Marketing in Hospitality Industry (Essay Sample)

TOURISM: RESTAURANT MARKETING
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RESTAURANT MARKETING
Marketing is key to any business. Through marketing, the business communicates with its potential customers. Consumers get the benefit of knowing the different products and services it provides. Marketing has a direct bearing on other aspects of a business like productivity and sales. It thus promotes product awareness and helps to distinguish a business and its products with those of its competitors. The marketing process employed by a restaurant involves tools, models, and processes.
Tools
The tools involve direct means by which a restaurant may reach out to potential or existing clients. An example of such tool is the internet marketing. Internet marketing gives a restaurant an online presence, and increases its customer base. Internet marketing include:
* Web marketing- when guests are making plans to travel or eat out, they visit and check what is on offer on the web. They conduct searches to get information, which may not be forthcoming from other people and travel agents. They seek to know about promotions, deals and amenities of the places they are going. Thus, a restaurant (hotel restaurant) should not only rely on third party sources for its customers but also have an online web presence. Their website should be modern and designed such that it attracts more guests through controlled marketing. The restaurant’s website should have photos of it, its surroundings, some food and share more information on the menu. (Andresen 2001 14-15)
* Mobile marketing- it is closely related to the web marketing. However, it provides the customer easy access for the customer to the restaurant's website. The restaurant should ensure that their websites fully optimized for mobile devices. To achieve this, they ensure the mobile hotel marketing product is built to work dynamically with the different operating systems and screen resolutions of the mobiles.
* Social hotel marketing- social media sites like Facebook and Twitter are powerful tools that are used in marketing a restaurant. It is a norm for consumers to log into social media sites looking for information. Restaurant and dining services are part of the information that customers look for, particularly those in their locality. The restaurants can thus exploit the huge number of people using social media, post their menu and sponsor a review group where past customers get to share their experience. The social media is a good marketing tool because it has a huge number of people who are constantly in use (Bloom 2001, 42-44).
Models
Marketing models provide restaurants with the ability to communicate their purpose and reasons behind their strategies. It provides a framework for a restaurant to assess its operations compared to those of its competitors and plan for the future. Some of the models employed are:
* Marketing Mix-, it is made up with the physical elements and the service elements. The physical elements characterize the tangible aspects of a restaurant. They involve the product (food) which should be exceptional. Place (restaurant) is defined by the location where the restaurant is located. The space should be enough to accommodate clients during peak hours. Prices (cost) are the average prices a restaurant is offering compared to its competitors offering the same meal. It also includes the promotions (incentives) that are at the restaurant disposal to use to lure new customers and reward the loyalty of their existing customers (Shaw 2012, 30-45).
Service elements on the other hand, represent an intangible position of the restaurant as a business. The service element involves the people (wait staff, chefs) who is involved with the serving and cooking of the meals. A restaurant can conduct training of the key staff, especially the front of the house staff. They must have proper customer handling and service skills, which enable them to handle complaints and any needs of the customers. They should also be able to function as part of the larger restaurant team. The kitchen staff of the restaurant should also be well conversant with the restaurant’s menu (Baker 2008, 27).
Process (methods employed in providing service) involves the management of the restaurant, which directly affects the provision of services. Physical evidence (ambience) - the environment of the restaurant provides a good experience for the customers. The restaurant may choose to invest in the uniform for its staff, decoration of the table linen, use specific types of cutlery like silver spoons and knives. It can also paint and have an interesting decorati...