Environmental Factors of Marketing
This paper will discuss the five environmental factors that influence global and domestic marketing decisions that organizations must make. These five environmental factors are technology, demographics, government, culture and economics. Companies are affected differently by these factors depending on the industry they are in and the size of the organization. I will be using the Washington Plaza Hotel to illustrate how these environmental factors affect the hotel industry's marketing decisions. The Washington Plaza Hotel is a hospitality business located in Washington, DC. They offer services such as lodging, restaurant, bar, catering and meeting space rental. The Washington Plaza Hotel's major customer base is government, tourist, non-profit organizations, local businesses and some corporate clientele. Let's now take a look at how these environmental factors affect the marketing of the hotel.
Environmental Factors that Affect Marketing
Technology
Technology has created a major impact on the way in which all organizations market their products and services. With the development of the internet, companies are now able to economically market themselves on a global level. Even smaller companies that were once not able to capture international business due to the cost factor can now do just that. The Washington Plaza Hotel is no exception. The hotel industry in DC relies heavily on tourism as a major part of its client base. Many of these tourists who visit the city are of foreign nationality. It is important that the Washington Plaza Hotel targets these people when marketing the company. Not only do they target the tourist but they also target the international business travelers that come to the city on business related trips. The hotel's website, which gives detailed information about the hotel's accommodations and services, can be accessed by potential customers all over the world. In addition, the Washington Plaza Hotel has teamed up with such web-based travel services like Orbitz, Expedia, Travelocity, Etc. in order to capture more of the global market. Before the existence of the internet, the global market was not easily reachable. Technology has the greatest affect on marketing for many organizations and certainly for the Washington Plaza Hotel as well as the hospitality industry itself.
Demographics
Demographics are another environmental factor that plays a big part in the marketing of the Washington Plaza Hotel. This company is service-based and the customers must come to the hotel in order to receive those services.
Innovation division builds up an official site which empowers clients to book a room from anyplace on the planet. Also, for extra administration, its site empowers to make a demand for the airplane terminal get and more by chance to visit with one of the administrator on the site. In the globally focused environment of today, InterContinental meeting has turned out to be one of the world's driving lodging networks. One of the key achievement variables was the expansion in the use of innovation. These days, innovation adopts an imperative part in picking up consumer loyalty and tends to the requirements of the majority of their customers (King,
Because, internet today is enabling web-based suppliers an opportunity to meet a choice of different types of customers (Schoenbachler&Gordon, 2002) and has evolved as a feasible distribution channel for the firms that wish to expand their market penetration (Frazier, 1999; Frazier & Antia, 1995), reduce costs (Payne & Frow, 2004), increase revenues ( Kotler, 2000), spread risks, and strengthen customer loyalty (Kelly, 2002) through its use (Hobmeier, 2001).now most of the hotels are using the multiple channel strategy where they are in partnership more than one sales and distribution channel to serve the same target market and this has grown in the recent years. This is creating higher complexity for the hotel management as the data are coming from different partners. As customers, today are using multiple channels, it is almost certain that the future will remain to contain a mixture of even more complex channels (Balasubramanian , Raghunathan, & Mahajan, 2005). Since now, it is obvious that why hoteliers employing multiple channels including electronic ones, is no different; to maximise customer awareness and market share and reduce costs, this increasingly widespread trend to cooperate with new channels rather than stick to
Hilton Worldwide carries out business through three segments: (1) management and franchise; (2) ownership; and (3) time-share. These business segments enable management to capitalize on strengths like brand recognition and economies of scale. The company focuses primarily on the management and franchise segment which consist of 3,918 hotels with 610,413 rooms. Managing the properties, rather than owning them, allows the company t...
Internet Marketing News and Know-How. Hotel Marketing. 18 Feb. 2011. Web. 19 Apr. 2011. .
The hotel industry performs within a saturated market, driven by customer loyalty and competitive pricing to stand-out. This competitive nature makes it extremely important to capitalise on strengths while improving on
There is no universal standard for green hotels, neither is an offical definition of a green hotel. The Green Hotel Association defines green hotels as environmentally-friendly properties whose managers are eager to institute programs that save water, save energy and reduce solid waste while saving money—to help protect our one and only Earth (Green Hotel Association, 1995). It is indeed true that energy, water and waste are the top three issues when it comes to the environmental sustainability of hotels. Almost all green features and practices relate to energy efficiency, water saving and waste
Who is the hotel’s target market and what services do they use to attract and satisfy this market?
The external environment of the hotel industry in is very competitive and already well established. Trends in the market include promotional campaigns to customers using the "more bang for your buck," method. There are several different segments of the hotel industry including: luxury, upscale, mid-market with food and beverage, mid-market without food and beverage, economy, and budget. Each different segment offers certain amenities to appeal to consumers depending on what they are looking for in an over night stay away from home. As McDonald's looks at entering the hotel industry they have looked at several important issues dealing with an entry into this market. McDonald's would like to enter the market in the state of Illinois where the company's headquarters is. Illinois leads all other states in money spent on tourism totaling $61.1 million in the year 2000. Illinois also ranked fourth in the nation for leisure person trips in 2000. Hotel industry has several important barriers to entry including cost of entry, ability to differentiate from other hotels, and competition in every hotel segment.
Thanks to these factors, pricing becomes one of the primary uses with which hotels attract customers. However, due to customers’ independent nature, there influence over industry players is limited. In the high-end segment of hotels, price influence becomes even less as hotels find it easier to differentiate themselves from the competition and customers become less price sensitive coming to expect higher prices as a symbolism of superior quality and services. Lastly, corporate business and tour operators can exert more influence due to their large purchases but this affect is of a limited nature and does not extend across the whole
Part 1: Introduction The purpose of this assignment is to explain how environmental factors influence the marketing decisions of Amazon.com Inc. We will examine the SWOT and PESTLE analysis, segmentation, targeting, cost and benefits, and positioning strategies implemented by the company. Amazon is the world's largest online retailer, founded in 1994 as an online bookstore. It quickly expanded its catalog to include software, video games, electronics, furniture, food, toys, and more. 2.1 Macro and Micro Environmental Factors There are two types of environmental factors that can influence a business's marketing decisions: macro and micro.
In recent years, business tourism has become increasingly prevalent and prevailing in the tourism industry. There are large quantities of significant changes which have far-reaching implications for all consumers and suppliers of business travel such as consumption patterns, great developments in transport and communications technology, and the world´s political and economic changes related to tourism industry. All these developments have brought large effects on business travel as well as the main challenges to this sector for the coming years. Every day, tens of thousands of people are beginning or ending their business trips all around the world, while numerous conferences or exhibitions are being held globally, so business tourism is a
*Problems: How far can management push this branding strategy without undercutting the distinctiveness of each individually branded hotel?
...d to local communities. These advantages of the industry have inspired major international hotel chains, tour operators and other parts of the tourism industry to adopt environmentally responsible practices, such as recycling, using renewably resources and water-conservations schemes.
Moreover, the InterContinental Hotels & Resorts is considered the first international hotel brand in the world, as it began operations in the year 1946 (About InterContinental Hotels Group Brands, 2015). Over time the hotel group has evolved to encompass quality hotel rooms not only in North America, but in Central and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Australia, and Asia-Pacific (IHG – InterContinental Hotels Group, 2015). In addition, they have acquired extended stay facilities and the Hualuxe Hotels & Resorts, which specifically “celebrates the essence of Chinese hospitality” (About InterContinental Hotels Group Brands, 2015). In my opinion, this shows that their target market has changed by expanding their scope of travel, which means they are traveling to farther and farther locations and require the familiar surroundings with equivalent product quality at the final destination. The InterContinental Hotels Group is in the fourth and final stage of the product life cycle, which is the decline stage (Editorial Board, 2014, p. 212). Indeed, the brands lengthy history indicates it has loyal customers, but its addition of innovations indicates the targeting of new customers for the organization, which are clear signs of a business in the decline stage of the product life cycle (Editorial Board, 2014, p.
Hotelmule.com, 2013. Social and cultural influences on hospitality consumer behaviour - Hotelmule - Hospitality and Tourism Industry Portal. [online] Available at: http://www.hotelmule.com/html/15/n-615-2.html [Accessed: 4 Nov 2013]