SG7001: Managing Strategy, Operations and Partnerships Case Study

Vision

Providing a luxury tour on a luxury canal boat at British historical places provided by “Narrowboat Holidays”

Nature of operation (4Vs and SQFD&C)

Black Prince Holiday organization is a parent organization and there are many sisters organization is under the Black Prince Holidays. Black Prince provides hospitality and hotels in the tourism industry (Diprose et al. 2018). During the Covid situation and after the Covid situation the tourism industry falls apart. After planning a few strategies to overcome the situation Black Prince Hotels launch a new part of the hotel which provides a different type of tour. For this reason, Black Prince Hotel started a new segment called “Narrowboats”. This Canal Narrowboat provides the tourist with a luxurious tour. After arriving at the tourist spot the tourist checks in to hotels but in this part, a tourist can also rent a boat to roam around the canals and explore new holiday locations.

Quality

Evaluation

Description and Justification

Implication

Volume

Moderate

The canal narrowboats are launched after the covid situation, in this situation the organization thought about taking the tourist at that point when no one explores the spots before. After that, they made canal boats. It is very thin and long in shape. This shape will help to go in any canals (Knab, 2018). When people got attracted to this boat the organization made many of them. So that the tourist cannot be hampered by the organization.

After increasing the value of the canal's luxury narrow boats the company made it very clear to their head that they have to make the boats more so that the public is getting attracted to them.

Variety

Moderate

Variety means when an organization provides different types of service. For example, Black Prince provides narrow boats, not for 4-5 days they also provide a one-day trip also. On the other side organization also provide a different range to rent a boat.

An organization only became popular when they have productivity and quality service. In this case, the organization provides a variety of products and variety of services. After seeing the attraction of the people towards the boat the organization planned for also the 4 to 5-day trips (black-prince.com, 2022). This will help to give a variety of services to tourists.

Variation

High

In the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries narrowboats are used for importing and exporting products. To avoid problems, they communicate with others through these canals and the big boards are not able to go there which is why they use narrow boats. Collecting these ideas and applying them in the tourism industry is a very unique step to take. From that kind of narrow boat to now the luxury canal boat, the organization creates a lot of variations with this boat.

From the bathroom to the bedroom there is also a study room and a dining space in the narrow boat. The changes are called the variation they made in the boat.

Visibility

High

The customer is highly attracted to this invention (black-prince.com, 2022). It is also clear tourists are enjoying the travel also.

The organization has made different types of boats for different quantities of people.

SQFD&C

High

desirable performance attributes

The performance of the organization give a very powerful impact on the tourists. After the Covid situation, the organization overcome all its risks and give launched the best strategy to attract people.

Industry identification

Travel Agencies, Services, and Hospitality

Megatrends

Major issues affecting industry

Implications and impact

Shifts in global economic power

? Data security challenges are high for the industry

? Shifts in marketing strategies

The largest travel industry is based on the UK. The industry is strongly dependent on travel suppliers that are global and many intermediaries. The shifts in global economic powerhighly impact tourism through enhancement in tax revenue, and the personal income of all staff of the travel industry. Economic effects on travel agencies also include enhancement in living standards and provide all staff with higher job opportunities in international markets.

The industry also has threats of “confidential data leaks” and theft of digital data (Nurmala et al. 2018). The industry can protect its big data by eliminating the use of registers and excel sheets and incorporating PCI-DSS compliant and HTTPS secure. These are the “secure hotel technology” that will lead to better “data encryption”.

Sustainability and global warming

? Change in environmental sustainability and factors affecting the business performance

Global warming and other environmental sustainabilitycan destabilize the ecosystems and reduce the patronage of the travel-tourism industry (Keers et al. 2018). This also causes shifts in the tourist destination, migration and death of wildlife species, and flooding of “eco destinations”.

The digital wave

? Hotels and resorts are not data-driven

? Losing loyal customers

The industry highly relies on surefire data in order to take appropriate business decisions (Kaur et al. 2019). The digital wave increased the insecurity regarding the cybercrime and data of the consumers in the travel and tourism industry of the UK.

Urbanization

? The hospitality, travel and tourism industry are highly affected by the use of plastics

The industry is highly affected by the higher use of plastics which raised environmental pollution (Nurmala et al. 2018). The plastics that are used in tourism are thrown into the sea, rivers, and sides of roads. The revenue growth, as well as the development of the travel-tourism industry, are highly dependent on globalization and urbanization. This also led to greater changes in the decisions of clients and improvements in business structure and changing the pattern of promotion in tourism industry.

Demographic and social change

? Change in customers’ behavior and purchasing choice and travel destination selection

Social and demographic factorshighly affect the business performance and growth of the travel and tourism industry in recent years. The social and demographics that generally affect the choice of travel destinations include “age, income, household size, nationality and gender”.

External Environmental Factors

Issues the industry is facing

Implications for industry

Political factor

? Globalization

? Retaining and hiring of efficient staffs

Globalization is the leading factor that helps in the creation of uniform protocols and standards of the travel, tourism and hospitality industry. Hiring efficient staff has always been a challenging task for this industry (Nurmala et al. 2018). Black Prince Holidays. Ltd in this industry generally expects efficient staffs for all fronts such as “administration, housekeeping, kitchen and front desk”.

Economical factor

? Irregular flow of cash

The major challenge that the travel and tourism industry face is irregular “cash flow”. The companies deal with the parties who make payments after 30 days or 90 days and even later. This makes Black Prince Holidays. Ltd suffer from bad debts and delays in payments.

The solution to this issue can be that the companies can go for “instalment payments strategies” to prevent delays in payments.

Social factor

? Conducts of visitors or travelers

? Illegal activities during tourism and travel

Sometimes the companies like Black Prince Holidays. Ltd face challenges in dealing with rude customers (Kim et al. 2019). Conflicts arise due to this. Some visitors also conduct illegal activities like teasing and harassing others and excessive consumption of alcohol and drugs. This destroys the positive vibes and environment of tours and the organization's inner culture.

Technological factor

? Operational issues

? Rising cost of daily consumables

Several operational issues are there in the travel and tourism industry. Black Prince Holidays. Ltd also suffers from some major business operational issues including attending to and handling all expectations of clients and maintaining cleanliness of hotels’ rooms, and reservation management (Bao et al. 2018).

Legal factor

? High competition in the market

? Issues in “marketing dynamics and trends”

Due to the high rate of market competition in tourism, and hospitality industry Black Prince Holidays. Ltd facing issues to expand its business in new international target market segments (Bao et al. 2018).

Porter’s Force

Strength

Justification

Threats from new companies entering the market

? Meeting guest expectations

? Business operation in cross-culture or diverse culture

Threats in new business penetration in a new market is reduced as the company’s marketers and business professional successfully operating its business in cross-culture or diverse culture (Nyangaet al. 2019).

Power of bargaining with suppliers

Bargaining effectively with all suppliers to provide its clients with quality products at a reasonable price (Liu et al.2018).

This is not that substantial threat in the context of this industry in the UK. The company meet all demand of all its stakeholders including suppliers so that it can get sufficient products and services from them whenever it needs them.

Rivalry with present competitors in the market

Successfully operating its business over years and holding a leading position in the competitive market.

The advancement of technology and several communication systems reduce the conflicts of the consumers about the information about a particular company from the travel industry. The customers have all accesses to learn about the companies andcan assess the benefits. The business practices of Black Prince Holidays. Ltd is achieving success as it mounting a good relationship with all its rival companies in the market so that it does not receive any major threats from them (Liu et al. 2018).

Power of bargaining with clients or buyers

Bargain effectively with all customers to maintain the economic growth

Black Prince Holidays. Ltd maintains the economic growth and development of the industry as well as in its internal business environment by providing all its clients with the best quality services at an affordable price than its other competitors in the market (Liu et al. 2018).

Threats from substitute services

Provide its clients with substitute services that meet their level of expectations.

Successfully handling all challenging situations during providing the client with substitute services that meet their expectations This reduces the higher customer attrition rate and also strengthens Black Prince Holidays. Ltd customer base.

Stage in the industry life-cycle

Shakeout stage

Recommendations

• Application of thetheory of change model ponders on the aspect of the usage of essential policies to meet the upcoming changes required in the travel-tourism industry.
• In reference to the aforementioned model it is recommended to use modern technologies like AI, robotics and hologram would be engaging and would be helpful to cater to the needs of people effectively.
• Application of modern marketing strategies regarding the usage of social media platforms across different devices to connect to people of different demographic strata would enhance the business necessary to be taken into consideration for the benefit of business in this industry.

Issue

Survival factor

Success factor

Business revenue loss

The loss of business revenue dealt a serious blow to the travel-tourism industryand the associated organisations. The business of the company faced a sudden shock after the United Kingdom issued policies of Brexit. Therefore, the factor that helped to survive this company was to engage with the customers on social media. The next method was to promote attract customer through social media platforms while engaging with other external stakeholders.

The factor of success was simple. Inclusion of modern technologies enhanced overall business growth and ensured sustenance for the travel-tourism industryin UK.

Market saturation

Market saturation impacted the overall course of the business process due to the traditional approaches being still in practice in the travel-tourism industry. These aspects were further improvised by the inclusion of modern approaches that catered to customer engagement in adherence to recent trends.

The aforementioned aspect of market saturation was dissolved by including global measures in renovation of aspects associated with business. The associated market competition enhanced the business of the organisations involved in this industry which included the key success factors involving attractions, amnesties and accessibility (Ntounis et al. 2022). Proper targeting of the right demographic strata and further enhancement in the business policies.