Considering on competition both parks including Chessington World of Adventure unsurprisingly attract most of their visitors from the south of England as the majority of people are unwilling to spend more than two hours travelling to a site. The need to appeal to a wider audience and become more of a national brand is very much at the forefront of the marketing strategy at the two parks. Up until now, theme parks have been able to survive on that one to two hour catchment area alone, but it is clear that times are changing. There are the obvious competitors such as other theme parks in the same area, but also less immediately apparent rivals. With cheap flights available to destinations across Europe, theme parks on the continent are becoming an increased threat. It is not so much that they can rival UK-based parks for a great day out, but people now have the option of building a short-break around visiting a park, so they are less likely to take a trip to a home-based attraction. As a result, places like Disneyland Paris are effectively competing with UK parks for visitors. Despite this, Thorpe Park Thorpe Park wants to make a profit against their competitors.
Moving on from their, the marketing mix gains Thorpe Park’s objectives using the 4Ps which are price, product, place and promotion. The marketing mix is about getting the right product, to the right people, at the right place, at the right price using the right promotion. The marketing mix is the combination of marketing activities that an organization uses to do this. It is basically a ‘tool’ made up of four parts as shown in the diagram above. However, again the 4 parts are known as the 4ps and they are:
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Product – The goods and services supplied by organization. In addition. In addition, this could also be an object or a service that is mass produced or manufactured on a large scale with a specific volume of units
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Price – The amount of money that customers pay for the goods and services. Plus, it is determined by a number of factors including market share, competition, material costs, product identity and the customer's perceived value of the product. The business may increase or decrease the price of product if other stores have the same product.
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Place – Place represents the location where a product can be purchased. It is often referred to as the distribution channel. It can include any physical store as well as virtual stores on the Internet.
- Promotion – The methods used to encourage customers to but the goods and services. Promotion has four distinct elements - advertising, public relations, word of mouth and point of sale.
The way Thorpe Park uses its marketing mix to gain its objectives are as followed:
- Product – Thorpe Park uses its products in order to sell them and make a profit like any other business. For example this could be new rides, restaurants, merchandise, stationary, etc.
- Price – Thorpe Park uses their money in order to construct their new rides and for maintenance in order to ensure health and safety. The money for Thorpe Park may be generated by the selling of tickets, food and drink, merchandise, etc.
- Place – Thorpe Park may advert their latest news on radio, TV commercial, their websites, new papers, magazines, posters, etc. The latest new could be about new rides, special nights or evenings, discounts, etc.
- Promotion – Thorpe Park uses promotion to encourage people to buy products, aim to give a short term boost in sales. For example money of vouchers, discounts, competitors, PR promotions, combination offers, etc.
Thorpe Park uses its price in a number of ways in order to achieve its objective. First of all price is the amount on how much products and services are sold at their final price. Thorpe Park operates a standard/off peak entry and pricing system and offers a full range of great value ticket options throughout the season. At a glance pricing on the day is as follows:
The Tussauds Group Annual Pass gives 12 months worth of entry at Thorpe Park plus entry into participating Tussauds Group attractions – Alton Towers, Chessington World of Adventures, Madame Tussaud’s London, and Warwick Castle – all for just £285.00 for a family of four. Other ticket options include group, senior, disabled and schools tickets.
The way how Thorpe Park uses different pricing strategies to gain its objectives of the following are as followed:
Completion based pricing
Thorpe Park is influenced by rivals when setting prices (e.g. Alton Towers and Chessington). The price is set to be fairly similar to avoid a price war between these organizations.
Market oriented pricing
Thorpe Park looks at what is going on in the market when they set their prices. It looks at what customers are willing to pay at certain times in certain situations e.g. OAP, family and group pricing.
Peak and off peak pricing
For school trips only Thorpe Park offer peak and off peak pricing. Peak is known as higher prices when the park is busy. Off peak is known as lower prices to encourage more visitors.
Discounts
Thorpe Park offers discounts on their normal prices e.g. large groups, students, OAP’s schools. This makes Thorpe Park appeal to wider range of customers.
Special offers
Products are offered at special low prices, this encourages the sales of products.
The actual selling price is the amount of money paid customers for their goods and services. Price is one of the most flexible parts of the marketing mix as it can easily be changed. Thorpe Park offers a range of seasonal discounts in order to attract new customers or visitors. Thorpe Park often using price discounts when promoting back. In regards of profitability prices allow Thorpe Park to make a profit. This means that Thorpe Park must charge a price that more than covers the costs of running the Park e.g. staff wages, maintenance, etc.
Thorpe Park uses product to gain their marketing objective due to the sales of food, drink and new rides. According to this you would consider that their objecting is according on budget and price which leads to profit. However, Thorpe Park uses this money in order to make a new ride and they use by serving their product. Plus, they also gain money by selling their merchandise like cups, clothes, stationary, etc. Lastly their money is mostly generated from the selling of tickets. Furthermore, Thorpe Park uses its products and services in order to gain their objective. Products are tangible goods. This means they are things you can touch and see. Examples will be things like footballs or a program for an event. Services are more intangible goods. You can’t actually see or touch them but they are still an important part of what is provided by the organization. Services are things like when someone shows you to your seat at the theatre or where there is an information desk at a theme park. The features of the following six rides at Thorpe Park are:
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Stealth — Thorpe Park's newest roller coaster which opened in 2006. Stealth is an Accelerator Coaster designed to launch l80 mph (128 km/h) up a 205 ft top hat incline at approx 3gs, a vertical drop and a large hill. The ride launches to 80mph in under 2 seconds.
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Colossus - A roller coaster with 10 inversions. Upon its opening in 2002, it broke the world record for the roller coaster with the most inversions.
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Nemesis Inferno — steel inverted roller coaster, themed around an erupting tropical volcano. Nemesis Inferno is the only inverted roller coaster to feature a set of interlocking corkscrews and it also has the longest pre-lift section.
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Rush - An S&S Screaming Swing. The ride features two arms which seat 32 people, secured by lap bars. Opened in 2005. Compressed air is used to propel the arms up to a height of around 60ft.
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X:\ No Way Out - Housed within a terracotta-colored pyramid is the world's first and only backwards in-the-dark roller coaster which opened in 1996.
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Vortex - Designed to travel on two trailers, and features 6 gondolas seating 4 passengers each, while larger static models feature 8 gondolas.
The products and services that Thorpe Park offers are rides, theme park map, restaurants, toilets, accommodation, and merchandise (shopping). In terms of the brand, Thorpe Park is well known developed brand. When people think of theme parks one of the first names that come to mind is Thorpe Park. This is because is a well known, reliable brand and safe for all age groups in order for a fun day out. In spite of this the brand name of Thorpe Park is used for many reasons of the following:
To help recognition: If customers recognize a brand they may trust and buy it.
To make product different: Thorpe Park as a brand hopes to attract ‘thrill seekers’.
To create brand loyalty: If people go to Thorpe Park once and enjoy their experience they are more likely to return.
To develop a brand image: People go to Thorpe Park for the thrilling rides; this is the brand they have created.
The park provides an After Sale Service, this is very important to customers providing them with security when buying a product.
Ensuring satisfaction: Thorpe Park use exit questionnaires and other research methods to measure customer satisfaction
Services: Many guests regrettably lose personal items out of their pockets. Guest services then have the difficult responsibility of matching the reported lost items with the recovered property form in the ride areas. Last season Thorpe Park recovered nearly 2000 items, and returned nearly 25%.
Deal with complaints: Thorpe Park respond in writing to any complaints that need following up, or in reply to letters, phone calls or emails within 7 days of receiving the initial complaint.
Product life cycle
The Product Life Cycle is a concept which shows the sales of a product as it passes through the different stages in life. The life of a product is the amount of time it is available on the market.
- Market introduction stage
- cost high
- sales volume low
- no/little competition - competitive manufacturers watch for acceptance/segment growth losses
- demand has to be created
- customers have to be prompted to try the product
- Growth stage
- costs reduced due to economies of scale
- sales volume increases significantly
- profitability
- public awareness
- competition begins to increase with a few new players in establishing market
- prices to maximize market share
- Mature stage
- Costs are very low as you are well established in market & no need for publicity.
- sales volume peaks
- increase in competitive offerings
- prices tend to drop due to the proliferation of competing products
- brand differentiation, feature diversification, as each player seeks to differentiate from competition with "how much product" is offered
- Industrial profits go down
- Decline or Stability stage
- costs become counter-optimal
- sales volume decline or stabilize
- prices, profitability diminish
- profit becomes more a challenge of production/distribution efficiency than increased sales
Now I am going to show
you a product life cycle of some of the rides in Thorpe Park, to show
the different stages that rides are at.
Key: A: New 2009 rollercoaster, B: Inferno Nemesis, C: Colossus, D: Detonator, C: Vortex, F: Eclipse
The reasons I have for these findings are as follows:
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The new rollercoaster for 2009 has only been introduced before it is even constructed.
- Nemesis is a new ride at Thorpe Park, and always seems to have a
long queue for it, normally at least 1 hour.
- Colossus, although this is an older ride, always has one of the
longest queues in the park, although the queue is gradually getting
shorter over time.
- Detonator is also one of the older rides, but it is still very
popular for all the people who are daredevils, although the appeal for
this ride is wearing off.
- Vortex is a popular ride, but people don't come to the park
especially for this ride anymore, whereas with the rides above, they
do.
- Eclipse is not very popular, except when it's raining when people
use it to stay dry. It is a very slow, boring big wheel and even
little children find it dull. There is never more then a 5 minute
queue.
Thorpe Park tries to prolong the life of a product. They might do this by using extension strategies. Here are a number of examples:
Finding new markets: Thorpe Park could sell their products to new groups of customers. E.g. A day of Thorpe Park tickets are now being sold to people who don’t even contribute in theme parks.
Changing the packaging: A change in the appearance of a ride or its packaging might encourage buying the product again.
Increasing the product range: Thorpe Park can bring out new range of its basic product.
Modifying the product: It is common to redesign old products and relaunch them as being new. For example, Thorpe Park may modify Stealth by making it faster which will attract more people.
Location
A place is a position or point in physical space that something occupies on Earths' surface. A real location can often be designated using a specific pairing of latitude and longitude, a Cartesian coordinate grid, a spherical coordinate system, or an ellipsoid-based system. A location may be described as either absolute location, meaning the exact location of an object, or relative location, meaning the location of one object relative to another and another or in a general area.
The park is located in a very good spot. It is surrounded by water which can be used as a river, and also attracts people as it can be used for the wet rides. It also attracts people as it is very attractive to be surrounded by water, as there are nice views. The park uses the water to it's advantage on the rides too, for example on Vortex, there are parts of the ride where it looks as if you are going to land in the water, which can be very scary, causing the ride to be more thrilling which achieves the rides target to be frightening. The park is situated only 20 miles from the centre of London and is very close to the M25 and M3, so it has good access roads for people which have to travel a distance to get there. The park has two train stations near it, one of these being Staines station, which is only five minutes away by bus. Staines Station has regular trains going to and from it, and also a train direct to Staines from London waterloo, with a shuttle bus going straight to the park, from the station every 30 minutes. If all else fails, there is a coach from Victoria to
Thorpe park, or just by entering your postcode on the website, they will find the nearest places to get a coach from. With the park being so near to London, and with so many ways of getting to the park, it makes it easier for people to come from further away, attracting a lot more customers.
Travelling By Train
Regular South West Trains run from Waterloo direct to Staines. The 950 shuttle link operates from Staines station to the Park running every half hour. Trains also run regularly from Reading and Guildford to Staines Station.
An alternative route is available to Chertsey Station (2 trains an hour to Chertsey from Waterloo via Staines except on Sundays when there is one an hour) then catch either 451 bus from stop marked B on the Eastworth Road, or 446 at stop D 2 minutes away (out of the station forecourt turn left and across the traffic lights) journey time 5 minutes with 4 buses per hour on each route except on Sundays one every 2 hours.
Travelling By Bus
Staines Bus station is a 5 minute walk from the railway station. Buses for THORPE PARK depart from Stand 2, however, the 950 Thorpe Park Express departs directly from Staines Railway Station. Other services operate as follows.
Travelling By Coach
There is a coach service from London Victoria to Staines.
Travelling By Car
Thorpe Park is within easy reach of London. From the M25 take junctions 11 or 13* and follow signs via A320 to Thorpe Park. Car parking is free.
The path taken to get products from organisations to customers is called a distribution channel. Thorpe Park delivers is product via tourist information centres, tour operators, over the internet from the Thorpe Park website and at the park itself.
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