Design a Marketing Plan for a Tourist Attraction - Essay Example

Design a Marketing Plan for a Tourist Attraction Executive Summary 1. This marketing plan highlights the well known tourist destination British Museum. 2. It is a very old museum and it is located in London. The museum is famous for its wide range of collections. 3. The marketing plan focuses that the museums has various departments where it showcases things of different nations. 4. The target customers and target market of British Museum is discussed in this marketing plan. 5. The missions of British Museum are also mentioned in this marketing plan. 6. Internal and external environmental analysis of UK’s tourism market is highlighted in this marketing plan. 7. The British Museum will conduct an event for increasing the number of visitors. 8. Different processes of communicating the events are explained in this marketing plan. 9. There are different communication tools that can be used by the museum in order to promote the event. 10. It is recommended that the museum should open a branch in China in order to boost the visitors count to the museum as a future development strategy. Introduction British Museum is one of the famous museums of the world. The museum showcases the art, history and culture of many races and nations around the world. The museum is located in London. It was established in 1753. From that time, the museum has kept many unique collections and works which explain various details of human culture and their history from the beginning. British museum was first opened to common people in 1759. The collections of the museum increased day by day for which museum expanded into several branches. Various things from ancient history to present times are present in British Museum. Many departments are there in the museum which showcases the collections from different nations. This museum is a public body. The expenses of the museum are sponsored by Department of Media, Culture and Sports of UK. Huge number of visitors daily comes in British Museum. The accesses of this museum are from Goodge Street stations and Russell Square. British Museum is considered as one of the popular place in attracting tourists. The main purpose of this Museum is to provide knowledge to the visitors about different collections. This knowledge will help the visitors to understand many things about history and present environment. All the collections are well presented in the museum which attracts large number of tourist from different places of the world. The British Museum also holds many educational programs and exhibitions. Learning facilities are provided by the museum to common people regarding different time, culture and places. The museum is continuously improving its management qualities for providing better experience to the visitors. It is enhancing many facilities for encouraging curatorial endeavor. The museum has wide range of target visitors. Students, tourists, professional people come to visit museum. The main target market of this museum is mainly London. But people from all over the world come to museum. To encourage the visitors museum do not charges entre fees from the people. British Museum conducts different workshops for which it charges entry fees from the people. The ticket price of different workshops varies. British museum is perceived as a center of learning by many people. The visitors think that the museum has showcased all of its collecting in a very interesting and unique way. The museum has utilized its area effectively by blending history, technology and modern culture. The study room of British Museum facilitates the visitors to study about any collection or see the collection on demand. Public enquires related to the collections are answered by the museum by email, fax etc. British Museum helps the teacher in educating the student by bringing them in the museum. By this process the teacher provide knowledge to the students regarding different collections of the museum. Visitor Audit Internal marketing problems The strategies of the British Museum for attracting more visitors have become outdated. The organization needs to focus more on its strategies for making them more effective. Another internal problem is related to the branding of museum (Gilmore and Rentschler, 2002). Through British Museum is very famous throughout the world but it also require to do strong branding activities for competing with different other museums around the world. Funding problem hampers the marketing activities of the British Museum. Visitor audit Ambient dimension Different types of lights are used within British Museum for making the collection more interesting and attractive. Different types of lights are used in the museum or creating a unique environment and theme while exhibiting different collections. Mainly white color is used in the museum. Spatial layout British Museum effectively uses its vast area for showcasing its various collections (Adams, 2000). The layout of the museum is done in such a way so that maximum space can be used without hampering the beauty of interior decorations. The visitors are able to access easily different departments of the museum. Huge number of people visits the museum every day (Ward & Duray, 2000). But the people do not feel congested within the British Museum for its well organized structure. Signs symbol artifacts Different signs and symbols are present within the museum which helps to guide the visitors. Various departments are present in British Museum which could have confused the visitors without the presence of the signs and symbols. External Environmental analysis PESTE Analysis Political: The government of UK plays a major role in increasing the popularity of its tourism sector. The government contribute huge amount of money for developing various tourist destinations. Huge number of tourist travel to UK for spending their vacation. British Museum is one of the popular tourist destinations of UK (Webb & Gile, 2001). The government spend sufficient amount of money maintaining and improving British Museum. Economic: Income level of the people is high in UK. The economic condition of the country is also good and stable. People of UK spend huge amount of money for entertainment and travelling purpose. Disposable income of UK’s citizen is high. This helps the British Museum in conducting the different workshops at various prices. Social: The society of UK is very much advanced. It influences people to learn various things by visiting different places. The schools and educational institutions of UK encourage the students in knowing important things about other nations and cultures. For this reason people residing in this country feel interested to visit British Museum for gathering sound knowledge about past and present things (Kerin and Peterson, 2007). Technology: The technology of UK is very much advanced. The country is continuously developing its technologies for the growth and development of its business. The British Museum also receives benefits from technological innovations. The museum uses various advanced technologies for protecting and maintaining its collections. With the help of advanced technology the visitors are also able to connect with the museum easily. Environmental: UK is very much concerned about different environmental issues. Most of the organizations of UK perform their duty and responsibilities for protecting the environment. Tourism industry of UK also focuses on improving the environmental condition of the country (Boddy, 2005). 3 competitors British Museum has many competitors in London. There are various other museums present in London which attract large number of visitors. Victoria and Albert Museum, National Maritime Museum and Madame Tussauds London are some of the famous museums in this state. Victoria and Albert Museum: It is the largest museum of the world in showcasing decorative arts and designs. This museum has a huge collection of arts from ancient times till present day. Collections of different countries are present in Victoria and Albert Museum. This museum gives a tough competition to the British museum. National Maritime Museum: This museum showcases different collections related to ships, navigational instruments, time keeping instruments etc. Like British Museum this museum also does not charge entry fees from the visitors (Blackburn, 2012). But this museum does not have such a vast collection like British Museum. For this reason National Maritime Museum has a specific set of customers who are only interested in marine and navigational things. Madame Tussauds London: It is another famous museum of London. It is a popular tourist attraction. Wax sculptors of various famous persons are present in this museum which attracts large number of visitors. It is quite different from British Museum. This museum focuses on modern collections rather than ancient things. Key target market London is the key target market of these museums. Every year huge number of tourists comes to London and they visit these museums. Number of tourists is increasing day by day which helps to increase the total number of visitors of museums (Henry, 2008). Customers The museums target wide range of customers starting from school students to old people. Museum is considered as a popular tourist destination. People from different parts of the world visit museum (Self and Roche, 2007). Internal environment Employees play a significant role in the internal environment of the museum. The wide range of collections within the museum is managed efficiently by its employees. They facilitate the visitors by providing information regarding the collections. The employees also protect and maintain the collections of the museum (Churchill, 2009). Market opportunity Growth market domestic or international From the data on the museums in London it is seen that that creative and the cultural industries in United Kingdom are booming. It is also seen that these sectors have undergone rapid transformations over the years (Lasserre, 2012). The rapid growth that these sectors have undergone has resulted in the fact that they provide important contribution towards the economy. It is also seen that the public support in the form of subsidy is especially vital for the continued growth and success of the museums and the galleries. Most of the museums follow a mixed economy model and draw on different sources of funds (Mueseums association, 2012). The different source of fund that is drawn on by the museum includes private investment, giving by the individuals and income that is earned. Since, there is lot of income that is generated by the museums; it generates enough economic benefits in areas like jobs, tourism, regeneration and inward investment (Wagle, 2003). In fact it is found that the economic benefit that the museum generates is much more than the investment that goes into the museum. In order to grow further in future it is suggested that the museum should open more branches in China or some other countries in Asia. This is due to the fact that China has huge demographics and has a booming economy. Thus it will be the ideal market place to attract more visitors (Ritchie and Crouch, 2003). Statistics to support growth in demand The statistics of the museum visitors shows that amongst the top 20 museum the top museums are located either in France, America or United Kingdom. It is seen that the British Museum falls amongst the top 5 museums in the world. There were 5,576,000 visitors in the museum in 2012. It was found that at that time the Louvre Museum in Paris was the most popular museum with a visitor count of 9,720,000 (AECOM, 2012). Smart marketing objective The smart marketing objective for the marketing plan would be “To gain 25% more visitors by the end of the campaign after a period of one year.” Communication campaign The communication campaign that is designed by the museum is used to promote the event in the museum (Fill, 2006). The communication campaign that is supposed to be designed by the museum is to increase the attractions of different events that are currently run by the museum. The museum runs different types of events that might be interesting for different age groups of people. However, it will be best to target the campaign towards the school children. This is because the school children are likely to come in groups and there is a probability that the whole class will come at the same time which increases visitors count by a significant level (Kotler and Keller, 2012). The communication campaign that should be undertaken by the museum should be based on a campaign that is undertaken on the social networks and other popular site that helps to promote the event amongst the masses. The campaign that needs to be undertaken should be judged in terms of cost effectiveness of the campaign. That is to say, it is important to judge the effective reach of the campaign and the amount of fund that it costs (Picton and Broderick, 2009). The effective reach of the campaign should obviously be greater that the amount of fund that is invested into the campaign in order to make the campaign effective. The target audience or the audiences that can be targeted for the campaign are all the age groups of people. However it will be best to target the young people or the children who goes to school (Russell, 2009). Targeting the children will be most effective as the target audience for the museum. This is due to the fact that when the children are targeted then they will be coming with all their class mates and the museum will have a number of visitors at a time for the event (Porter, 2008). Another thing that can be achieved is that the children, if they are captivated by the event, will visit again with their parents. This results in the fact that visitor count to the museum increases many fold (Bladen, 2012). The communication campaign that the museum can use in order to promote the event can consist of different stages. As a first stage of the communication campaign the museum needs to promote the event in the social networks. It will be required on the part of the company to promote the event using the social network (Wintzer, 2007). Promoting the campaign through social network will be helpful in the fact that it will be possible to create hype about the campaign amongst the generation Y. This will have the added benefits owing to the fact that such a campaign will help in promotion of the campaign against the new generation of target customers. In the next stage it is important to use posters as a means of campaign (Yeoman, 2004). The other things that should be done are to place advertisements in the leading newspapers about the event in order to attract the visitors to the museum and promotion of the event by means of celebrity endorsements. It might also be a good idea to create a promotional video of the event and place the same in a social networking site so that the customers may know what to expect at the event (Berridge, 2007). Marketing collateral The museum will print brochures, leaflets and exhibition catalogue for making people aware of its events. With the help of these marketing collaterals, different pictures of the upcoming events can be published by the museum which can attract many people in the events. Advertisements The events of British Museum will be communicated properly to the customers by giving advertisements in the newspaper and magazines. The museum will highlight its upcoming events in a very attracting way which will influence people to visit British museum. Posters will be made by the museum for attracting people. Radio ads will also be given for reaching people Public relation Public relation will be used by British Museum for communicating its events to maximum number of people. With the help of strong PR activities, the organization will be able to attract foreign visitors (Daft, 2009). Effective communication will facilitate the British Museum in stating the purposes and goals of the events successfully to people. By this process the footfall of the museum will increase. Communication Budget There are several activities that need to be undertaken as part of the communication plan in order to promote the event successfully (Mcfarlin, and Sweeney, 2008). Each of the activity will require some degree or amount of funds that will help in financing the communication plan. In order to secure the funds it is required prepare a budget. The budget is given below. Time table Time 1 2 3 4 5 6 Activities Social media campaign             Poster printing             Publishing of posters at important junctions             Making a video and placing the same in social media             Placing the advertisement in newspaper             Allowing free visit to the museum             Selecting the service of an agency             Contingency planning It is always important while creating a marketing plan to create a contingency plan or a fall back plan for a marketing plan. This plan helps to provide an alternative route for the investor in case of the fact that that the original marketing plan fails. This is required so that the investment that is made into the event can be protected and there is not major harm in term of financial effect that is caused on the condition that the marketing plan fails (Bennett, Wood and Previte, 2013). In case of the fact that promotion campaign that is to be designed for the current marketing plan fails the contingency plan will come to rescue. The contingency plan for the current communication activity would be to launch at first the campaign with the lowest cost and see the impact of the same before it is decided to launch any other campaign. In case of placing advertisement in the news paper and other campaigns that requires financial commitment on a large scale it is safer to initially launch the campaign on a small area before it is targeted on a wider area (De Montebello, 2010). In case of other events that the museum can undertake the museum first of all needs to decide whether it actually needs to use those activities before it commits any fund for the same. If the museum decides that those activities are not relevant and the cost to benefits of those campaigns are not good then it will be safer for the museum to stick to those activities that they think are safe and generate good returns (Boaz, 2006). Conclusion & recommendation After performing the evaluation of museum it is found that the British museum is already a very successful museum and it is found that the museum generates more funds than actually goes into it. It is found that the museum conducts several events in order to promote the museum and it is required to design a promotional campaign in order to promote the events. As future recommendations for the museum it is recommended that the museum should open its branches in other parts of Europe. It is also recommended that the museum should open a branch in China. This is because of the fact that China has a growing population and is a growing economy. So the prospect of a museum going successful in China is much higher. References Adams, G. D. (2000). Make Your Museum an Expert on Its Customers. History News, 5(2), 14-19. AECOM. (2012). Global attraction attendance report. Retrieved from http://www.aecom.com/deployedfiles/Internet/Capabilities/Economics/_documents/2012%20Theme%20Index%20Combined_1-1_online.pdf Bennett, R.R., Wood, M. and Previte, J. (2013). Fresh ideas: services thinking for social marketing. Journal of Social Marketing, 3(3), 223-238. Berridge, G. (2007). Events design and experience. Oxford: Butterworth Heinemann. Blackburn, W. (2012). The Sustainability Handbook. London: Earthscan. Bladen, C. (2012). Events management. New York: Routledge. Boaz, M. (2006). Planning for the Arts: A Community Handbook. London: Routlege Boddy, D. (2005). Management: An Introduction. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited. Churchill, G. (2009). A paradigm for developing better measures of marketing constructs. Journal of Marketing Research, 25(4), pp. 98-116. Daft, R. (2009). Management. Masson: Cengage Learning. De Montebello, P. 2010. The Art Museum’s Most Valuable Currency: Curatorial Expertise. The Art Newspaper. Vol. 115 (2). Faarup, P. K., (2010). The marketing framework. NY: Academica Fill, C. (2006). Simply marketing communications. UK: FT Prentice Hall. Gilmore, A., and Rentschler, R. (2002). Changes in museum management: A custodial or marketing emphasis?. Journal of management development, 21(10), 745-760. Henry, A., (2008). Understanding Strategic Management. England: Oxford University Press. Kerin, R.A. and Peterson, R.A. (2007). Strategic Marketing problems: Cases and comments. London : Pearson Education Inc. Kotler, P. and Keller, K. (2012). Marketing management. Essex: Pearson Education. Lasserre, P. (2012). Global strategic management. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan. Mcfarlin, D. B., and Sweeney, P. D. (2008). International Management. New Delhi: Dreamtech Press. Mueseums association. (2012). The economy loves museum. Retrieved from http://www.museumsassociation.org/download?id=165567 Picton, D. and Broderick, A. (2009). Integrated marketing communications. Harlow: FT- Prentice Hall. Porter, M. E. (2008). Competitive advantage: creating and sustaining superior performance. New York: Simon and Schuster. Ritchie, J. and Crouch, G. (2003). The competitive destination. Oxon: CABI Pub. Russell, E. (2009). Fundamentals of marketing communications. UK: AVA Publishing. Self, B and Roche, G. (2007). Customer Satisfaction Measurement for ISO 9000: 2000. Oxford: Routledge. Wagle, V. (2003). Europe on a shoestring. Melbourne: Lonely Planet Publications. Ward, P. T., & Duray, R. (2000). Manufacturing strategy in context: environment, competitive strategy and manufacturing strategy. Journal of Operations Management, 18(2), 123-138. Webb, J., & Gile, C. (2001). Reversing the value chain. Journal of Business Strategy, 22(2), 13-17. Wintzer, E. (2007). Global competition and strategic management. Germany: GRIN Verlag. Yeoman, I. (2004). Festival and events management. Amsterdam: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann. Appendices SWOT Strengths One of the most reputed and old museum of the world. Wide range of collections British Museum is located in the prime location of London The area of the museum is large. Weakness The layout of the museum is not proper. Signs are not used in the museum in an appropriate way which confuses the visitors. Opportunities The tourism industry of UK is developing a lot which help to increase number of visitors in British Museum. Threats Different other museums of London are increasing their range of collections which create strong competition among the all museums. Posters Figure 1 Poster 1 This poster is designed to attract visitors to the showcasing of the collectibles on Egypt. The purpose of the event is to educate about the various artifacts of the Egyptian civilization that is present with the British museum. The curator of the Egypt division with the British museum will conduct the tour and will educate the masses on the new findings regarding Egypt. The event will have both guided tours and an audio visual presentation. The event is particularly designed to attract the students of the school. The students will be coming in groups and for each group tour a fees of £135 will be charged. Budget:- Communication activity % of total budget allocated Collateral 10% Brochures 5% Exhibition catalogue and leaflets 5% Advertising 40% Printing of Posters and publication of the same 15% Placing advertisement in the news paper 25% Public relations 50% Making a video to promote the event 15% Giving of audio visual presentation 10% Pr agency 25% Total 100% Poster Figure 2 Poster 2 The above poster has been designed in order to attract people to an event regarding the showcasing of time pieces. The event has been designed to educate the visitors about the different collectible watches that are in possession of the British museum. The event is designed to especially educate the young children about how the designing of the time pieces. The event will intrigue the school children and the adults at the same time. The event has however specially been designed for the school children. The event will be conducted by the curator and other support staffs who will be guiding the visitors. Budget: Communication activity % of total budget allocated Collateral 10% Brochures 5% Exhibition catalogue and leaflets 5% Advertising 40% Printing of Posters and publication of the same 15% Placing advertisement in the news paper 25% Public relations 50% Making a video to promote the event 15% Giving of audio visual presentation 10% Pr agency 25% Total 100% Read More