An improved Mission and Vision statement for Park Grand Hotel
The Park Grand hotel in Paddington is dedicated to availing its guests all the luxuries and comforts of four star luxury property by providing excellent customer services and value for money. The hotel is looking forward to establish its name in the international hotel market as one of the dependable brands which will grow with time as the trust of its investors grows upon it.
Marketing Objectives of Park Grand Hotel by the end of year 2011
Increase the hotel profits to 8% more than the last fiscal year.
Increase the guest retention numbers by providing excellent services and loyalty schemes.
Increase the brand awareness amongst people by giving them the best services.
Increase the staff skills by providing them training by expert celebrity chefs.
E-Marketing Objectives of Park Grand Hotel by the end of year 2011
To create a better website with no loopholes for over booking.
To improve the online website stability issues
To improve the website performance and avoid website crashing.
To provide a 360 degree view of the hotel room online so that the guest can have a look at the rooms before they even stay in them.
Some positive and negative facts about the Park Grand Hotel.
- 60 TELEPHONE RESERVATIONS AGENTS AND 40 ONLINE BOOKING AGENTS
- CENTRALISED MARKETING DEPARTMENT BUT ALSO INDIVIDUAL MARKETING DEPARTMENTS AS WELL
- THERE IS A CLUB LOUNGE 4 TO 6PM FREE TEA COFFE AND NON ALCOHOLIC DRINKS
- PROVIDE CAB SERVICES WHICH HAS A TIE UP WITH THE HOTEL
- SEPERATE CONCIERGE SERVICES
- BUSINESS CENTRE IS THERE AND THERE IS A COMPUTER ROOM WITH ALL THE PRINTING FACILITIES
- NO CONFERENCE ROOMS BUT THERE IS A SMALL BAR AREA WHICH CAN BE USED IN THE DAY TIME FOR SMALL MEETINGS
- THE BIGGEST STRENGTH IS THE PRESENCE OF THE GROUP
- HOUSEKEEPING SERVIES ARE GOOD
Marketing Strategy
Market Segmentation for the Park Grand Hotel London
Out of 100 guests at the Park Grand Hotel
Local Businessman = 20 X Expenditure 350£ = 7000£
Local Leisure = 30 X Expenditure 500£ = 15000£
International Businessman = 5 X Expenditure 400£ = 2000 £
International Leisure = 45 X Expenditure 500£ = 22500£
Hence as per the segmentation of the guests for the Park Grand hotel we can easily notice that the guests which come to the hotel for a leisure trip spend more and their percentage of occupancy of the hotel is also more. Finally we can conclude that the guests staying the Park Grand are primarily leisure oriented and secondarily business oriented.
Targeting for Park Grand Hotel
Key findings:
The volume of the business guests clearly shows that the hotel is more preferred by the leisure and pleasure travellers alike. The hotel as it is located in central London can easily become the prime preference of leisure travellers for central London. The Business clients although have more paying capacity but they still do not prefer staying at this hotel as they might not consider luxury and money spend on comfort more justified. Another reason can be that the guests after the economical downturn prefer to stay in budget hotels more than the luxury hotels and the Park Grand being a 4 star luxury property is not their first choice for business stays.
Positioning of the Park Grand Hotel:
The hotel is positioned between the five star hotels and the three star hotels.
Marketing Strategy
Ansoff Matrix:
For the hotel I will use two main strategies that are derived from the Ansoff Matrix: These
Market Penetration
1.Market Penetration: offer discount vouchers for dining among the speciality restaurants in the hotel. The current guests will be attracted ti get into the speciality restaurants when there is a discount on their menu and this will create an opportunity for the hotel to advertise its restaurants for free.
2.Product Development- the modification of the current packages to suit the leisure travellers will be a good idea. The travelers come to London for different occasions and these occasions are usually amongst friends and a couple. For the friends the hotel can introduce city tour packages and the rooms can be designed for use by three and four people at the same time having extra space for an added bedding. For the couples the hotel can refurbish old rooms to make new honeymoon suites and anniversary suites based upon the occasion of the guests stay. The rooms can be decorated and compliments can be placed before the arrival of the guest like wine and champagne.
Marketing programme –
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Product & Promotion– The rooms once refurbished and styled by theme for leisure guests will provide a more customised feel to the guests.
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Price – The price of the rooms need not to be changes.
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Place – The promotion of the location needs to be done more as the hotel needs to advertise its newly styled theme rooms.
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Physical evidence – The hotel rooms once styled by the different leisure themes will be the most evident physical evidence for the guests to notice. Apart from that the menu can also be styled as per the guests reason for stay. i.e. Italian food with wine can be included for in room dining for the anniversary or honeymoon couples, whereas fast food with complimentary soft and hard drinks can be inclcuded for friends staying in their vacations.
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Process – The check in process needs to be more smooth and efficient and for this the computer systems needed to be restyled to check in large groups of people and check out these groups by a single click.
Schedule of Promotional activity for year 2011
Estimated Budget: £100.000 Contingency budget 20,000£
Key performance indicator
Sales are the most transparent and easy to notice key performance indicator.
If the sales of the company increase to the foretasted level then we can say that the marketing procedures that have been undertaken are into play and will prove profitable in the longer run.
Guest comment cards are also a easy way of noticing if the guests have noticed any changes in the hotel and in its marketing procedures.
Repeat guest track records can also easily prove if the guess are satisfied and if their stay becomes more frequent in the hotel that means that the marketing strategy is a success.
Contingency plan –
The Focus Strategy
Companies that use Focus strategies concentrate on particular niche markets and, by understanding the dynamics of that market and the unique needs of customers within it, develop uniquely low cost or well-specified products for the market. Because they serve customers in their market uniquely well, they tend to build strong brand loyalty amongst their customers. This makes their particular market segment less attractive to competitors.
As with broad market strategies, it is still essential to decide whether you will pursue Cost Leadership or Differentiation once you have selected a Focus strategy as your main approach: Focus is not normally enough on its own.
But whether you use Cost Focus or Differentiation Focus, the key to making a success of a generic Focus strategy is to ensure that you are adding something extra as a result of serving only that market niche. It's simply not enough to focus on only one market segment because your organization is too small to serve a broader market (if you do, you risk competing against better-resourced broad market companies' offerings.)
The "something extra" that you add can contribute to reducing costs (perhaps through your knowledge of specialist suppliers) or to increasing differentiation (though your deep understanding of customers' needs).
Ref: http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newSTR_82.htm
Appendix
FEPSOS- Park Grand London
FUNCTION
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Product & Promotion- The Park Grand London has 157 rooms to offer which feature luxury and comfort of a five star hotel while keeping the rooms prices down to a competitive level of a four star property. As the hotel is a part of the Shaftesbury Hotel Group so the promotional services are taken care by the bigger hotel group as a whole. And as an experienced and reputed hospitality business the Shaftesbury Hotel group promotes the hotel property in magazines, newspapers, tourism journals, internet, radio and social networking websites.
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Price – The rooms range from deluxe single to junior suites at a price range of 140 to 350 £ per night depending upon the availability.
- Prices offered by the competitors in the same area are:
- Royal Park Hotel 233£ to 500£ (5 star hotel)
- Best Western Shaftesbury Paddington Court 129£ to 400£
- The Gresham 118 £ to 250 £ (3 star hotel)
- Nayland Hotel 140 £ to 380 £ (4 star hotel)
- Glendale Hyde Park Hotel 85 £ to 150 £ (3 star hotel)
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Place – Paddington one of the biggest London train stations and the international trains to many parts of Europe start from here. There is good connectivity as the hotel is within minutes of walking distance from the underground tube station and bus stands. As the centre of city high street shopping areas like Marble arch Oxford Circus are close. Tourist spots like Hyde park and the famous St. James's church is also close by. The St. Mary Hospital is also close by.
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People & Process – the hotel is part of a bigger hotel chain group thus all the staff have a bigger advantage of cross training and working in all the hotel properties of the Shaftesbury Hotel Group in London (24 hotels). Some of the famous hotels are the Best Western, London Paddington Hotel, Codova Hotel, Park Lane Hotel, Shaftesbury Hotel at Piccadilly Circus, Mont Calm at Marble Arch. The staff is equally employed on the terms of Internal recommendation and open-day interviews as well.
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Physical evidence – The Park Grand hotel is the newest property in all the Shaftesbury hotel group. Ancient Victorian reconstructed architecture is one of the distinguishing factors that separates it from the others. Moreover the hotel has switched over to designer furnishing in all the guestrooms which gives it a rich look. There is under floor heating in all the bathrooms. Rooms also support docking stations for laptops and iPod music players. Another fact is that the hotel has already gone under a recent refurbishment as to a commitment of a dynamic physical appearance so as to keep the guests amused by its changing interiors like carpets and wallpapers.
Environment-
Customers:-
Identified customers’ needs:
The hotel caters mainly to two current categories of clients i.e. business travellers staying for a day to four which are usually single occupancy and leisure travellers which want to stay for the weekend or a couple of days and usually are in a pair or a family. The hotel caters to all those who are looking forward to relaxed and comfortable stay in central London in a place which is easily connected to all the major airports and train stations.
The major mix of the guests include travellers from all over Europe and many Arabian countries such as U.A.E., Lebanon and Libya.
Accomplishment:
Lounge Business centre concept.- The Atlantic Bar Lounge which in the day time can be converted to be used as a Business Conference area with a seating capacity of 25 people.
Why do they buy from this company?
Tourist prefer this hotel as it is newly built. It is a four star and provides five start facilities. It is located on a walking distance to the Paddington station which is directly connected to the Heathrow airport. Connectivity is very strong. Foreign guests who prefer to stay in central London and have a flight prefer to stay at the hotel due to the good connectivity.
Customer feedback:
As an industry standard emphasis is given on the guest feedback forms so that the management can easily come to know about the hotels performance in th eeyes of the customers. A close watch is also kept upon the different review websites such as tripadvisor.com which not only portray the guest's reactions to their stay but also are an indirect mode of decision making for the potential guests to come.
Marketing segments
The current market segments over which the hotel concentrates are mainly season tourists and travellers and weekday business guests and professionals which are targeted in a broad manner by the marketing team of the parent hotel company i.e. the Shaftesbury Hotel group.
Competitors
The primary competitors of the Park Grand London hotel are the Royal Park Hotel and the Gresham Hotel. Both of these hotels have a different identity of their own and are well established in the same location as of the Park Grand London Hotel. The Royal Park Hotel has a distinctive style of architecture which has stone covered walls and old Victorian style architecture. The hotel is having a large brand awareness in the location and that is mainly because of the exceptional service standards and the facilities they provide to the guests.
On the other hand the Gresham hotel which is a three star hotel. This is a budget hotel and offers basic accommodation facilities. The hotel is also a popular choice for the guests staying in central London. The hotel features decent sized rooms, concierge facilities and secretarial services for the business guests.
PORTERS FIVE FORCES
The five forces model of Michael porter describes how all the factors of the internal and the external customers and competitors effect the hotel and its performance.
Strategies followed by the competition:
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The Royal Park Hotel has the better advantage of being more experienced in the same location. This gives the hotel an obvious better brand awareness amongst all the current and potential clients.
- The Royal Park hotel has also got a better market share. As the hotel is more experienced it has a good relationship with the booking agents and the online websites that specifically target the guests to this hotel if they are interested to stay in Paddington area of London.
- The Gresham hotel has a strategy of no nonsense simple service. The hotel management believes that the best service is often the simplest one. That is a primary reason that the management does not wish to progress towards becoming a four or a five star hotel in the area. But instead the management is satisfied in their current positiing in the market and therefore firmly believe that they will keep on providing simple and basic services at a budget price. They believe that this strategy will keep on running their business for a longer time even in such a phase where after the economical downturn people are spending less the budget hotels will still keep on flourishing.
STEEPLE-
Social-
- The Park Grand hotel actively takes part not as an independent hotel but as a part of the whole Shaftesbury Hotel Group in giving regular charity to local non profit organisations.
- The hotel management believes that the best social responsibility that they can carry is to maintain a decent decorum and harmony amongst the widely diverse staff which comes from all different types of ethnicities of the world.
Technological-
- Although the hotel uses online booking website for making reservations there is an issue that has come in the light. The issue states the time lag between the actual booking of the rooms and the closing of room bookings on the website. As a result when the hotel rooms are full for a date the web site still keeps on entertaining reservations and as a result the hotel website usually overbooks the hotel by 20 to 25 rooms on a busy weekday night. Thus resulting in massive confusion. The hotel has a temporary solution which is that it has several properties in the central London area and it can easily transfer guest to any property which has availability. But the guests usually get upset by all this chaos and confusion.
Economical-
Coming into existence when recession was on its prime in the United Kingdom the Prk Grand Hotel has actually proved the critics wrong by staying and doing decent business in the past one and half year. The hotel is although new but is picking up pace. The credit goes to carefully planned economical and marketing strategies that have decently priced the hotel where it can make a significant profit and at the same time not sending the guests off.
Environmental-
The hotel has a commitment to recycling. As per the new plans the hotel plans to recycle its 90 % of waste and disposed plastic, glass and paper.
Political & Legal
As a part of the Shaftesbury Hotel group the Prk Grand Hotel followed all the rules and regulations regarding taxation, immigration laws and the legal obligations. The hotel has initiated efforts to start sponsoring staff from the European Union and Asian countries.
Ethical-
The Park Grand hotel has appointed three full time trainers for the period of the next two years. These trainers will train the current staff in the basic primary conversations in the major languages of the world including Spanish, Portugese, Italian, German and French. The hotel is taking such a step because it firmly believes that London is an international city which gets visitors form all over the world. And when a guest is welcomed and communicated in their own language in a place far away from home they will surely want to come again and again to the place an also advertise this feature to further potential clients.
Productivity
The Shaftesbury Hotel group has 24 hotels which are scattered all over London with the major ones being in the centre of the city. The hotel group is well known for its speciality restaurants, fine-dining, luxurious rooms and comfortable stay. The hotels main revenue is although generated by the rooms division.
Systems
OPERA system used which is linked to all the other hotels in the Shaftesbury hotel group. Opera is a world wide known property management system that is used in the biggest hotels. The hotel trains its staff on Opera for a month before letting them practice the system directly in front of the guests. The hotel makes sure that the hotel always uses a customised and updated version of the software.
Organisation
McKinsey’s 7S’s:
Structure –located in Paddington which is in the city centre and close to all the major tourist and business attractions of London. The hotel has a Victorian styled architecture amongst one of the best locations in London which is a sight itself.
Strategy – The hotel has chosen the form of hybrid pricing strategy which helps the reservations to maintain the flow of revenue while at the same time selling rooms on less busier nights. The room prices are heavily subjected to availability and an increase or a drop of 25 to 30 £ for a rooms is normal.
Systems – Opera is heavily used and the best part is that the system is interconnected amongst all the other properties of the Hotel group so once a guest has checked in they are remembered forever in all the hotel properties.
Styles –New technology is incorporated and the hotel is trying to prove its finnesse in proving itself stylish by bringing in Hewlett Packard touch screen desktop computers in all the rooms.
Skills –The hotel is having a highly skilled team which is not unique to the property itself but is usually rotated to cross train amongst all the other properties of the hotel group.
Staff & Shared values –Highly qualified professional and well experienced staff
Strategy
Mission and Vision Statement
The mission/vision statement of the Shaftesbury Hotel Group is “To increase the global presence of a hotel chain that can offer its guests the premium levels of luxury and service quality.”
This mission/vision statement is quite vague as the hotel group does not describe how it will reach those levels of progress. The statement also doesn't describe clearly what its intentions are as hospitality organisation. There is no reference to a profitable financial desire as well.
Marketing Effectiveness Rating