Hilton Marketing Strategy (Essay Sample)

MARKETING STRATEGIES: A CASE OF HILTON HOTEL IN UK By Course Instructor Institution Date of Submission Executive Summary The growing competition in the global hotel industry has resulted to players developing marketing strategies that not only ensure they are competitive, but also sustainable. Hilton Hotel is a global leader in the industry with a global presence and unique products and services that are of high quality targeting the high upscale market segment. This paper will analyse the current marketing strategies of Hilton from an international perspective and its specific operations in the UK market. The data used was gathered from secondary sources ranging from company publications, books, journal articles and other online reports that focus on the hotel. It is evident that the current marketing strategy adopted by Hilton Hotel is effective in guaranteeing its sustained competitiveness in the upscale market. It was also evident that the middle class segment of the market has increased globally accounting for most tourists. The current marketing strategies are ineffective in ensuring the hotel taps into this segment of the market. The paper went further and suggested various measures that will ensure the hotel taps into the growing potential of the middle class market segment such as service diversification and introduction of services that target the middle class income earner. The hotel can expand its profits if it implements the measures that will make it a significant player in the middle class segment of the market.  Contents  TOC \o "1-3" \h \z \u  HYPERLINK \l "_Toc379548927"
Executive Summary  PAGEREF _Toc379548927 \h
2  HYPERLINK \l "_Toc379548928"
Part A  PAGEREF _Toc379548928 \h
5  HYPERLINK \l "_Toc379548929"
Introduction  PAGEREF _Toc379548929 \h
5  HYPERLINK \l "_Toc379548930"
Company Background  PAGEREF _Toc379548930 \h
6  HYPERLINK \l "_Toc379548931"
Methodology  PAGEREF _Toc379548931 \h
7  HYPERLINK \l "_Toc379548932"
Situational Analysis  PAGEREF _Toc379548932 \h
8  HYPERLINK \l "_Toc379548933"
Product  PAGEREF _Toc379548933 \h
8  HYPERLINK \l "_Toc379548934"
Brand name  PAGEREF _Toc379548934 \h
9  HYPERLINK \l "_Toc379548935"
Functionality  PAGEREF _Toc379548935 \h
9  HYPERLINK \l "_Toc379548936"
Price  PAGEREF _Toc379548936 \h
9  HYPERLINK \l "_Toc379548937"
Price strategies  PAGEREF _Toc379548937 \h
10  HYPERLINK \l "_Toc379548938"
Place  PAGEREF _Toc379548938 \h
10  HYPERLINK \l "_Toc379548939"
Promotion  PAGEREF _Toc379548939 \h
11  HYPERLINK \l "_Toc379548940"
Promotional strategies  PAGEREF _Toc379548940 \h
11  HYPERLINK \l "_Toc379548941"
Market segmentation  PAGEREF _Toc379548941 \h
12  HYPERLINK \l "_Toc379548942"
Part B  PAGEREF _Toc379548942 \h
13  HYPERLINK \l "_Toc379548943"
Michael Porter Competitive Forces Model Analysis  PAGEREF _Toc379548943 \h
13  HYPERLINK \l "_Toc379548944"
Threat of entry of new competitors  PAGEREF _Toc379548944 \h
13  HYPERLINK \l "_Toc379548945"
Competitive rivalry intensity  PAGEREF _Toc379548945 \h
14  HYPERLINK \l "_Toc379548946"
Threat of substitute products  PAGEREF _Toc379548946 \h
14  HYPERLINK \l "_Toc379548947"
Bargaining power of buyers  PAGEREF _Toc379548947 \h
14  HYPERLINK \l "_Toc379548948"
The bargaining powers of the suppliers  PAGEREF _Toc379548948 \h
15  HYPERLINK \l "_Toc379548949"
PEST Analysis  PAGEREF _Toc379548949 \h
15  HYPERLINK \l "_Toc379548950"
Political factors  PAGEREF _Toc379548950 \h
15  HYPERLINK \l "_Toc379548951"
Economic factors  PAGEREF _Toc379548951 \h
15  HYPERLINK \l "_Toc379548952"
Social-cultural  PAGEREF _Toc379548952 \h
16  HYPERLINK \l "_Toc379548953"
Technology  PAGEREF _Toc379548953 \h
16  HYPERLINK \l "_Toc379548954"
SWOT analysis of Hilton Hotel Operations in UK  PAGEREF _Toc379548954 \h
17  HYPERLINK \l "_Toc379548955"
Recommended objectives and market strategies  PAGEREF _Toc379548955 \h
19  HYPERLINK \l "_Toc379548956"
1. Introduce middle class services in the hotel  PAGEREF _Toc379548956 \h
19  HYPERLINK \l "_Toc379548957"
2. Embrace innovation in the approach to dynamism  PAGEREF _Toc379548957 \h
20  HYPERLINK \l "_Toc379548958"
3. Diversification  PAGEREF _Toc379548958 \h
21  HYPERLINK \l "_Toc379548959"
Conclusion  PAGEREF _Toc379548959 \h
23  HYPERLINK \l "_Toc379548960"
References  PAGEREF _Toc379548960 \h
24   Part A Introduction It is challenging as well as fascinating to market in the service sector of the economy. The approach of marketing a product and a service in a way that it makes customers be interested in the product and select it over the other in the global marketing is very complex and challenging. Thus, global companies develop comprehensive and yet dynamic marketing strategies that ensure their products and services are highly regarded by customers resulting to their competitiveness (Enz, 2009). Therefore, marketing goes beyond the normal processes, such as advertising and other promotional packages. The America Marketing Association (2008) defines marketing as functions and processes within an organisation for generating, communicating, and conveying value to customers. It also involves managing the relationship between the organisation and customers in such a way that it benefits the organisation (Tan et al., 2009). Thus, marketing is a customer oriented approach to doing business. In consequence, the main objective of marketing is to generate and retain customers through satisfying their needs. This paper intends to analyse this concept in relation to Hilton Hotels and Resorts, a global market leader in luxury hotels. Company Background Hilton Hotel was founded in 1919 by Conrad Hilton (Hilton Worldwide, 2014). According to the historical information as stated by Hilton Worldwide (2014), the company has remained a market leader since its inception in terms of innovativeness in its services, products and amenities. In 1927, Hilton opened its first hotel that had air-conditioning and cold running water in public rooms. In the year 1947, the Roosevelt Hilton in New York City installed TVs in guest rooms, becoming the first hotel with such a feature. In 1948, Hilton founded the basis of modern day hotel reservation system by developing a multi-hotel reservation system. In the year 1950, Hilton advanced its services with specific reference to female customers by introducing a booklet that had telephone numbers and important names and a sewing kit (Applegate et al., 2008). The hotel went further and introduced a brand-wide direct call telephone services. The innovativeness of the company expanded further by introducing the concept of airport hotels through establishing San Francisco Airport Hilton in 1963 (Hilton Worldwide, 2014). The company enhanced its services to its customers through computerising its reservation services as early as 1973. This was further boosted by the introduction of customer loyalty program in 1987 (Atkinson & Brown, 2001). In terms of environmental sensitivity, the hotel is globally known for its leadership in promoting environmental sustainability through advocating the use of green products and energy in most of its subsidiaries (Enz, 2009). Currently, Hilton is a global leader in the hotel industry dominating markets such as India, Japan, France, China, United States, United Kingdom, Russia, Italy, Germany, and Brazil (Hilton Worldwide, 2014). In terms of cities, Hilton is a leader and the most preferred luxury hotel in London, New York, Chicago, Hawaii, and Las Vegas. Hilton Hotel has over 3,000 hotels distributed all over the world with over 100,000 employees (Hilton Worldwide, 2014). Methodology The analysis of the marketing of the hotel, as well as recommendations, will be developed based on a secondary data. This will culminate to the use of literature review as the main methodology in this investigation. The information sourced from these sources will not only be used in analysing the marketing strategy of the company, but also the development of recommendations of areas that require improvement to enhance the competitiveness of the hotel (Bryman & Bell, 2007). As much as secondary data has some limitations, this study attempted to minimise the limitations of a literature review as a methodology through using secondary data sourced from academic journals, databases, scholarly articles, reference books, official statistics agencies and government publications as an approach of ensuring the level of authenticity and accuracy is the highest (Bryman & Bell, 2007). Factors, such as the purpose of the data collection, credentials of the authors, the quality of the source, the intended audience, and the coverage of the source, were used in ensuring the quality of the sources used in this paper is acceptable. In addition, most of the literature used in this paper was sourced from the investigation that applied quantitative, qualitative, and systematic review as the method of addressing the research issue the studies investigated (Bryman & Bell, 2007). Situational Analysis This analysis was developed based on information sourced from internet sources and company reports. The major part of the analysis was based on the company’s current strategies as approached by Marketing mix concept. The four P’s of the marketing mix (Kotler & Armstrong, 2004)  Product Hilton Hotel sells services to individuals as well as corporations. Most of their services are offered based on availability and thus are offered prior to booking. The competitiveness of the hotel is boosted by its ability to provide services beyond the customer expectations (Enz, 2009). Brand name Hilton is a five star hotel with a global presence. In UK, it is ranked the best in terms o...