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This Plan results in a one year marketing plan for 201 5 to sell at least 500 nights of one of Neon Plaza Hotels ‘Die Port van Clove’ in the Chinese Market. The plan was developed by researching the current situation of the hotel on an internal and external level, which resulted in the SOOT. It highlights the most important Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats of the Hotel. After determining the SOOT, a Strategy to build up on the Strength, use the opportunities, diminish the weaknesses and keep track of the threats were worked out.
The Strategy concludes that a new market will be developed, the Hotel is going to become (for the Chinese market) even more customer orientated, and will aim towards a higher market share (of the Chinese tourists). In the Marketing Mix, concrete steps that lead to product improvement are specified. The objective of selling 500 nights will be reached by cooperating with Chinese travel agencies as new distributors and publishing advertisements on Chinese social media. Those activities are the promotional mix that is further elaborated.
These tools of direct marketing and advertising are used to reach travel agencies and the potential customer. Lastly, the planning of 2015 has been worked out in a one-year calendar indicating what activities have to be executed at which time for the Marketing Plan to be successful and reach the desired goal. Furthermore, the budget is separated in two parts, the promotional budget, which accounts for 12. 000? and is used to reach the travel agencies as well as publish the advertisements.
The second part of the budget chapter covers the recommended investments like the translation of the website and the development of a mobile home page. Introduction Neon Plaza hotels, consists of two hotels in Amsterdam, ‘Die Port van Clove’ and ‘Dutch Design Hotel Artemisia’. This Company gave Satisfied Travel the assignment to set up a marketing plan for the hotel ‘Die Port van Clove’, with he aim to sell at least 500 nights in the Chinese Market in 2015. This plan should indicate the changes that have to be applied to the products to satisfy the needs of the Chinese customers.
Therefore, the consultancy produced analysis on three levels. First of all, the internal analysis is developed. It is a detailed statement of what the Hotel’s features are in terms of weak and strong points. Those are all facts that are highly influential by the Hotel itself. The internal analysis is followed by the external analysis, which is broken up into two levels, namely Micro and Marco analysis. Both are not influenced by the Hotel. The Micro analysis consists Of an investigation of the Customers, Distributors, Suppliers and the Competitors.
Whereas the Macro Analysis points out the political, economical, technological, social and physical forces (abbreviated PEST) of the Chinese tourism industry. The most important Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats are concluded and explained in the SOOT-Analysis. The following Chapter in the Plan is the Strategy in which objectives are formulated SMART, the market is segmented, the target group defined and the new positioning strategy established. To reach the prior formulated Objectives, changes that eave to be made are indicated in the chapter Marketing Mix.
These are divided into product, place, price and promotion. Furthermore, to give a structured overview of the tasks that have to be carried out throughout 201 5, a one-year plan divided into months is created and included in the chapter Planning. All costs that are involved in the promotional activities are mentioned in the chapter Budget. Additionally a list of advised expenditures is included. 1 Internal Analysis The internal Analysis is subdivided into four chapters which are equally named to the Model the Consultancy used, known as the Marketing mix (4 Up’s).
The Marketing mix consists of 4 (sometimes 5) Up’s, namely, Promotion, Price, Place and Product, (Personnel). In the following chapter these are analyzed in detail. The Evaluation of the Internal, Micro and Macro analysis will result in the SOOT analysis, where the most important strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats will be summarized. 1. 1 Promotion Promotion contains all the activities done by a company to increase the sales of their product/since and to inform the customer and potential customers about the products and services a company offers.
As Satisfied Travel analyzed the Promotional activities of the hotel “Die Port van Clove”, they found interesting outcomes, which will be presented below. The website, which will be dealt with in product and Place, indicates that Die Port van Clove uses social media, namely: Twitter, Faceable, Pinsetters. When one follows the social media links, one gets immediately to their page where it is obvious that there is a lot of attention paid to social media. As high as the participation in the social media for promotion is, as low is it in other sectors.
The marketing strategy can be described as relatively poor. There is only one employee expansible for all marketing activity for both Hotels of the Neon Plaza Hotels. Even though the time is taken to respond to each comment on their Faceable chronic personally, for the new potential Chinese visitors that has no great value as this website has been blocked in China (blacksmithing. Net) and a further examination of the Chinese version of Faceable was not possible due to a lack of language understanding. It was also noticeable that when one is searching for the hotel on a search engine (www. Google. Mom) with the keywords “Hotel Amsterdam port” the Hotels’ website shows up right at the top of the page. As soon as the entire hotel name is searched for there is also an ad displayed on the right hand-side of the page. Even the Chinese search engine Baud. Com shows the hotel at the top of the page when the entire name is typed in. 1. Product The hotel “Die port van Clove” offers, within a complex of three monumental buildings, 122 rooms divided in Single, double, twin, superior, executive and business rooms. They vary in general size, bed size and extra features such as a small meeting area attached to the business rooms.
All rooms are kept in the same style and also the decoration does not vary throughout the different moms. Tea making facilities as well as Delft’s Blue is a part of the interior in all rooms, which is a Dutch traditional color and art piece that dates back to the 17th century (Royal Delft). The Management is planning on removing the Delft’s Blue “photo-shopped” pictures in the rooms and redesign the rooms to create a better atmosphere (Van Guest). Throughout the hotel Wi-If is available to all guests free of charge and the entire complex follows a non- smoking policy.
Another Product of the hotel is its restaurant “De port”. The restaurant is facing changes soon, and will reopen under the name Maxilla”. The restaurant used to, and will also in the future serve, traditional Dutch food and their famous numbered steaks. Once the renovations have finished, a new menu will be introduced offering higher quality at affordable prices, so that guests that are not staying in the hotel will also be attracted. Furthermore, the hotel offers an authentic Bar Bodega “De Valuable Parade”, which is home to a great delft blue tile Fresco.
The Bar offers a typical Dutch Jenifer tasting (for 13. 00?). Just as the Restaurant, the Bar will also face some changes in the future to be capable of a greater number of customers at a time (Van Guest). Also seen as a product are the 5 Meeting rooms that are available as a feature for the business travelers and Amsterdam based companies. Furthermore, a special meeting package can be booked starting from 45,00? per participant. Other specials of the Hotel include the discount special where one gets a certain discount depending on the length of stay (2 nights = 10%, 3 nights = 15%, 4 and more nights = 20%).
Besides this it is also possible to book the breakfast already with the room booking which is then 5,50? cheaper than purchasing it after the booking. Another important product of the Hotel is its history, which dates back to 1864, when the location was the first Heinlein brewery. Satisfied Travel also defined the website http://www. Depreciatively. Com as a product of the Hotel, it has a clear overview on the top of the page. One can immediately from the first page book a room. The page is nicely arranged with pictures that are even changing to draw more attention.
Unfortunately the only language choices are English and Dutch, this could cause problems for some Chinese potential customers. This topic will also be discussed in Chapter Place. 1. Place The place analysis consists of all matters that fall into the location of the product. The hotel “Die Port van Clove” is located on “Unjustified Aboriginal 176-180, 1012 S], Amsterdam” (also see map in Appendix 1). It is 50 meters away from the Dam and within 10 minutes hotel guests can get to the central train station. In front of the hotel, there is the metro stop “Amsterdam, Dam/Radiotherapist”which is connected to line 1, 2, 5, 13 and 17.
These lines provide a way to the Bondholder, the Rasmussen, the central station, the Anne Frank His, the Salvatore (which is the main shopping street) and many other interesting destinations. A weakness that is encountered in the city center of Amsterdam is the surrounding competition. Due to other options that tourists have in Amsterdam, it is important to stand out and to make an offer that only the hotel ‘Die Port van Clove’ can make. Some competitors are ‘De Erode Lieu, ‘Intel Hotels’ and ‘Convent hotel’. In terms Of location these hotels are competing. These competitors will be discussed in Chapter 2. Competitors. Also important for the place is the Website. Even Though its main function is to inform potential customers about the Hotel it is also as place of distribution. The rooms can be booked from the main page of the website that opens up as soon as one visits the page. Another part concerning place will be dealt with in the chapter of Distributors and Suppliers. That chapter examines the booking process in more detail and the place where the product can be purchased – in this case, where a night at the hotel can be booked. 1. Price Price concerns the financial part of the analysis.
It is ‘the key element of the marketing mix, because all elements of the marketing mix represent costs’ (Fay & Jobber, 2010). This means that all elements of the marketing mix product, promotion and place) are related to costs. In this chapters the financial part will be analyzed. The first aspect of price is the main product: An overnight stay in the hotel ‘die Port van Clove’ itself. A night at the hotel costs between approximately 95? (per night per room) and 300? (per person per night). This depends on the time that the customer is staying there. Related to holidays, weekdays or on the weekend, the prices can differ.
Furthermore it is dependent on the kind of room the customer books. Breakfast is offered for a price of 19,50?. However, when the breakfast is booked in advance it only sots 14,00?. Another discount can be found with booking more nights. When booking 2 nights, the customer receives a 10% discount, 3 nights 15% discount and from 4 nights on it goes up to 20% discount. The hotel offers a business suite as a meeting room, which can be rented for either 4 or 8 hours. It includes coffee/tea, lunch and the room for 45? p. P. (4 hours) or 59,50? p. P. (8 hours). Price is also related to the place where the hotel is located. Die port van Clove’ is 50 meters away from the “Dam”, which means that the costs for the location can be estimated to be very high, which influences the costs of all facilities/arrangements in the hotel. Also promotion has something to do with costs, because for most kinds of advertising money needs to be invested. For example, offering the hotel on “booking. Com” costs the hotel money, because the company will get a small part of the profit that the hotel makes when someone books a room of the hotel on “booking. Com”. The current restaurant offers mainly Dutch mashed dishes at a high price.
The steaks are offered for a price of 29,50?. These are served with a number on a card and are world famous (Depreciatively. Com). However, the assistant it mostly empty (Van Guest). Due to the fact that it is empty, it will not attract more visitors. Because of the unpopularity of the restaurant, the hotel already has plans to renovate the restaurant. The director of operations, Kook van Guest, has proposed a plan to renew the restaurant and to improve the quality, prices and atmosphere. The aim is to attract more visitors to the restaurant and make the hotel as a whole more attractive.
Another price related part of the hotel is the costs of a one-night stay. One- night stays are not encouraged and mostly it is aimed to offer at least 2 nights per booking. Due to the high price of the hotel that ranges from 95? to 300? per night, some travelers might prefer to spend less money on the accommodation. The analysis on the 4 Up’s of the marketing mix enables Satisfied Travel to get an insight in the current situation of the hotel. This process of identifying strengths and weaknesses as well as opportunities and threats (SOOT analysis) is an important factor in seeking a fitting strategy.
Afterwards, reachable objectives can be formulated that can then be achieved by the described tactics. 2 Micro Analysis The Micro analysis, deals with the environment on which the Hotel itself has o great impact but is not as global as the Marco environment. The analysis consists of 4 parts, which will be dealt with in detail below. These are Customers, Distributors, Suppliers and the Competitors. 2. 1 Customers As the Hotels objective of this Marketing plan is to attract more Chinese tourists to their Hotel ” Die Port van Clove”, this part of the Microanalysis will only deal with the Chinese tourists as that is the target group to develop.
In general it is to say that China is the second biggest economy after the united States, as projects have predicted China will have five times more middle- lass households by 2020 than the LOS (Rawlins, 2013). A closer look into the Market Characteristics of the Chinese tourism shows that most Chinese get their information about a destination on the Internet (49%). Therefore, they mostly look at reviews (on doodad. Com) or spy out destinations via social media. As some popular European pages (Faceable, etc. Have been blocked by the Chinese government, the people make use of the Chinese versions that are in line with government restrictions (such as: Render, Sins Webb, tenement Webb a. O. ) (Simooms, 2014). Even though the information and decision Of a destination is made on the Internet, most Chinese prefer to book their overseas trip through the “old-fashioned” travel agency. This has the advantage that the traveler only has to submit some documents for the agency, which will then organize the visas, flights and tours.
When traveling independently it gets a little more complicated as the individuals have to present themselves at the embassy to get interviewed. For people who do not live in one of the tier one cities, it can be very time consuming and expensive to do so. Also important to notice here is that many Chinese are afraid of independent travel as they could face problems with language or culture (mostly first time travelers). But the trend is turning towards independent travel as the people wish to experience a destination on their own and in depth (experienced travelers) (Rawlins, 2013).
The majority of the Chinese travelers (65%) are between 25 and 44 years old. 70% of those have a bachelor’s degree or junior college degree. They spend an average of US$169 per night on accommodation; their highest spending during a trip abroad is shopping expenditure. The average cost of a trip is around IIS$I . 000 whereas omen Chinese spend during their trip up to US$14. 419 on shopping. Most Chinese do not stay longer than 2 weeks. For trips to Europe the average is at 10-12 days (Rawlins, 201 3) Most Chinese travel to Europe during the golden weeks of the year.
One is around the Chinese new year (spring festival) at the end Of January beginning of February; the second one is in the first week Of October. Besides the golden weeks the midterm holidays (June/July) of the students get families to travel together (NBC Holland Marketing, 2014). Nowadays, the most Chinese travelers coming to Europe are not following a seines purpose anymore. It gets very common that people travel for pure leisure, but even when a business trip has to be taken, it usually gets combined with leisure activities.
A preference throughout the Chinese citizens toward mid-priced and economic hotels can be identified. Those hotels do not have to have a gym or a spa as the Chinese do not value such features. They are more concerned about the room quality which has highest priority followed by the price and location (Rawlins, 2013). This could be the reason why 47% of Chinese, traveling to the Netherlands, booked a 4 star Hotel (NBC Holland Marketing, 2014). Furthermore, an online survey revealed that specific Chinese services and products are ranked most important by a certain amount of Chinese travelers. 9% of the participants stated free Wi-If as most important, In-House mandarin speaking staff has been mentioned by 50%, the Hotel website available in Mandarin was most important to 38%, Chinese breakfast got named by 33%, translated welcome materials has been most important to 27% and Chinese newspapers or magazines are most important to 25% of the survey participants (Chinese International Travel Monitor 2014, 2014). Upcoming trends in the Chinese tourist market are as mentioned before the increase of the wish to travel independent and more in depth.
Chinese people want to get more unique experiences off the beaten tourist track or go on themed tours, for example, gastronomy tours, wine tours etc. 2. Distributors The product of the hotel is mostly distributed over the Internet. Using the key words ‘book die Port van Clove’ on Google results in a list of websites which are either ones where the customer can book the Hotel or the Hotels website itself (visual of the findings, see Appendix 2). Booking. Com, Alphorns. Com and Hotels. Com are apart from the hotel’s website itself the first findings.