels in order to differentiate its services from its competitors (Yelkur and DaCosta, 2001). The fourth marketing objective of Holiday Inn is to diversify its service offerings to both the high-end luxury segment and lower scale segments when the hotel will be able to provide additional benefits to the customers. Currently, Holiday Inn is a midscale hotel and is not ideal international high-end customers such as sports and music celebrities who desire exclusive hotel and resort services that offer more comfort, status and privacy. Also, it does not cater for customers looking for cheaper deals as there are many hotels offering low price deals with similar quality and locations, such as Premier Inn. The current increase in the number of wealthy individuals across the world will lead to increased demand for high-end luxury hotel services (IHG, 2014). However, as the rich gets richer, the poor get poorer, so demand for cheaper accommodation is also rising. People consideration For the business success of Holiday Inn, the needs of the various groups of people should be analyzed and ensure that each group is satisfied. The people who influence directly the success of Holiday Inn comprise of the customers, suppliers, and employees. Hospitality Companies mainly target an extensive mix of customers including non-resident diners and drinkers, business and leisure hotel residents. The management of customer mix requires that all various categories of customers be satisfied. In the end, customer wants and needs can change thus companies need to respond and monitor the changes. Therefore, it is essential for Holiday Inn to maintain a healthy relationship with its customers since it acts as an ingredient for successful services and products. Hence, Holiday Inn should manage customer mix by ensuring that target markets are well- matched since it plays a significant role in offering customer satisfaction. The marketers of Holiday Inn are facing the challenge of identifying and influencing the expectation of customers trying to develop a first-time purchase. On the other hand, employees play a great role in hospitality companies. The absorption of qualified skilled employees who are educated makes it easy to train them, and this brings about delivery of quality services. Employees have a great influence on the customer satisfaction level since they interact with customers. The manager of Holiday Inn should have a target of recruiting friendly and local staff that has more knowledge about the area instead of staff that is professional in the hotel industry hence enhancing interaction between employees and customers. At the Holiday Inn, the employees represent the most important role in providing experiences enjoyed by customers. The hotel employees offer their clients privileges of ordering food from their rooms at any time a customer needs food. The Holiday Inn staff is hospitable, friendly and efficient in their tasks. The achievement of the efficiency came because of job training. A hospitality chain of service organization cannot operate without a trained and skilled staff. Trained and skillful employees are the primary assets of the hospitality industry like Holiday Inn, and this is the reason the hotel has invested heavily to develop and to train its employees. Moreover, suppliers influence the performance of hospitality companies. Even though marketers do not involve directly in operational decisions of purchase, marketing should participate in setting specifications and quality standards. In this case, the marketer for Holiday Inn is accountable for managing relationships with marketing research and marketing communications agencies. Marketing communications will enable to foster future demand for Holiday Inn from its existing customers while marketing research will help the company to inform and enhance decision-making through reduction of uncertainties. Holiday Inn marketers have to communicate with their customers to inquire what they considered the experience. Besides, marketers should also ascertain and ensure customer complaints are satisfied and encouraging customers to come back through provision of positive word of mouth. Therefore, Holiday Inn requires having an involvement of human resources attribute of the operation to satisfy internal marketing. Through achievement of internal marketing, Holiday Inn will be able to satisfy their customers, employees, and suppliers satisfaction. In the end, the firm have a strong competitive advantage and the general increase in its profits. However, there is also a need of process improvements on the people of service marketing of the international hotel group. Employees in some of the Holiday Inn hotels are efficient and customer friendly than in other hotels. Therefore, it has an impact of causing differences in the standard and quality of hotel services that run under intercontinental brand name. Training of employees will ensure attainment of similar service levels and standards in all hotels. The Holiday Inn has attained successful service standardization globally. Process consideration Because of concurrent consumption and production frequency of hospitality services, the customer processes through which they consume and buy hospitality products are important to marketers. The important processes of Holiday Inn include checking out and checking in, queuing systems, booking, and service operations. Holiday Inn involves routines, schedules, and tasks. The processing of activities of the hotel carried out to the time the customer leaves. For instance, the customer receives information; he makes an appointment, arrives, books a room, lives in the hotel, attended to by the staff, the room is checked out then he leaves. Therefore, the hotel has a customer friendly process that is good presenting to clients. It has made them experience a warm welcome after which, they will have a thought of returning to the hotel next time. The marketers of Holiday Inn required to ensuring that service delivery processes of the organization are customer friendly, efficient, and competitive. The competitive environment in the hotel markets has become more powerful off late. The competitors reactions and actions have drastically influenced customer behavior, change in structure of the market, and market demand alteration. A luxurious hotel company requires being process oriented. Running a luxury hotel is a demanding process. The processes represent the main competitive advantages to Holiday Inn over its competitors. There are well-developed processes beginning from the smallest to even more tasks that are insignificant. For example, routine procedures for tasks like flower changing in the vases, which line the main lobby. The Holiday Inn management operations involve processes. It has independent, organized processes for every aspect of the operation. The department service room has a distinct set of processes, the department of beverages and food depends on another process set thus the hotel have process guidelines that are detailed for customer service. Hotel business involves careful management of the comprehensive processes. Hence, service quality provision entails service delivery in the right process. With this regard, Holiday Inn has outlined in detail the whole processes ranges, which are required for luxury hotel management. Hotels managed by Holiday Inn comprise a high level of standardization of processes defining the hotel chain globally. Processes are substantial for service organization since they are for manufacturing purposes. Holiday Inn will not be able to attain effectiveness and efficiency if it has not incorporated the right processes. The efficiency of the hotel has ensured accomplishment of the various operational tasks at the lowest cost. On other hand, Holiday Inn has ensured that customer services provision is in the best way, and this has enabled the hotel to achieve effectiveness. Moreover, the hotel cannot attain its vision if it has no right processes in place. Provision of services requires a balance between standardization and customization and processes of the activities involved need unique attention and mention. The definition of Holiday Inn processes enabled the hotel to offer similar service delivery level to its customers. Within the processes, the company has defined areas where preference of customer’s accommodation has offered a distinctive experience. In all the Holiday Inn Hotels globally, it should adopt similar processes for preparing the food. T he food specifications should be the same in weight, content, and size in all of its hotels. The leadership of the hotel should ensure that all supplies meet these specifications. Besides, the management should ensure that the layouts for restaurants and kitchen are similar. For the hotel to accommodate language differences, it should ensure that menu displays comprise images that aid in establishing similarities in all the hotels. The Holiday Inn should define processes of delivery of services such as requiring all orders to be completed within 80 seconds while wait time to be 3 minutes. Physical evidence consideration T he physical environment and infrastructure are important marketing services including delivery of services. The importance of physical infrastructure and environment to a luxury hotel is much greater since it is part of the experience of the services. The physical environment and infrastructure quality represent a greater value propositions provided by luxurious hotels to their customers. (Kaplan, A.M, Haenlein, M, 2006). The physical infrastructure and environment are the key bases of competitive advantage for most luxury hotels. Properties of the hotels control a premium especially because of their surrounding environs and property. In the case of hotels, physical environment represents architecture of their property, situated location, and the design of the rooms and interiors. The services offered by the hotels have tangible components are also physical prove of the service. The luxury hotel environment represents a key role in the service quality delivered. The decoration and establishment of Holiday Inn have ensured quality of their services and products that enable to achieve best attraction of customers. All the rooms have the necessary facilities to satisfy customers such as WI-FI, TV, and telephone. The services and organization of rooms are under customer’s expectations and budget. The hotel offers an environment that is unpolluted and free from noise. The decorations of the hotel depend on the festive and season. For instance, during Christmas occasions, the decoration of the hotels with Christmas trees including other equipment related to Christmas. The hotel has well lighted rooms including well-decorated furnishing and furniture. The building layout of the Holiday Inn is appropriate allowing easy accessibility by customers and making it convenient for customers to get in. It also has access availability for the disabled. The establishment of all the hotels for Holiday Inn is n an environment that is friendly. It has an area for children to play and menus structuring for all the hotels are similar.The meals of the children have toys thus representing features of physical evidence, which are standard in all locations of Holiday Inn. Service location delivery is also an important factor in the hotel industry. The degree of attractiveness and comfort of a service location can take a major difference to the experience of the clients. The Holiday Inn hotel has a soothing and a calm environment with measures of thoughtful comfort providing a sense of security to customers who are new making them return next time. The outlets have brought great influence in the Holiday Inn making it different from its rivals in the industry of hospitality and hotel. The company employs physical evidence to charge premium prices from its customers to create a positive experience. The presence of the better conditions of the rooms has enabled the hotel to charge good prices when it comes to accommodation increasing the profitability of the firm. The Holiday Inn has a great property built in the latest styles of architecture; hence, it is not a property built in traditional style. The design of the global physical environment involves modern experience instead of a traditional one. Physical environment is a major key in differentiation when it comes to hotels that are luxurious. The Holiday Inn should in future invest those properties of hotels that can improve hotel chain differentiation. The physical environment for most of the international hotels including Holiday Inn need further enhancement. Most competitors have advanced properties situated in good environments than Holiday Inn. Therefore, Holiday Inn should change its strategy when selecting locations for its hotels in the future. The location of some of the Holiday Inn properties is poor giving Holiday Inn a brand image that has a bad name. Conclusion After the analysis of the above tasks, it shows that Holiday Inn is among the most well-known and successful hospitality organizations in the industry of tourism. Service company strategy like Holiday Inn laced around the important seven Ps of the marketing mix. The Holiday Inn analysis based on the extra 3Ps i.e. process, people, and physical evidence leads one over the luxury hotel chain of aspects. A strategy that do not highlight the Ps is likely to fail (Nag, R.; Ham brick, D. C.; Chen, M.-J, 2007). Holiday Inn analysis of the three Ps indicates that the hotel is performing well even though there is also a requirement for further improvements. The provision of recommendations on areas requiring improvements is an important factor. If Holiday Inn does implement the recommendations, the hotel will achieve an effective service marketing process. As a result, it will provide Holiday Inn a greater competitive advantage over its rivals. List of references Abercrombie, A., Sawatzki, D. and Lotenberg, L. (2012). Building Partnerships to Build the Best Bones Forever!: Applying the 4Ps to Partnership Development. Social Marketing Quarterly, 18(1), pp.55-66. Acknowledgment. (2012). J Labour Market Res, 45(1), pp.3-3. Ashman, (2006). Market Research. Cereal Foods World. Ashman, (2006). Market Research. Cereal Foods World. Baliga, S. and Vohra, R. (2003). Market Research and Market Design. 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