Marketing the Hospitality Experience Assignment Sample

Marketing the Hospitality Experience Assignment

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Introduction - Marketing the Hospitality Experience

Founded in Denham, Buckinghamshire, England, InterContinental Hotels Group plc, also known as IHG Hotels & Resorts, is a British international hospitality corporation with its headquarters in Denham, Buckinghamshire, England. It is publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index of leading global companies.

Holiday Inn's parent company is IHG Hotels & Resorts, which stands for “InterContinental Hotels Group PLC” (Fernandes, 2021). Holiday Inn is among the most well-known hotel brands in the world, with a worldwide presence. Everything starts here: the experience, the excellence, the service, the spirit, and so on. It all starts here. In the last seventy years, Holiday Inn has welcomed travellers to a world of comfort, exceptional service, quality accommodations, and unique experiences in some of the most beautiful settings on the planet. Holiday Inn has more than 2000 hotels on 6 continents around the world (Edo Sudarsana, 2021).

The aims of the report are to critically evaluate the concept of experiential marketing, its theory, the critical role of the theory, the advantages and disadvantages, imperativeness and the application of the theory to the renowned hotel to assess the weakness of the company. A set of recommendations thus can be evaluated to further form a communication plan which would facilitate the customers. In accordance with the objectives, the communication strategy will offer responses and suggestions for efficient ways to enable clients to encounter the hospitality corporate identity before, during and after their visit. In section two a communication plan will be elaborated to grasp a better understanding of the subject matter. 

Section 1

1.1 Critical Evaluation and Synthesis of Experiential Marketing

Experiential Marketing Theory:

As per, Schmitt, the pioneer of “experiential marketing”, the experiential marketing framework consists of 2 components:

• five distinct types of experiences as strategic experiential modules, which serve as the strategic foundation for experiential marketing;
• experience providers, which serve as the tactical tools.

(Source: Soliha et al., 2021)

The concept of experiential marketing is tactical and founded on experiences, not just on individual experiential activities. Experiential marketing is the process of identifying and profitably satisfying customer needs and aspirations through two-way communications that bring brand personalities to life and add value to the target audience. It aids in the creation of memorable involvements and emotions for customers. According to the “International Experiential Marketing Association”, it enables people to engage and interact in sensory ways with companies, products, and services. It is a “communication approach” that primarily elicits responses from customers being a comprehensive method to the customer/brand connection. A growing number of firms are pursuing these strategies, emphasizing the “importance of passions, emotional sentiments, experiences, intelligence and feelings in consumer-brand relationships (Urdea and Constantin, 2021). Experiential marketing aids to complete physical environment and operational processes for its customers to experience.

All of these definitions regarding experiential marketing imply that experiential marketing is primarily concerned with emotions, feelings, and senses, and is less concerned with cognition and human objectives. Schmitt uses the term experiential economy to describe Pine and Gilmore's experience economy. It demonstrates the interchangeability of those terms and nouns. Experiential marketing is the strategy of discovering and financially addressing consumer requirements and ambitions through two-way interactions that bring the brand image to life and provide value to the target audience. In some respects, social media and the internet have made it possible for businesses to promote to their customers (Wang et al., 2021). These marketing strategies, on the other hand, lack the communication and relationship necessary to leave a lasting impact on a consumer. Experiential marketing is a type of marketing approach that connects the consumer and produces memorable real-world experiences. This style of marketing concentrates on bringing the brand to life for the consumer.

For instance, X is a company that sells EnergyX energy beverages. To persuade consumers to try the product, they attend sporting activities with a brightly coloured truck with outgoing sales representatives who distribute free EnergyX to consumers exiting the event (Shieh and Lai, 2017). Additionally, they distribute enticements to attract consumers to purchase the goods in the future. This method of marketing enables the consumer to test the goods personally and creates an experience they will never forget.

The Critical Role of Experiential Marketing

With so many goods and services available, businesses must sell in a way that captures consumers' attention and stays with them. Experiential marketing establishes a personal connection with consumers, allowing them to recall the product or service. Experiential marketing is much more than a billboard or television commercial. It caters to the consumer's emotional side. Additionally, experiential marketing is frequently a live event in which the consumer can participate (Wiedmann et al., 2018). In the case of X's EnergyX, the client has the opportunity to interact with the product. Additionally, this style of marketing appeals to the consumer on numerous levels, which distinguishes it from traditional marketing.

When X's crew distributes the energy drink, for instance, the consumer may see how it looks, feels, and tastes. This degree of involvement is not possible with a commercial or billboard. Finally, people who have a positive experience with a product and service are more likely to share it on social media.

Advantages, and Disadvantages of Experiential Marketing

Advantages

1. Benefits of experiential marketing

With experiential marketing aiming to create one-of-a-kind and memorable encounters, the strategy complements social media marketing perfectly. Notable memories are easily shared on social media as a result of the norm. Through the use of specialised hashtags, firms implementing an experiential marketing strategy can have their events widely shared (Abadi, Nursyamsi and Syamsuddin, 2020). Simultaneously, social media gives critical measurements and figures for experiential marketers to evaluate their performance. For example, variations in the number of likes a campaign receives might be a useful predictor of brand awareness changes.

1. Establishes Credibility and Reputation

Brands demonstrate their genuineness to current and prospective customers through experiential marketing. Consumers form significant connections and shift their impressions of a brand as a result of human-to-human engagement with brand ambassadors. To bolster this, research has revealed that more than sixty-five percent of consumers believe live events are more effective at helping them understand a product than other forms of marketing. Simultaneously, following an immersive marketing event, more than 70% of consumers can be regular clients (O Dettori, 2019). This metric indicates the efficacy of the marketing approach in affecting company reputation and consumer attitudes.

• Provides Interactive and Engaging Experiences for Consumers

With growing digitization in marketing, more than 91 percent of high-performing organisations place a high premium on live events and intend to significantly expand their event marketing expenses. Given that over 98 percent of consumers are compelled to purchase a brand's items following an interactive marketing event, marketers can benefit from a huge increase in hot leads. Additionally, brands can use the data gathered at such activities to remarket to participants. This enhances the value that a brand’s marketing budget generates.

Disadvantages

1. The Difficulties in Determining People's Reactions

With a huge number of attendees, it is difficult to predict their reactions. In part, the inability of an audience to comprehend the thing being promoted is to a fault.

Simultaneously, associating individuals' experiences with their sentiments toward a brand can be a challenging endeavour. In this environment, if a campaign lacks to grab their imagination, potential buyers may feel left out (Dettori, 2019). This results in a decrease in the return on a brand's marketing budget.

1. Fiscal Difficulties

Engagement marketers require competent human labour to develop systems that capture consumers' interests. However, without sufficient funding, employing intellects to develop fail-safe live-marketing models is an uphill fight (Wiedmann et al., 2018). Ultimately, this obstacle may jeopardise the success of a campaign.

Imperativeness of Experiential Marketing Theory:

Companies must take strategic efforts to differentiate themselves in the rising service sector competition. Providing a great client experience, particularly in the hotel industry will likely become the primary objective of managers to increase the revenue. Experiential marketing aids in this largely. The purpose is accomplished by establishing the relationship between customer happiness and perceived value, as well as their impact on behaviour intention (Abadi, Nursyamsi and Syamsuddin, 2020). Sensory experience has a substantial impact on customers’ perceived value, customer satisfaction is mostly influenced by guests’ sense experiences. Experiential marketing may result in increased behaviour intention only when consumer pleasure is improved. The outcome identifies the primary features of each variable in terms of customer happiness, perceived value, and behaviour intention, which would be used to improve the service they give. That could be offered in both tangible and intangible forms to facilitate application.

As experiential marketing is perhaps the most contemporary marketing approach, many businesses have shifted away from traditional advantages and functions marketing toward experiential marketing (Urdea and Constantin, 2021). Marketing in the hospitality industry also has become seamless and a lot easier with the advent of experiential marketing.

1.2 Application of Experiential Marketing Theory to An International Hospitality Business

Overview of the Hotel:

Holiday Innis one of the world's best-recognized hotel brands, with over 1,200 hotels worldwide. Holiday Inn was one of the first foreign hotel chains to open in China in 1984. The Holiday Inn brand caters to both business and leisure guests, offering amenities such as restaurants, room service, swimming pools, exercise centres, and comfy lounges. Its casual environment and services, such as meeting and conference amenities, Kids Eat and Stay Free programs, and KidSuites rooms, have helped establish the Holiday Inn brand’s accomplishment (Wang et al.., 2021). But lately, several complaints have come against this hotel as they could not keep pace with the changing world’s demands which affected the core of the business and hence the revenue. Holiday Inn is a member of the InterContinental Hotels Group PLC (IHG).

Figure: InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) global revenue 2010–2020, by brand

Source: (Lock, 2021)

The graph presented above vividly describes that the revenue of the owner company of IHG has significantly declined in 2020 with all its brands. The graph provided a bigger perspective to scrutinize Holiday Inn’s deterioration from its root.

Experiential marketing enables individuals to create unforgettable brand experiences for prospects and customers (Soliha et al.., 2021). As a result, customers become more attached to and invested in the offering as a result of these brand-related encounters and brands benefit from greater recognition and revenue. Social media, content marketing, and mobile technology are all growing and interacting, creating an ideal setting for experiential marketing.

Experiential Marketing Elements

There are the five key qualities of experiential marketing -

1. The use of experiential marketing improves the relatability of the brand-

Experiential marketing's objective is to provide consumers with lasting impressions that they want to communicate with others regarding their experiences with a company which would ultimately result in brand loyalty. This is not about advertising a product; rather, this allows consumers to envision and experience what their lives might be like if they use it.

1. The use of experiential marketing elevates the significance of the brand in the marketplace-

The potential customers can be benefitted using relevant sites. For this reason, it is critical to use social media and content marketing strategies that are relevant to the prospects' current location and activities (Urdea and Constantin, 2021). For marketers, this involves knowing their buyer persona in social media as well as the marketing persona.

• The use of experiential marketing increases the emotional resonance of the brand-

Potential customers form emotional bonds with the products and services as they interact with the brands. These companies, therefore, get supplementary purchase-related data that extends beyond a marketing-defined explanation of the advantages.

1. Using experiential marketing captures the attention of people-

Perhaps foremost a crucial marketing standpoint, prospects and customers enthusiastically share their experiences with the product or service, and they share the experiences both offline and online (Wiedmann et al., 2018). In a world where people trust advertising, the credibility will be boosted by the words of the consumers.

1. The use of experiential marketing raises awareness of the bran-

Consumers' ability to personalize and share their consumer experiences is growing as more people own and utilise mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets. While doing so, consumers can obtain more product information, take pictures and videos, interact with friends and family, and share their thoughts on social media with the rest of the world (Clark, 2020).

In light of this, it is hardly surprising that the ephemeral social media smartphone apps such as; Instagram has become so popular, allowing users to share photos and videos to their contacts instantly.

The Issues That Are Presented in The Holiday Inn

Recent guest feedback for Holiday Inn has been less than favourable. Numerous guests have evaluated the experience with the hotel as poor, ordinary, or horrible. Indeed, the majority of reviewers described their experience as negative. As a result, the hotel should work even harder to improve visitor satisfaction. Holiday Inn UK was hacked in April 2017, impacting 1,200 of its franchisees (Clark, 2020).

Figure2: Holiday Inn

Source: (Parker, 2016)

The hackers take the card number, expiration date, and verification code from guests' cards as soon as payment has been made at the front office desk. This reveals a significant flaw and Holiday Inn's vulnerability to information technology security threats (Barnes, 2021). Holiday Inns in northern England, specifically Birmingham, have been forced to close temporarily leading to a shortage of cleanliness requirements discovered by safety and health inspectors.

Recommendations of Experience That Holiday Inn Should Add to Their Service Portfolio to Improve the Overall Brand Experience

In this regard, applying the features of experiential marketing to Holiday Inn, it could be said that, Holiday inn has a lot to include and adapt for paving its path to reach success. It is evident that from the discussion regarding the incompetency of Holiday inn, it can be assessed that the hotel must-

• Use experiential marketing to enhance their relatability by effectively advertising their services and facilitating their prospective consumers to envision and experience what they are providing.
• As experiential marketing increases a brand's market value, Holiday inn must use the favourable application, social media and content marketing methods to present themselves attractive in Infront of the customers.
• As experiential marketing promotes brand emotional resonance, interacting with customers will foster an emotional relationship between Holiday Inn and its customers.
• Experiential marketing boosts brand awareness and draws people's attention, this is the reason for Holiday inn to implement experiential marketing to boost its revenue and consumers.

(Sources: Dettori, 2019; Shieh and Lai, 2017)

Section 2 – Communications plan

From the recommendation segment discussed in section two, several objects could be minutely assessed-

• To enhance their relatability by effectively advertising their services and facilitating their prospective consumers to envision and experience what they are providing.
• To increase the brand's market value
• To foster a strong relationship between Holiday Inn and its customers.
• To boost brand awareness and draw people's attention

To address these objectives, the company must fabricate a communication plan to achieve the desired success. In order to effectively plan marketing communications, it is necessary to construct plans in a methodical and step-by-step manner that incorporates components of all other types of plans. Marketing communication planning can be divided into two categories: strategic planning and business planning. In this regard, the RACE model will be the most helpful to derive the desired outcomes (Lüdeke?Freund, 2020).

In the forthcoming segment, the race model will be meticulously illustrated for comprehending the subject matter precisely.

2.1 Race Model:

Figure 3: RACE model

Source: (Chaffey, 2020)

The RACE MODEL could be used to aid in the development of strategic public relations that is an effective communication plan. RACE stands for Reach, Act, Convert and Engage, and it is an abbreviation that stands for these four components. REACH is a key element in the planning stages of any marketing strategy, especially in the early stages.

Intended audience, demography, what those audiences want, how they prefer to communicate, and where they go for information are all important factors to know when developing a public relations strategy in the early stages. This could include television, newspapers, periodicals, social media, and other forms of media. The subsequent phase is ACT. A comprehensive plan is established that defines what information should be communicated and the most effective methods of communicating that information to the intended audiences (Fedoryshyna et al., 2021).

When a company has a truly tactical strategy, communication is aligned not just with the aims of the public relations strategy, but also with the fundamental values of the company, mission, and vision. The CONVERT step is the third phase in the RACE concept. In this phase, one will be responsible for distributing the content and information generated in the action plan to the most appropriate and effective media venues. Media contacts and contact lists could be extremely helpful resources in this step, as they can assist in efficiently disseminating information.

ENGAGE is the final phase in the process (Aversa et al., 2021). It is critical to measure and assess the achievements of the public relations strategy to ensure that it is effective. Calculating the return on investment (ROI) is a useful approach to check the success of the strategy. In order to do so, the company must track all of the press coverage produced by the campaign, determine a monetary value for that coverage, and compare the financial impact of the PR (personal relationship) to the costs associated with obtaining that coverage.

Significance of using the RACE model:

When designing a strategic public relations plan and an effective communication plan, the RACE model might be a useful guide. It is vital to remember, however, that public relations are a dynamic system. It necessitates constant concentration and attention. It is essential that all four steps of the RACE model are carried out continuously and concurrently in order to achieve optimum results.

1. RACE is a hands-on approach that focuses on techniques that one can employ in “digital marketing communications”, as well as on the website and mobile applications.
2. RACE is “customer-centric” – it adheres to the established client lifecycle of developing relationships or marketing funnel, which includes raising knowledge and understanding; generating leads from great opportunities; converting prospects to sales online or offline; and inspiring trustworthiness, repeat sales, and encouragement through social sharing (Rautela, 2021).
3. RACE amalgamates all “contemporary marketing activity” - RACE encompasses the plethora of paid, owned, and acquired inbound marketing operations available in digital marketing. Additionally, it incorporates conventional offline marketing operations.
4. RACE is “multi-channel” — because many organisations still depend on offline touchpoints to attract and keep consumers, these are incorporated into RACE, most notably as part of 'Convert,' where offline engagement is frequently required to close a deal.
5. RACE is a “commercial model based on performance improvement” – it promotes a “data-driven marketing” strategy by defining key performance indicators (KPIs) that “digital marketers” must incorporate at each stage of target setting, performance review using data analysis and summary dashboards, and continuous optimization (Hawkins and Penner, 2021).

The Communication Plan using RACE:

The goals:

• Increase the relatability by efficiently presenting their services and helping potential customers visualise and experience what they offer.
• Boost the brand's market worth.
• Strengthen Holiday Inn's relationship with its consumers.
• To increase brand recognition and attention

The plan:

Conclusion

In a nutshell, it can be said that this report in its preceding sections vividly analysed the subject matter of experiential marketing theory that by using this theory marketing efforts can be more diverse. This allows brands and businesses to move beyond the standard paradigm of visual advertising. The ability to differentiate products, voices, and identities through customer-focused experiences provides brands with an opportunity to do so. In section one, the relevance of the theory, its purpose, advantages, disadvantages – every aspect was minutely analysed to comprehend the core matter vividly. A set of recommendations was also presented for achieving better results.

In section two of the report, the RACE model was chosen as the frame to weave the communication plan. A vivid description of the model and its significance was meticulously assessed for comprehending the in-depth understanding of the RACE to implement in the context of Holiday Inn to fabricate the appropriate communication plan. A set of goals were derived from the recommendation for Holiday inn to succeed, pull more customers and enhance its revenue. With the utilization of the RACE model a vivid discussion of the diverse aspects of reach, act, convert and engage was minutely assessed for achieving a proper understanding of the communication plan.

References

Introduction:

Edo Sudarsana, K., 2021. THE FRONT OFFICE JOB DESCRIPTION AND REQUIREMENTS STAY IN HOLIDAY INN RESORT BARUNA BALI DURING PANDEMIC (Doctoral dissertation, Universitas Pendidikan Ganesha).

Fernandes, F.S.M.S., 2021. Intercontinental hotels group-time to check-in? analysis of one of the biggest hotel players in times of a global pandemic (Doctoral dissertation).

Section 1:

Abadi, R.R., Nursyamsi, I. and Syamsuddin, A.R., 2020. Effect of Customer Value and Experiential Marketing to Customer Loyalty with Customer Satisfaction as Intervening Variable (Case Study on Gojek Makassar Consumers). The Asian Journal of Technology Management, 13(1), pp.82-97.

Barnes, A.W., 2021. Holiday Inn. In The Dark Eclipse (pp. 92-124). Bucknell University Press.

Clark, J., 2020. Holiday Inn.

Dettori, A., 2019. Sustainability as a matrix of experiential marketing. International Journal of Marketing Studies, 11(2), p.29.

Lock, S., 2021. IHG: gross revenue by brand 2019. [online] Statista. Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/298806/gross-revenue-of-intercontinental-hotels-group-by-brand/ [Accessed 2 Nov. 2021].

Parker, G., 2016.The Top 20 Holiday Inn Hotels in the World. [online] Money Inc. Available at: https://moneyinc.com/top-holiday-inn-hotels/ [Accessed 2 Nov. 2021].

Shieh, H.S. and Lai, W.H., 2017. The relationships among brand experience, brand resonance and brand loyalty in experiential marketing: Evidence from smartphone in Taiwan. Journal of Economics & Management, 28, pp.57-73.

Soliha, E., Aquinia, A., Hayuningtias, K.A. And Ramadhan, K.R., 2021. The Influence of Experiential Marketing and Location on Customer Loyalty. The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business, 8(3), pp.1327-1338.

Urdea, A.M. and Constantin, C.P., 2021. Experts’ Perspective on the Development of Experiential Marketing Strategy: Implementation Steps, Benefits, and Challenges. Journal of Risk and Financial Management, 14(10), p.502.

Wang, B., Close Scheinbaum, A., Li, S. and Krishen, A.S., 2021. How Affective Evaluation and Tourist Type Impact Event Marketing Outcomes: Field Studies in Experiential Marketing. Journal of Advertising, pp.1-16.

Wiedmann, K.P., Labenz, F., Haase, J. and Hennigs, N., 2018. The power of experiential marketing: exploring the causal relationships among multisensory marketing, brand experience, customer perceived value and brand strength. Journal of Brand Management, 25(2), pp.101-118.

Section 2:

Aversa, P., Haefliger, S., Hueller, F. and Reza, D.G., 2021. Customer complementarity in the digital space: Exploring Amazon’s business model diversification. Long Range Planning, 54(5), p.101985.

Chaffey, D., 2020. RACE marketing model definition - What is? | Digital marketing Glossary. [online] Dr Dave Chaffey : Digital Insights. Available at: https://www.davechaffey.com/digital-marketing-glossary/race-marketing-planning-model/ [Accessed 3 Nov. 2021].

DeBerry-Spence, B., Bennett, A.M., Cross, S.N., Ekpo, A. and Sobande, F., 2020. A Call for Further Research at the Intersection of Race, Marketing, and Public Policy. American Marketing Association (August 4), https://www. ama. org/2020/08/04/a-call-for-further-research-at-the-intersection-of-race-marketing-and-public-policy.

Dilami, Z., Hosseini, S. and Ahmadi, H., 2021. Evaluation of the digital marketing Strategy of the Bushehr Province Mining export Companies using RACE model. Journal of International Business Administration, 4(2), pp.21-41.

Fedoryshyna, L., Halachenko, O., Ohiienko, A., Blyznyuk, A., Znachek, R. and Tsurkan, N., 2021. Digital Marketing in Strategic Management in the Field of the Tourism. Journal of Information Technology Management, pp.22-41.

Hanafiah, H. and Prasetya, R., 2021. IMPLEMENTATION OF DIGITAL MARKETING OF OM BEWOK COFFEE SHOP IN BRANDING ROBUSTA LOCAL COFFEE NATIVE TO BANTEN: IMPLEMENTASI PEMASARAN DIGITAL KEDAI KOPI OM BEWOK DALAM MEM-BRANDING KOPI LOKAL ROBUSTA ASLI BANTEN. Indonesian Journal of Economy, Business, Entrepreneurship and Finance, 1(1), pp.11-19.

Hawkins, J. and Penner, T.C., 2021. Advertising Injustices: Marketing Race and Credit in America. Emory Law Journal, 70(7), p.1619.

Lüdeke?Freund, F., 2020. Sustainable entrepreneurship, innovation, and business models: Integrative framework and propositions for future research. Business Strategy and the Environment, 29(2), pp.665-681.

Rautela, S., 2021. Social Media for New Product Launch: A Study of Social Media Platforms Across the RACE Planning Framework. International Journal of Interactive Mobile Technologies, 15(5).

Rekola, J., 2021. Social Media Marketing For Logistic Service Provider Operating In The B-To-B Segment: Which Social Media Channels Should Be Used To Reach Decision-Makers Of Custom-ers And Partners.