Marketing Essentials for Travel and Tourism

Question :

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Discuss the marketing plan for travel and tourism.
What is STP?

Answer :

Organization Selected : TUI

Marketing is an important function in an organisation as it carry exchange of goods and services. To conduct marketing, communication plays an important role because it guide people to perform things in right manner by right people. It also include important and critical task which is useful in creating value of product in front of customers (Aung, 2019). Market is a place which is full of opportunities which is depends on the size and area of business.

Duties of marketing functions are interconnected with other functional units and also justify that why they are important. This report is based on TUI, which is multinational travel and tourism company incorporated in 1923 and situated in Berlin and Hannover. Company deals in hospitality industry as it is one of the biggest travel company owing five European airlines. This assignment is also cover comparison among the strategies which is adopted by TUI for their survival and developing competition in market. Lastly, marketing plan is developed for TUI to achieve specific goals and objectives.

TUI is the tour and travel company which deals in hospitality industry and to provide excellent services, managers of company need to update themselves by determining the current market conditions. To perform its marketing function company can use various approaches which are appropriate for performing the marketing activities.

Travel and tourism business depends on the marketing functions to attract more and more customers towards their offerings. For travel and tourism, marketing includes advertisement, making promotional offers to attract new and existing customers.

It states that company need to put emphasis on the needs and demands of targeted market to become their preference and also achieve competitive advantage over their competitors.

Many factors are present which impacts the marketing strategies of TUI and also have influence over the customers. These are external factors which impacts the whole industry and the operations of business. The marketing strategies which TUI opt needs to be match with external components. For example, in the marketplace of UK, social media and internet is the best source of marketing because of increase in usage of internet. Order assignment help from our experts!

Their interrelationship shows that if there is any requirement in marketing department then it is fulfilled by HR department. In context of TUI, its marketing manager will communicated regarding the requirements of candidate and HR manager will fulfil their requirement and hire that candidate who have effective skills, knowledge and experience. So, cooperation and coordination among these departments are necessary.

TUI is travel organisation which require huge marketing and advertisement to keep their customers towards themselves for longer period of time and these actions are required to be performed in huge manner by marketing team and involve huge investment. For this, many actions are performed by finance department as if marketing department need money to perform its marketing activities then it becomes the duty of finance department to provide them suitable budget to perform their activities and by this, marketing department develop a thorough report according to the funds.

Comparison and application of marketing mix

Marketing mix defines the structure which is useful in setting many activities and strategies. As company make use of these strategies in order to promote its brand name and products in specific market. It is an important technique which improves the image of company in terms of offerings its products to customers to sell them in an innovative way (Avila-Robinson and Wakabayashi, 2018).

For this, organisations always come up appropriate approaches and plans which keeps them in competition. In tradition era, 4P's are used to conduct marketing mix but in modern time these P's are extended and become 7P's as marketing mix and its strategies differs according to company because each and every organisation use their promotional strategies to gain their position in market. It is the primary step which is useful in developing marketing plan because it require lot of research and efforts to develop plan. It is an effective tool because managers of TUI need this framework to update their current plans and strategies. This can be understand by following table:

Basis	Definition	TUI	Virgin Atlanta
Product	Products are the services which are provided by company for exchange of something to their respective customers (Dodds and Jolliffe, 2016). These are offered by companies to achieve sustainable competitive edge which is the focal point while developing any strategy.	TUI provide its services in five big divisions and each division provide diversified product lines. They also sell different kinds of products which guides the customers to choose product according to their requirement and demand. It also provide many features which made it different from its competitors.	Company offer its services to huge segment by providing high level customised products which helps the company to attain competitive advantage. In addition to this, airline is concerned with high digitisation.
Price	Price is an amount which is paid by respective customers for the exchange of offerings and also valuable for them (Becker, 2016).	TUI used competitive based pricing strategy because the competitors information is easily available due to their existence in market area. Currently, company opt product bundle pricing strategy which reflects that bundle of products are sold out at cheap price instead of sum of single item. Sometimes, they also use optional product strategy where set of values are based on product and also charge according to independent price for offered services.	They use differential pricing strategy because their objective is to provide their services to different class of customers to afford the cost of tickets. The amount of tickets are also varies according to destination and also offer discounts at any occasion or festival time.
Place	It defines a venue from which the products are offered to potential customers. It is a location by which the manufactured products are transferred to final destination.	To place their products TUI use two mediums which are direct and indirect promotional mediums to sell their products. They use direct marketing channels to directly sell their products to ultimate customers by using online services. Indirect, when company use intermediaries like wholesalers and retailers. They also use intensive strategy where they try to develop a chain of retailers to make sure that products are available easily to buyers.	Virgin Atlantic offer its services in more than 400 segments. For this, they also tie up with various airport authorities to organise their operations in smooth manner. They use online and offline method to sell their tickets.
Promotion	It is conducted only when products are reached to its potential place and prices are also decided. It is a procedure in which communication is done by communicating it to general public which include advertisement of products, promotion, personnel selling and so on (Zhang, Cheung and Law, 2018).	TUI follow multimedia ways to communicate with their targeted customers which is concerned with its products. Their foremost way of promotion is advertising which is done by radio and TV and due to their broad capacity which influences the huge amount of customers. Secondly, they use social media advertisement as it is cheap and also circulate information more rapidly and also conduct trade events which is their personal selling way.	Company promote itself by using TV, advertisement, newspaper and hoardings. They also use practical and classy quotes as their promotional techniques.
People	It include the employees who work for company to sell products to their respective customers. It include staff and its members who communicate a message to general public and it also include training sessions for staff members (Eletxigerra, Barrutia and Echebarria, 2018).	TUI operate its functions with the help of sales team. These employees are well trained with suitable techniques which is helpful for the business customers along with their demands. For this, company recruit those candidates who work in customers service department which tackle the complaints regarding the problems of products.	Company has around 8,571 employees and also has a customer and operation team which include operations regarding flight, communication and management.
Process	It include those services which deliver the goods and services to potential customers. It defines the process which depicts the distribution of products and for this, customers pay for the services which are delivered to them by organisations (Yin and Poon, 2016).	Company provide online delivery services in which orders are received through online mode and product is shipped to delivery service provider. They also conduct research regarding the opportunities which are present in market and also understand the needs of buyers.	For availability of tickets to their customers, company use online ticket facilities so that customers can easily book their tickets in minutes according to their convenience.
Physical Evidence	It defines the services which are offered by company and that can be seen or touch and also facilitate communication while purchasing products. It depicts the physical appearance which is useful in attracting more and more customers towards their business such as it consider packaging, branding and the environment of selling products and services.	Here, company provide its offerings in various designs, size and colour which are identified by customers. For this, users get friendly online platform which allows buyers to view image at high quality.	In context of Virgin Atlantic, experience which is offered by company is intangible and also depends on the popularity of brand reputation and how company is offering its services in terms of designs, interior and behaviour of customers.

Evaluate different tactics applied by organisations to achieve business objectives

The marketing mix tool is useful in determining the suitable strategies which are used by TUI in order to cover various aspects and areas in which company use its knowledge to become more effective within the market (Gowreesunkar, Séraphin and Morrison, 2018). These strategies are helpful for TUI in achieving the best results and also become more productive in front of its customers. These strategies are helpful in attaining competitive advantage over the market and also give tough competition to competitors. Need Assignment Samples?Talk to our Experts!

Develop a basic marketing plan for travel and tourism organisation

Market planning is a process which is useful in analysing the future data and also formulate the strategies according to them for attaining the suitable objectives and targets. It include various kinds of activities such as evaluation of current conditions, collection of information, forecasting and making plans according to the targeted people (Halpern, 2016). Marketing plans is a structure and a guidelines for an organisation and also necessary for company to develop their suitable marketing plan.

Marketing plans are linked with the strategies of company and objectives to achieve better results. There are three strategies which an organisation can adopt which are differentiation, cost leadership and niche (Jin and Wang, 2016).

Marketing plan

Company overview

TUI is the multinational tourism and travel company which was incorporated since 97 years ago. It is the largest tour and travel operators which owns around 1600 travel agencies, five airlines and across 380 hotels and 17 cruises. Company provide its services in all the markets and holiday areas in world and because of this, it stands at the third position in the world with huge customer base and reputation in market.

Strategic objectives
The aim of company is to carry around 50% of UK's visitors to the number of attractions of country from one place to another and also grasp major market area.
TUI has opted differentiation strategy with the purpose of continuing it and offering suitable products and services in unique manner and also attain competitive advantage.

Vision and Mission
The vision of company is to provide effective and efficient services to customers as when they next time think about travelling they always consider TUI. Their purpose is to create and serve best services to their customers and also provide best experience. Mission of company is to offer quality service and also motivate another companies to provide innovative and creative services to their buyers.

Strategy
By analysing the current years, company is facing many problems from the side of competitors and to become better to achieve competitive advantage (Kolb, 2017). For this, company bring new packages for their customers. The strategy of company is to be different and provide suitable service in specific time period.

STP

Segmentation: It is a process of classifying the market in small groups by considering the features and characteristics. Segmentation is done by considering the gender, age, beliefs, income, lifestyle, behaviour and so on (Nedelea, Ali and Alamgir, 2017). For this, the segmented market of TUI is students as they travel at many places regarding to their studies.

Targeting: It is a factor which is performed once in the market segment in which company target specific group by analysing their offerings and suitability (Okumus and Cetin, 2018). Targets for this, is students who are coming from different countries regarding their studies.

Positioning: It defines the method by which company will position itself among the targeted audience. For this, TUI opt and make suitable use of social media to promote their services and reach to the maximum number of students.

Marketing Mix

Product: It defines the new services which are provided by company to students and specially to college students in terms of accommodation, discount tickets, cheap fair and so on.

Price: At traditional times, company use competitive pricing strategy but at modern times new services are created for college students and for this, TUI adopt low pricing strategy. It happens because it is entirely new product for college students to keep prices low and because of this company slowly move towards success (Pappas, 2017).

Place: At the beginning stage, TUI is introducing and launching its package in UK market only, but now this project proves to be successful for company as they introduce it in another potential market.

Promotion: Digitalisation is increasing on rapid basis and because of this, the use of internet and social media is also gets increased. Thus, TUI is currently using various social media channels for the promotion of new packages and also reach to wide range of customers (Tripon and Cosma, 2018).

People: Here, new employees are hired by TUI to handle this service but they all are expert in their work because this project is introduced at low level. Also, the existing staff is provide orientation regarding the new package with the help of promotion and also provide brief information.

Process: This procedure is same as before online and offline, all the information regarding the package is available through online mode on their official website and in current times, internet is more trending among youth.

Physical Evidence: The promotional tools and promotions which company is using to spread the positive side of package and the same actions will work for the physical evidence. Furthermore, online presence of organisation provide information regarding the new services.

Design a strategic marketing plan that tactically applies the use of the 7Ps to achieve overall marketing objectives

The effective strategy and methods which are discussed and can be change to offer better suggestions are as follows:

Product: This service is helpful for college students who came from different countries regarding their studies, TUI can develop new package and available to general public such as to business professionals who travel for longer period of time.

Price: Low pricing strategy is opted by TUI, but this put negative impact on the promotion as people think it as less productive and helpful service (Pike, 2016).

Place: The offered services are introduced in the market of UK and for this, company can enhance and launch it in new market which is more potential.

Promotion: Social media is used as the primary tool of promotion but TUI can use different methods such as approaching to various colleges and also guide students regarding their services.

People: More staff and new members can be employed for making their services more effective and efficient in terms of success (Suhartanto, 2018).

Process: Online procedure is used to improve sales and focus on having online booking.

Physical Evidence: For making effective physical presence, TUI make use of advertisements and also use digitalisation to make them more attractive.

Conclusion

From the above discussion, it is concluded that the marketing teams' job is to perform suitable actions within an organisation which is helpful for other departmental units to conduct their actions. In addition to this, marketing plan is develop which include different strategies as it affect different sectors which is useful for company to become effective and efficient in different area. Moreover, marketing plan is developed to company by which strategic goals are attained and monitor the actions to provide suggestions to the company.

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