Marketing Strategy: Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts - Essay Example

After discussing the operational scale and the main characteristics of the Asian lodging industry, the marketing strategies adopted by Shangri-La Hotel together with its competitive advantages will be carefully analyzed. As part of the conclusion, the strengths and weaknesses of Shangri-La’s marketing strategies in terms of capturing a bigger market share will be enumerated followed by a discussion of how each of these factors could either directly or indirectly affect the decision-making of the sales managers when it comes to the formation and implementation of its marketing strategies.

In response to globalization, Shangri-La is operating its hotel and resort business on a large scale. Under the brand name Shangri-La and Traders, the company is currently managing a total of 68 hotels and resorts throughout the Asia Pacific, North America, and the Middle East (Shangri-La, 2010 b).

With more than 30,000 existing hotel and resort rooms that are available to serve the needs of domestic and international travelers, the top management of Shangri-La Hotel continuously expanded the business by building new hotels in different countries including Austria, Canada, mainland China, France, India, Macau, the Philippines, Qatar, Seychelles, Turkey, and the United Kingdom (Shangri-La, 2010 b). This particular sales and marketing strategy will prevent the company from saturating its target market.

As a way of determining the characteristics of a lodging industry, it is best to use Porter’s five forces framework as suggested by Michael E. Porter. The five major factors known as the competitive rivalry within the hotel and resort industry, the threat of substitute products, the threat of a new entrant, the bargaining power of the customers, and the bargaining power of suppliers enable us to determine the ability of Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts to compete in the global market. Given that the market is attractive for Shangri-La, it is most likely that the company will become profitable and vice versa. When analyzing the hotel and resort industry within the Asian market, it is best to go through the historical events that took place in the past.