Introduction
Corporate Travel Services is found in Australiaâs capital city, within the central business district. The hotel is located close to major tourist attractions found in Australia. This company will mainly target to serving tourists who are regular visitors to this tourist attractions coming from various parts of the world. Corporate Travel Services is decent, spacious with its own car park outside.
Overview of Corporate Travel Services
Corporate Travel Services (CTS) is a travel management consultancy. It provides full service travel management with complete, custom travel programs include saving on airfare, hotel, car rental and all other travel related expenses. CTS aim to generate the highest cost of saving for their client and deliver customer services. CTS expanded it business to using Travel Management Online (TMO) that allows consumer to make real-time online reservation. The target market of CTS is small-medium companies in Singapore. In addition, CTS cater MICE & leisure travel arrangements, providing a one-stop travel service.
SWOT analysis
SWOT analysis is conducted to reflect an evaluation of Corporate Travel Services (CTS internal and external situation and also get an overview of the strategic position. To complete the SWOT analysis, internal and external audit are conducted to determine the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the operation in this hotel.
According to HSU and Powers (2002), strength is very advantageous resource or skill which is relative to competitors (p.132). In Corporate Travel Services, there are a variety of competitive advantages.
The first thing is a good location which is centrally located right in the heart of the CBD and within walking distance to all major attractions. Secondly, natural light in all twelve different sized conferencing rooms with panoramic views of the city and new organisational structure and added human resources to departments to yield stronger revenue opportunities is also a competitive strength as compared to other competitors. As well, increased reservations and front desk coverage have positioned the Corporate Travel Services to strengthen its penetration in the market are very profitable for development of this company.
Weakness can be defined as a deficiency that seriously impedes effective performance of business operation (HSU and Powers, 2002, p.132). One of the interesting disadvantageous features of this booking services are deteriorating.
Looking at the external factors, the opportunity is a major favourable situation and threat is a major unfavourable situation in the environment (HSU and Powers, 2004, p.132). The possible opportunity is that new organisational structure and added human resources to departments will yield stronger revenue opportunities and minimise lost business opportunities. As well, increased reservations and front desk coverage to improve conversion rates, more aggressive in targeting local businesses.
Market segments and advertisement
Corporate segment consists of consortia program such as American Express, TQ3, Carlson Wagonlit, BTI, and Campus Travel which includes direct access to family programs, incentive programs, and advertising in appropriate media. Conference segment will be supported via a number of activities including cooperative advertising with Brisbane marketing (convention guide), direct marketing activities to client database, and participation in trade events such as AIME, event connection.
Leisure segment includes business generated via Qantas Holidays and Sunflower Holidays and websites. In past 2years, there has been significant growth via there channels and whilst it is anticipated that both wholesalers will continue to generate bookings at similar levels, it is not expected that there will be further growth based on historical trends. The main area with growth for this market segment lies with web sites allowing the hotel to yield and dictate rates according to occupancies and yield strategies.
Seasonal packages will be promoted on the hotel website. Advertising in feeder markets in regional Queensland for key need periods are such as Christmas, Easter, school holidays, and on weekends. Leisure packages need to promotion of hotel website to all guests who book through other 3rd party websites.
Marketing activities
The Corporate Travel Services will engage the use model hierarchy âof- effects for the communication and creation of publicity to the targeted consumers. In this model, the buyers purchase decision is proceeded by steps such as convictions about the service benefits through various means for example testimonials from previous tourists who have used the services of the consultancy. The preference for the brand i.e. Corporate Travel Services, liking and been the preferred choice brand. Knowledge relating to the to the benefits and features of the service after an awareness of the service has been gained through the use of classified advertisements, publicity etc.
The basic model implication of this model is that function of persuasive communication should be handled deftly at every stage of the tourist adoption process. In this model it will embrace some of the tools that will be used in the launching of the company and the service that it will offer.
Sources: adapted Robert J. Lavidge and Gary A. Steiner, â A model for prediction measurement of advertising effectivenessâ Journal of marketing, 25 (October 1961) pg 61, quoted in Ralph M. Gaedeke and Dennis H. Tootling, marketing principles and applications pg 385
This model will enable the Corporate Travel Services be able to communicate the themes for the launch.
- Advertising by use of T-shirts, bandanas etc:-The t-shirts for example will contain these of the launch and they will be travelers to Singapore.
- Advertisement on the television, website etc:-There will be 30 seconds commercial advert that will introduce the brand to the audience and where the audience can get more information about the brand, the Corporate Travel Services.
The use of tourism feature on the local TV station with Corporate Travel Services as the producer. There will be a 20minute feature that will be shown every Sunday from 7.30-750 minutes on the local TV stations. This feature will mainly emphasis to communicate and educate the audience on what Corporate Travel Services entails, its benefits etc. This will be done through testimonials of previous consumers who have benefited from the service with Corporate Travel Services. This feature will be aired twice and the segments will be divided into two;-
- Part 1:- This will introduce the audience to the Corporate Travel Services, where the audience gets to learn more about what the company does and the benefits the services has on its consumer. The show will target the testimonial of previous beneficially of the bookings and other services. The show will focus on the before and after effect the consumer experience. The consumer will be able to talk about how travel experience was made easy.
- Part 2:- This will show the corporate social responsibility the Corporate Travel Services has been engages in. the feature will show how the brand offered its services to a local schools, where some of the students benefited from travelling through Corporate Travel Services.
A celebrity will play the role of the host, who gets to introduce what the brand has been engaged in.
Sponsoring tourism walk
The brands will participate in encouraging the people travel to view tourist site and one of the ways to achieve this, is through organizing of a tourism walk that will be 5km walk. This walk will be participated by the selected celebrity who will help endorse the brand on its commitment to help traveler feel good about their physical outlook. In this walk, the participants get to wear the t-shirts with the launch theme written on it.
b wine and food festival:- A wine and food festival is a kind of festival that brings forth the people of a particular community together with visitors from far and wide to get to enjoy food and wine that is considered to be the best that there is. People whose talents are known all around a region when it comes to their food making and wine preparations bring their wares out for sampling during these festivals. People come from far and wide to get to sample this wares and get to enjoy themselves. This is a usually in most cases a family outing where the young and old get to enjoy themselves.
The theme of this festival that I will be preparing will be the goodness of culture. This theme is all about the culture that people have and how well they should be able to keep it and also share with others from other cultures. It is about how the people in that culture should generally be proud of their culture and not try to do away with it because of the contemporary cultures that are now taking preference over those that the people had at the beginning of their existence. This festival is meant to bring people to be aware of their cultures and be able to at least celebrate their culture at least ones yearly. The people will be celebrating their culture through wine that is prepared locally, food cooked by the chefs in their society which will consist of foods that are traditionally known to signify that particular society, art from the society, dance and music.
This festival gets to improve the tourism industry of that particular country that got to host this food and wine festival. The extension of invitations of such functions to people of other cultures and from other countries gets to market that particular country especially if the festival was a success.
This will make the people who were foreigners to talk well of that particular country to others who could not manage to attend causing them to make sure they attend the next or also visit that country just to get to experience the beautiful climate, view the animals that they do not get to see in their countries, the good people who are very welcoming and also the beautiful area that offers accommodation. Many tourists will make an effort to get to this destination therefore causing the raise in the tourism sector that will in the long run improve the economy of that country.
The impacts of these festivals are many for example they can be social, cultural, economical, environmental, political and sustainable. The social impacts of such a festival are very strong. This can be seen by how people get to come together and socialize together. People from different cultures and countries come to this functions they get to interact and also get to share different ideas that others may not have in their cultures. People also get to find their long term partners in such festivals therefore bringing about the ability of a decrease in tribalism and racism.
The cultural impact is that many of these festivals are usually about getting to bring out something out in a culture that the people of that particular culture seem to have forgotten. This therefore brings about the longitivity of cultural traits because they get to be show cased at least once a year therefore making the people aware of its existence. Culturally it also gets people from different cultures to get to learn more or some of the things in other peopleâs cultures when they get to attend these festivals.
A Timetable of the Activity Theme.
Budget
Celebrity endorsement 20,000.
Conclusion and recommendation
The Corporate Travel Services can adopt various strategies involved in marketing to improve its image and sales in the public. Measures like advertising, branding, customer focus, product focus, and sales promotion among others are positive towards improving the participation of the company in the market (Thomson and Rampton, 2006). Before these approaches are implemented, a market survey has to be carried out to establish what the need of the customer is. Then implementation of the new acquired practices should be put into place. This marketing process can only end well if the team of professionals is in leadership of the marketing department.
References
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Kotler, P., Bowen, J. & Makens, J. (2006). Marketing for Hospitality and Tourism, Prentice Hall: Upper Saddle River (N.J), Fourth Edition.
Levitt, T 1986, âMarketing intangible products and product intangiblesâ, Chapter 5 in The Marketing Imagination, The Free Press, New York, pp. 94-110.
NATAS – National Association of Travel Agents Singapore, 2009.
The Singapore Tours, 2009.
Ministry of Trade and industry, MTI Forecasts Growth of -1.0â2.0% in 2009.
Patterson, L. (2008): Marketing Metrics in Action- Creating a Performance-Driven Marketing Organization. Racom Communications.
Ries, A. and Jack, T. (2000): Positioning- The Battle for Your Mind- 20th Anniversary Edition: McGraw-Hill.
Thomson, C. and Rampton, L. (2006): Putting Your Customers First, Market Research. Melbourne press, New York.