Tourism Marketing and Strategic Management: Ocean Park - Research Paper Example

? OCEAN PARK Ocean Park still continues to count as one of the major contributors to the economy of Hong Kong. Over the past few years, every economist and business person was convinced that with the establishment of Walt Disney, Ocean Park had only few days to survive. But this did not happen. Though for sure Ocean Park experienced competition from Disney, it was however not wiped away. With Disney maintaining its high prices, Ocean Park also ensured that it maintained it significantly low prices. People have thus been attracted by the low prices thus keeping its profits still high and maintaining its customers. Lately the services it offers to its customers have also been widely differentiated from those of its competitor, Disney. Thus, conflict of interests has been avoided and also the cut throat competition that previously existed has been brought under control. From the internal environment, Ocean Park has undergone a lot of innovations and improvements which help it to keep up with the competitive environment. With the innovation of Dolphin shows and the Cable Car, the place is able to attract a large number of people from different corners of the world. The managing director of Ocean Park also stated that unlike Disney which was all about fantasy, Ocean Park was about reality of nature and real animals. In Singapore, the main attraction currently is the Universal Studios Singapore. The theme park has paved a way for Asia’s success in tourism since it has already attracted more than two million tourists since its opening. The success of the park has mainly been attributed to its unique attractions of blockbuster movies and television shows. Its spectacular hotels and shopping malls also contribute significantly to its quality and attractiveness. General Environment in Hong Kong and Singapore The environment in Hong Kong is generally characterized by businesses, industry and work. Most of the businesses are operated in a laissez faire world where there is very minimal control by the government. The place is also composed of industries such as manufacturing and electronic industries (Lee, 2001, P. 110). Although the city is known to be poor in the financial and commercial sector, it is known for its success in domestic tourism. Lately however, it has specialized in eco-tourism considering its magnificent nature (Singh, 2012, P. 10). The politics in the area are not so outstanding but are carried out in a peaceful manner. Such factors have promoted a favorable environment for the park to undertake its developments. Political stability in Hong Kong also creates a favorable environment for the tourism industry. This is supported by the fact that tourists would not be willing to visit a place where there are wars and political violence. Travel and accommodation industry in Hong Kong and Singapore Following the recent release of Global Financial Centers Index 2011, Hong Kong was ranked at a higher position than Singapore and third after London and New York. This has mainly been attributed to its wide hotel and tourism industry. The catering and hotel industry in Hong Kong provides highest level of visitor experience and satisfaction to the visitors thus ensuring that there is a flow of tourists all the time. The travel industry is also favored by the employment of staffs that are fluent in Mandarin so as to promote communication with the tourists. Most of the tourists to Hong Kong are from mainland China. Other, whose main aim is leisure, recreation and holidays come from other parts of the world, including America, Thailand and Singapore (Zhang, Pine, and Lam, 2005, P. 83). Due to the continued political and economic stability in Hong Kong, the tourism industry continues to grow as more and more people find their way to the city. With growth in the tourism industry, it implies that the number of visitors on Ocean Park will also increase. Take for example in the year 2011 when china as a whole registered a large number of tourists, Ocean Park reported a total of 900, 000 visitors in the month of August alone. In Singapore, the tourism industry is growing rapidly due to its growing infrastructure. The harmony and hospitality of the city also creates a favorable environment for tourists and other business persons (Devashish, 2011, P. 146). With many tourists visiting the capital, the number of visitors for the Universal Studios also increases. Research shows that over the past years the number of tourists visiting Singapore has been increasing by 12% each year. This leads to the statistical review showing that the tourism industry currently constitutes of 3% of the GDP of Singapore. Internal Analysis The park has continued growing day by day as development in Hong Kong continues to be wide and fast. In the year 2011, the park was experiencing a boom in terms of its visitors and thus had to employ more staff to assist. This significantly helped by leading to super-normal profits of $105 billion. The park has reported its employee productivity to be excellent due to intense training undertaken by the employees and the high qualifications required. There is also undue organization and cooperation among the employees ensuring that the flow of work in the organization is continuous and uninterrupted. This leads to a high quality of work thus ensuring excellent results. The marketing budget has been high in the past years since the park had not yet gained publicity. However, with time the overall awareness grew and the amounts of money spend to increase awareness dropped remarkably. The management is however still spending money on publicizing the organization to other outside countries apart from Hong Kong, Singapore and the Mainland China. With most of its visitors already being from Mainland China, the amount of publicity in the area has been minimized (Zhang, Pine & Lam, 2005, P. 83). Competitive environment Though almost recovering from the competition experienced from the Hong Kong Disney in the year 2005, Ocean Park still faces competition from another 341 parks all over the world. With it being ranked 25th in the world, it is likely to face a challenge of stiff competition especially during low peak seasons. Despite many threats facing the park such as many other facilities similar to its own being opened in Asia, it still continues to make new additions and innovations to its adventures, with the latest one being called Polar Adventure. These new innovations show the high capabilities contained by the organization. Indeed the Ocean Park is an investment that has made a lot of impact into the industry. With it being government financed, it provides a good opportunity for the government to expand its tourism industry and to also enhance the sense of leisure among them. With the park laying out such a high income, it will enable the government to be able to expand on other sectors such as industrialization (Hughes, 1988, 153). Recently, the park still announced a new investment expected to be made before 2013 which costs $5.5 billion. It aims at increasing the number of attractions to 70, and indeed a great result is to be realized. The internal environment of the Universal Studios Singapore on the other hand is mainly concentrated on creation and designing of unique and attractive media shows. With the possibility of stiff competition from other media attractions in the country, the park shielded itself by coming up with unique innovations in science and art that can only be applied elsewhere after 30years. Otherwise they remain the property of the park until then. This lessens its competition and thus ensuring prosperity. In the late news about the park, it has been reported that it attracts over 5 million tourists per year using its theme of movies. The design of the Universal studios is outstanding, thanks to the involvement of various professionals in every sector. With the universal studios being so modernized, a lot of marketing was required to create both awareness and understanding of the park. It encompasses a lot of American content and thus might be difficult for a leman to get the gist of it all. However, this was no problem after thorough publicity was done. The main competitors of the park are the Disney’s operations in Asia. However, to compete with these the park has also embraced current technology such as online booking of tickets and advertisement of events. This ensures that people in far regions are also reached and notified of any upcoming events. Indeed the Universal Studios Singapore is one of a kind. It brings together different movie scenarios such as Hollywood thus ensuring people do not have to travel such long distances to see them. Bibliography Hughes, Helen. Achieving Industrialization in East Asia New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Lee, Pui-tak. Hong Kong Reintegrating with China: Political, Cultural and Social Dimensions Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2001. Pine, Ray, Hanqin Zhang, and Terry Lam. Tourism and Hotel Development in China: From Political to Economic Success New York: Routledge, 2005. Singh, Shalini. Domestic Tourism in Asia: Diversity and Divergence London: Routledge, 2012. Wong, Kevin, and Haiyan Song. Tourism Forecasting and Marketing New York: Routledge, 2003. Devashish, Dasgupta. Tourism Marketing New Delhi: Pearson Education India, 2011. Read More