Sun Fun

SunFun plc is a company that sells holidays in the UK and abroad. Most of its holidays are sold for the summer period. This autumn, the company carried out market research into its existing customers, to discover their views on its holidays. The Sales Manager wants to use the research results to create a suitable marketing strategy for next summer's holidays. Here is a summary of the results of the market research.

Table A

Table B Age of holidaymaker %

Favourite special offer % 24 and younger 3

Wine/flowers in hotel room 5 25-34 7

Commission-free currency 15 35-44 15

Free transport from airport 10

45-54 35

Free day trip on holiday 45 55-64 25

Free travel insurance 25 65 and over 15

Table C

Table D Favourite destination %

Booking date for summer holiday taken this year % France 3

Last winter 30 Greece 31

January-February this year 35 Italy 2

March-April this year 15 Mediterranean islands 8

May-June this year 10 Spain 27

'Last-minute' booking 10 Turkey 29

Summarise briefly what each table tells the Sales Manager.

Table A: This table shows the Sales Manager that their majority of holidaymakers are between 45-54 years of age, as it is 35% of holidaymakers overall. Therefore the Sales Manager should focus their advertising or marketing schemes for this age, making it their target market. Furthermore in the table it is also shown that the majority of holidaymakers are over 45, and there are 75% of holidaymakers in this age boundary. So SunFun should base their marketing strategy on the basis of pleasing this market, the older generation.

Table B: The information in this table shows that the majority of holidaymakers like the special offer of a free day trip on holiday, as it has 45% of the holidaymakers vote. Following this is another offer of free travel insurance with a percentage of 25% of holidaymakers favouring this special offer. This tells the Sales Manager that they should continue using these two special offers as they are the most popular with the holidaymakers. The company wants to gain the most customers and in order to do so they need to gain customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. This information helps the company decide what offers to carry on, on the basis of the majority of holidaymakers enjoying it.

Table C: From this table the majority of holidaymakers prefer to spend their holidays in Turkey, Greece or Spain, with 77% of holidaymakers favouring these destinations. This is possibly due to the majority of holidaymakers being older than 45, therefore they would much prefer to relax and sit by the beach, as you could in these destinations, and they appeal more to the older generation because of the beautiful scenery, relaxing atmosphere and sightseeings. Therefore this tells the Sales Manager that they need to advertise more relaxing destinations than more lively ones like, the Mediterranean islands.

Table D: Most of the people have booked their holidays last winter and January and February this year, with 65% of the holidaymakers choosing this time to choose a holiday destination for their summer. Since this is a UK based company, it is known to get very cold in the winter and January and February. Therefore most of the people would decide to book a holiday at these specific times

as they are stuck in this weather and they want to get away from it. This tells the Sales Manager that they could possibly increase the price of holidays at these times as most of the holidaymakers prefer to go at these times and could be more willing to pay the price.

 Devise and explain a suitable marketing strategy for SunFun plcs summer holidays, taking into consideration the research results and any other information you consider appropriate. You must consider all elements of the Marketing Mix- Product, Price, Place and Promotion!

The marketing strategy is a process that can allow an organisation to concentrate its limited resources on the greatest opportunities to increase sales and achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. It is made up of the price, the product, the place and promotion. The main goal of the marketing strategy is obtaining customer satisfaction and ultimately customer loyalty. For example, if a company was in an inconvenient location and because of it, it didnt gain as much customers it could move its company to a much more suitable location in regards to their target market. The company needs to focus on pleasing the customers.

SunFun has used market research in order to discover their customers views on their holidays, this helps the company see new market opportunities, the market growth and basically learning more about customer needs. The entrepreneur can figure out how to promote their company further in regards to their target market and how to sell their product. Marker research is the process of gathering, analysing and processing data relevant to marketing decisions. SunFun has used primary research, which uses data gathered for the first time. There are many ways of carrying out primary research, telephone survey, door-to-door survey, focus groups questionnaires and internet research. The advantage of telephone surveys are you can call when it is convenient for you, which will allow the business to gain information at specific times needed. However you cant see peoples responses face to face, therefore you arent entirely sure if they are telling the absolute truth and this could be a major problem for a business as they might change their marketing strategies according to these answers. The advantage of door-to-door surveys is that you can see how people react and therefore they may be more likely to tell the truth, so the business will have sufficient and truthful information about their company. However it can be very time-consuming and this can be a problem for a business as they need to spend as much of their time trying to gain more customers rather than asking them questions. Internet research can be quick and cheap which is a huge benefit for a business, however you may not find the views of your target customers. In regards to SunFun it is very important that they obtain information from their target market in particular, in order to change their marketing strategy from the answers they get. SunFun has used customer/ supplier feedback, which only relies on existing customers, rather than potential customers. This is a problem for SunFun as they carried out this market research to find out what schemes they should do in order to gain the largest customer base; however, if they are only asking existing customers questions, they are unaware of what future customers would prefer. Therefore they could go further with more primary research asking people on the streets what they would prefer on holiday, and where they would prefer to go. This way they can obtain enough information to make a change in the marketing strategy. Using questionnaires could be a way of doing this, as they can go to a large customer base and because the existing holidaymakers using this company vary from age 24 and under and 65 and older, they could get information from everyone. However from the data gotten already about the ages of holidaymakers using this company, the majority of holidaymakers are aged 45-54, therefore they need to make this their target market. So they need to advertise their company to this specific target market. They could

advertise their company in local newspapers in areas that have a majority of elderly people, this way their company will get to this target market in order to raise brand awareness and so their business could become more well known and gain a larger customer base, therefore getting more profit that can be used to invest into the company to allow the customer to go to more destinations, possibly further away from the UK?

The places that the company chooses are very important, because from the information they have obtained, the holidaymakers choose to book a holiday in the time of winter and January and February and these are the times when it is very cold in the UK, therefore these customers are thinking more about the hotter locations and therefore choose to book at these times as they have something to look forward to. SunFun needs to in particular look into the channel of distribution, and whether they are going to be a mail-order business, telesales or online selling business. The distribution channel describes how the ownership of a product passes from the producer to the final customer. Mail-order businesses produce catalogues and customers order from these. The businesses do not have physical retail outlets. Telesales is where businesses sell their products over the phone. They may phone people hoping to convince them to buy their product or simply take orders over the phone instead of having a shop. Online selling businesses do not necessarily have a physical shop where people can go, they just have a website where orders can be placed in the same way that customers place orders from a mail order catalogue. These are all examples of direct marketing; the manufacturer sells direct to the customer. There is no intermediary between the producer and the customer. This is the type of marketing that SunFun needs to do as they arent a business that sells goods, this business is a service and therefore offers customers things but not actually giving them something. It is an advantage for the business to use direct marketing because intermediaries will want to make a profit so the price is increased at each stage in the channel of distribution and so the final product will be much more expensive than if the producer sells directly to customers. However the intermediaries do help to distribute the products widely and can save the manufacturer the costs of trying to distribute direct to many different customers in many different places. SunFun should use online selling, as people who are looking for a holiday destination usually go on the internet to find a place to go in their summers, and if the company is online then it is much easier for customers to buy their ticket to a destination. They can advertise their business through other Medias, such as the newspaper in order to gain their customer base firstly. This business doesnt necessarily need a store or shop to base their selves at but just a website, this will ensure the customers can buy their tickets quickly and easily online than they would otherwise. It is extremely important to get the distribution right.

Total marks for Question 4 - 20