I have no idea what this is about just.

Study on the Impact of

Pandemic on The Marketing
Industry during internship
For the Partial fulfillment of the requirement of B.B.A.
program
A detailed delineation of my experience working as an intern at I.B. Marketing and
learning first-hand how the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic is shaping the future of marketing,
with special reference to the SMEs

Submitted To: Mr. Submitted by:

Pankaj Rawat Lokesh Garg Vth
(Asst. Professor) Semester
180705250028

S.C. Guria Institute of Management and Technology (I.M.T.

Kashipur), Udham Singh Nagar
 Table of Contents

Contents
For the Partial fulfillment of the requirement of B.B.A. program_________________________________
Declaration__________________________________________________________________________1
Acknowledgement_____________________________________________________________________2
Executive Summary____________________________________________________________________3
Introduction to the Project______________________________________________________________5
Objectives of this Project________________________________________________________________7
About this Industry____________________________________________________________________8

 What is hospitality marketing?...........................................................................................8

 Importance of Hospitality Marketing:.................................................................................8

 Major players in Hospitality marketing:..............................................................................9

Company’s Profile____________________________________________________________________12

 Services offered by I.B. Marketing:...................................................................................13

 Achievements:...................................................................................................................14

 Effect of the pandemic on the company:..........................................................................15

 How is the industry recovering post-pandemic:...............................................................17

My Internship_______________________________________________________________________21

 How I got the internship?.................................................................................................21

 My Role at I.B. Marketing:................................................................................................23

Research Methodology________________________________________________________________25

 Survey:...............................................................................................................................26

Conclusion__________________________________________________________________________28
Questionnaire_______________________________________________________________________29
Annexure___________________________________________________________________________31
Pg. 1 DeclarationDeclaration

Declaration
I, Lokesh Garg, hereby declare that the project titled
“STUDY ON THE IMPACT OF PANDEMIC ON THE
MARKETING INDUSTRY” submitted to I.M.T. Kashipur
is a record an original work done by me under the
guidance of Mr. Itush Bansal. V.P. of I.B. marketing.
And this project is submitted in the partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the award of the degree of
Bachelor’s in Business administration. This thesis has
not been submitted to any other University or Institute
for the award of any degree or diploma.
Pg. 2 DeclarationDeclaration

Acknowledgement
It was truly an honor and a great privilege to work with I.B. Marketing
for Internship project, I must covey my sincerest gratitude to people
there who guided me, especially Mr. Itush Bansal (Vice president of
I.B. Marketing) for mentoring me all throughout this journey and
helping me collect the data for this study.

I also take this opportunity to express my profound gratitude and deep

regards to my teachers Mr. Pankaj Rawat and Dr. Anjali Agarwal for
their exemplary guidance, monitoring and constant encouragement
throughout the course of this project. And Mr. Faizullah sir (librarian)
for proving me with the data that I required from the college archives.

The blessing, help and guidance given by them from time to time shall
carry me a long way in the journey of life on which I am about to
embark.

Lokesh Garg

(B.B.A. 5th semester)

 Pg. 3 DeclarationDeclaration

“Tell me and I
forget, teach me Executive Summary
and I may
remember, involve
me and I learn.” These are the words of a great political philosopher, inventor,
polymath and one of the founding fathers of U.S.A., Benjamin
Franklin. And this quote strongly resonates with the purpose of
this assignment, which is to allow the students to experience
first-hand what it is like to work in the corporate environment and
put their learning of the last 4 semesters to practical use. So they
can be better executives and managers in the future.

As per the requirement, for the partial fulfillment of Bachelors of

Business Administration, I have prepared a report on my
experience working as a marketing intern at I.B. Marketing, a
Hospitality Marketing company headquartered in Gurugram,
Haryana. The company

This report summarizes my 6-week internship program at I.B.

Marketing that commenced on November 21st, 2020, and
concluded on January 2nd, 2021. Throughout my internship, I
made several connections with great people as well as learned
invaluable lessons that I'm going to cherish forever.

My tasks working at I.B. Marketing involved-

• Connecting with the business partners to collect

various data about their business,
Pg. 4 DeclarationDeclaration

• Analyzing and interpreting the data,

• sampling the plan, and
• collecting feedback

The Pandemic:
It would be like ignoring an elephant in the room if I don't talk
about the pandemic. The most uncertain and unprecedented
time in recent memory. Though it had a devastating effect on all
businesses throughout the world, it is a true testament to the
sheer resilience and flexibility that is required to run a business.
And working at times like these, taught me lessons of
perseverance and risks in business that I might not have learned
otherwise, and I'm truly thankful for that.

These uncertainties are the reason why I decided to dedicate my

research to the effect of the pandemic on the marketing sector
throughout the world.
Pg. 5 DeclarationDeclaration

Introduction to the Project

Business is full of uncertainties, it’s impossible to ever be fully

prepared for what is to come in future, and the COVID-19 outbreak is a
sharp of reminder that. The current outbreak has had severe economic
consequences across the globe, and it does not look like any country
has been unaffected. The largest economies in the world reporting an
average of 8.1% increase in the unemployment rate, and most of the
major economies entered recession.

I wanted to dedicate my research to the effect of the pandemic on the

businesses, especially the marketing sector which relies heavily on the
connection with people. The traditional form of marketing for a long
time has involved integrating information in people’s daily lives, like-
billboards you see on your way to work, posters you see on the shops
you go to. According to ‘statista.com’ despite the perception being
that marketing is mostly done online nowadays, in fact, 69% of
Pg. 6 DeclarationDeclaration

marketing is still done offline through physical advertisements that

require physical connection with the potential customers.

How are these businesses adapting when that very connection is not
just restricted but also deemed unsafe?

These are the most uncertain and unprecedented time in recent

memory. Though it had a devastating effect on all businesses
throughout the world, it is a true testament to the sheer resilience and
flexibility that is required to run a business. And working at times like
these, thought me great lessons of perseverance and risks in business
that I might not have learned otherwise, and I'm truly thankful for
that.

I wanted to give special attention to how these businesses reacted to

such changes and how are they adapting, now that the world seems to
be getting back on track once again.
Pg. 7 DeclarationDeclaration

Objectives of this Project

Getting into this study I had the following objectives in my mind-

• Learn about the challenges faced by the marketing
industry during the pandemic and how are they adapting to
an entirely revamped business environment.
 I wanted to know how a budding marketing company,
that does not have the enormous capital to face most
challenges, is holding in this volatile time in economy.
 What are the changes they needed to make, to get
their get their business back on track?
 What are the techniques and technologies they are
using to reach out their customers now?
 What is it like shifting a better part of your business
functions online?
• To familiarize myself with the corporate environment that
I one day wish to get into.
• To learn the new trends in business environment and how
this marketing company is implementing them in their own
business model.
 Pg. 8 DeclarationDeclaration

About this Industry

What is hospitality marketing?

Hospitality marketing is centered on thinking about the business in
terms of customer needs and their satisfaction. Hospitality marketing
takes a look at how different sectors of the Hospitality industry (like-
accommodations, food and drink, tourism and travel) develop
marketing strategies to promote their products or services, resulting in
an increase in revenue. Since the hospitality industry mainly focuses
on creating and maintaining positive customer experience and
relationship, marketing becomes an important part of ensuring the
industry’s success. If you want to attract more customers to your hotel
or travel business, you need to efficiently advertise on different digital
channels and be where your niche audience is.

Importance of Hospitality Marketing:

In any business, an effective marketing strategy is absolutely critical to

COVID19, now
building a brand, attracting new customers, and retaining existing
globally carrying
the status of a ones. The hospitality industry is not exceptional from this perspective.
pandemic, has led
to a worldwide Hospitality marketers need to ensure that potential customers are
crisis with its
effects on the aware of their existence and offers and existing customers are satisfied
hospitality
industry with the products and services to a reasonable extent (at least).
potentially heavier
than anything Satisfied customers are highly like to come back and may spread
before
Pg. 9 DeclarationDeclaration

around positive word of mouth. Competition is fierce in hospitality

industry; therefore, organizations need to apply effective marketing
techniques to fend off competitors. For instance, marketers can offer
reduction in price, two nights stay for the price of one, and others to
allure customers. Likewise, offering customers loyalty cards may
become very useful as well. A hospitality marketing company does all
of these for their partners.

Major players in Hospitality marketing:

Following are some of the most renowned companies that are in the
business on hospitality marketing-

 Bookassist: Digital Marketing is an essential module of

Bookassist’s 360° Direct Booking Solution for Hotels, which also
includes Booking Engine, Web Design, and Distribution
Management. The Bookassist advantage is the tight integration
of their digital marketing services, their web design services,
their booking technology and their distribution technology so
that they can all work together seamlessly to maximize the
hotel's exposure and eliminate barriers to booking.
Pg. 10 DeclarationDeclaration

 Net affinity: Net Affinity is a Technology, Design and Marketing

Company who work exclusively with hotels to drive more direct
business at a lower cost of acquisition with proven online
strategies. They pride themselves on the development of a
relationship that allows them to nurture the business. Their
conversion-focused booking technology, creative digital
marketing and cutting-edge web design are hotel’s toolkit to
maximize their direct bookings.

 Pegasus: Pegasus E-commerce is the first CRS-integrated

solution for hotel websites and digital marketing, enabling
hotels to automate direct channel management, increase
website demand, optimize conversion rates, and maximize
direct bookings. Hotels that use Pegasus E-commerce see
significant increases in direct channel contribution and
decreases in high-cost OTA contribution.
Pg. 11 DeclarationDeclaration

 Guestcentric: GuestCentric is a leading provider of cloud-based

digital marketing software that helps hoteliers protect their
brands, drive bookings and connect to their customers on all
digital platforms. GuestCentric’s all-in-one platform provides
hoteliers with award-winning responsive web sites for mobile,
tablets and desktops; a user-friendly booking engine; a social
marketing module to publish deals on Facebook, Twitter and
other social networks
Pg. 12 DeclarationDeclaration

Company’s Profile
I.B. Marketing is a growing hospitality marketing company that works
to promote the various facilities and amenities offered by Hotels. Using
their deep understanding of consumer behavior in this sector, and
social analytical strategies, they help their partners reach a higher level
of consumer reach. With over half a decade of experience in the
sector, they have helped over a five thousand customers.

On their website, they describe themselves as-

"We are one of the best hospitality marketing companies in India. We

work for the promotion of facilities and amenities offered by Luxury 3
Star & 5 Star Hotels, restaurants and resorts, etc. Our team has years
of expertise in promoting prestigious hospitality institutions for
recurring, year-round business, through Direct Marketing (Face to face,
relationship-based marketing), branding, through Customer Privilege
Cards. We are here to let our valuable clients sit back and watch their
business grow in terms of customer attention that directly increases
hotel revenue. Outsourcing the loyalty programs of hotels to the
targeted customers is an added execution we do at our end."
Pg. 13 DeclarationDeclaration

Services offered by I.B. Marketing:

I.B. International offers the following services-

• IB Privilege cards: These cards incentivize the customers to keep

coming back by offering them kickbacks in the form of discounts
and free services for their loyalty to the hotel. These kickbacks get
bigger and better with each visit, thus incentivizing the
reoccurrence of the customers and helping the hotels make long
term loyal customers.

• Events and conference management: Apart from their business

promotion, IB international also offers to organize business events
and conferences. This part of the business has been especially
successful during the pandemic. Because with all of our life’s
social interactions getting restricted, most of the business
meetings are conducted through web conferencing applications
such as ‘zoom’ and ‘google meet’. But even conducting a school
classroom conference of a 20 to 30 students sometimes gets
hectic. Businesses can’t afford to waste time in hectic
unproductive business meetings. That’s why I.B. marketing helps
them conduct these conferences by setting up everything to
ensure a hassle-free business meetings.
Pg. 14 DeclarationDeclaration

• Zero cost program: As impossible as it may sound, the company

actually charge zero cost from their partners. Their business
structure is built in such a way that they carve their own profit out
of the growth of their customers. Therefore the partners have to
pay nothing to avail these services.

• Furthermore the company helps its partners in betterment of the

facilities that they offer in a way that would be the most relevant
to their potential customers. With their innovative marketing
strategies they compile all the analytical data that helps the
partners to learn their business environment better, and how to
appeal to the masses.

Achievements:
• On an average their partners report over 30% increase in revenue.
• More than 50 hotels have partnered with them and continue to
work with them.
• 5000 customers in a span of just over 5 years
Pg. 15 DeclarationDeclaration

• 15 brick and mortar locations.

• 160 team members.

Effect of the pandemic on the company:

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the world’s economy was shut down
almost overnight. The pandemic has confronted the hospitality
industry with an unprecedented challenge. Strategies to flatten the
COVID-19 curve such as community lockdowns, social distancing, stay-
at-home orders, travel and mobility restrictions have resulted in
temporary closure of many hospitality businesses and significantly
decreased the demand for businesses that were allowed to continue
to operate. Almost all restaurants were asked to limit their operations.
These put an unprecedented risk on the future of hospitality
marketing industry.
Pg. 16 DeclarationDeclaration

THE FOLLOWING FIGURES ARE THE COMPILATION

OF THE MARKET DATA COLLECTED BY THE
COMPANY AND FEEDBACK FROM IT’S PARTNERS-
• Over 79% percent of the global marketing industry have had to
make major or moderate adjustments to their marketing strategy
because of the pandemic.
• 89% of public expect brands to take action to help with COVID-19.
That why major companies who have been frantically laying-off
employees to keep their profits afloat have been forced to help
the planet’s recovery from the virus. Examples of this are-
 Energy company Reliance Industries sets up one of the first
COVID-19 health centers in India
 Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba is donating 1.1 million
testing kits, 6 million masks, and 60,000 protective suits
and face shields.

 Amazon has said it will donate $5 million to local

businesses based near its Seattle headquarters that will
likely lose out on sales now that the tech giant’s thousands
of staff are working from home.

 Together with Microsoft, Amazon is also one of the co-

creators of the COVID-19 Response Fund, targeting hard-
hit Washington State. They, and other businesses such as
Alaska Airlines and the Starbucks Foundation, have
donated $2.5 million so far. Microsoft President Brad Smith
said: “As large corporations, we can take this step and
should.”
Pg. 17 DeclarationDeclaration

 Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche has started shipping

coronavirus tests to the US and plans to get at least
400,000 out every week. Its fully automated tests are
capable of delivering up to 960 sets of results every eight
hours using one of its powerful analysis machines.

How is the industry recovering post-pandemic:

With the world slowly but surely getting back on track, the marketing
industry too is gearing up and adapting to this new environment and
the challenges that it involves. Following are the new ideas and trends
that I.B. Marketing is using to stay functional now-

 Safety in Marketing and Guest Communication: In the wake

of COVID is the importance of highlighting safety procedures,
hygiene policies and other decisions intended to protect your
customers could not be emphasized more. Hospitality marketing
companies like I.B. marketing are using technologies such as-
Pg. 18 DeclarationDeclaration

 Automatic thermal screening of guests at events with the

help of thermal cameras to identify guests that might
have the virus.
 Enforcing social distance by placing furniture in a distance
advised by the medical officials.
 Enforcing wearing of masks whenever possible.
 Expanding usage of contactless payments by the
customers.

 Safety in Marketing and Guest Communication: Many hotels,

restaurants, bars, cafes and other hospitality industry businesses
primarily appeal to international customers through their
marketing efforts. However, with COVID reducing international
travel, one of the biggest hospitality marketing trends involves
placing a renewed focus on local custom instead.

 Usage of Virtual Reality Hospitality Technology: Virtual

reality has been one of the biggest emerging hospitality
technology and marketing trends of recent times and the
coronavirus pandemic has only heightened its uses. Virtual
reality tours provide the ultimate means of experiencing a
location from afar, recreating the environment in a way that
allows for some degree of exploration and immersion.
Pg. 19 DeclarationDeclaration

 Keeping up with the trends: With so many companies out of

business it has made the competition cut-throat in the truest
sense possible, the need to be on top of every update and new
trend has become immeasurable for these businesses, I.B.
Marketing has implemented the following new technologies to
connect with the customers better-
 Chatbots- Chatbots can be used to improve the customer
experience in a number of keyways and form a big part of
many modern hospitality marketing strategies. These bots
allow for rapid responses to customer questions,
regardless of staff availability, and can provide support for
multiple languages too.

 Influencer marketing- Influencer marketing is fast

becoming a great opportunity for hospitality marketers to
remain relevant in a highly competitive industry.
Influencer marketing is a digital version of the traditional
word-of-mouth for increasing hotel brand awareness and
generating direct bookings. By using this strategy, you can
reach a much larger audience and attract more customers
to your hotel.

 Video Marketing- Travel industries and hotels can use

video marketing to engage their target audience from
YouTube videos, Instagram, or Snapchat, to going Live on
Pg. 20 DeclarationDeclaration

Facebook. Gaining brand exposure and capturing the

attention of your audience can be done through written
content
Pg. 21 DeclarationDeclaration

My Internship

I had the marvelous opportunity given to me by the college to put the

knowledge that I have accumulated over the years studying at I.M.T.
Kashipur, to practical use by working in a corporate business as an
intern. It took me some time to decide on the company that I wanted
to apply to but this wasn't an easy decision for me to take as my
choice could determine the only level of experience I would get before
actually working in the corporate environment again.

How I got the internship?

I wanted to work in a company that was passionate about building a
more capable workforce for the betterment of the country's
development, and a company that actually cared about its interns.
Furthermore, I was looking for the following characteristics in the
company of my choice-

• Passion for work

• Sense of responsibility towards the environment
• An environmentally sustainable approach to business
• Where I could get a mentor

Then I stumbled upon the LinkedIn (a social media platform for

businesses and corporate workers to make valuable) post of I.B.
Pg. 22 DeclarationDeclaration

Marketing, inviting applications for internship in hospitality marketing.

I had never heard of hospitality management as a stand-alone
discipline before, that's why the post intrigued me.

I looked into the company's profile to learn more about them, looking
at their profile I learned that they took pride in being a paperless
business, a big step towards an environmentally sustainable future.
They took the following steps towards being ecologically beneficial-

• Paperless business.

• Spreading awareness about carbon footprint to its partners

• Repairing leaking taps at the premises of its partners to prevent

water wastage.

• Donating the food left after the parties and events organized by
them to people in need.

• Using biodegradable single use cutlery and tableware only.

These qualities immediately struck out to me and perfectly aligned

with the qualities I was looking for in the company for me.
Being impressed I decided to give them a call on the number given in
the post. My call was received by Reena Bansal (asst. director of sales
and marketing) she was very warm and described me all the relevant
information about the internship project. And asked me to book an in-
person interview if I was interested. I agreed to the interview and
emailed them my resume. I shortly received an email from them saying
Pg. 23 DeclarationDeclaration

that my resume fits their criteria and that they’d be happy to take me
right in.

My Role at I.B. Marketing:

I was working with a team of executives guided by the team leader of
one branch at a time. I had the following to do the following tasks-

• Collecting data: Since online market and the requirement of

data that is needed to execute it goes hand-in-hand, a major part
of my work as an intern comprised of data collection. I was
supposed to connect with the hospitality partners and collect
information about their business. This included-
 Statistics of their business performance like- number
of customers coming each month, the current
promotional offers that they are running or have run in
the past, if they have run offers in the past how
successful was the promotion in increasing the
number of customers, do they have any social media
accounts for their business if yes, how well are they
performing, etcetera.
 All the amenities that they offer or wish to offer their
customers.
 Their vision on mission of the business
 Any particular problem (if any) that they seek our help
on.
 Performance of their competitors and the amenities
that they offered as well as their social media
statistics, like- no. of followers, engagement per post.
Social media campaigns and their success, etcetera.
Pg. 24 DeclarationDeclaration

• Data analysis: Following the task of data collection, my task

was to analyze the data to highlight the most relevant
information out of all the info I had collected, the information
that was going to help the company take preliminary steps
to help. Data analysis is, therefore, a process that involves
examining, and molding collected data for interpretation to
discover relevant information, draw or propose conclusions
and support decision-making to solve a research problem.

• Data interpretation: After having sorted the most relevant

information out of the preliminary data collected by me, my
job was to interpret the data. Interpretation involves
attaching meaning and significance to the analysis,
explaining descriptive patterns, and looking for relationships
and linkages among descriptive dimensions. Once these
processes have been completed the researcher must report
his or her interpretations and conclusions

• Sampling a plan: A sampling plan is a term widely used in

research studies that provide an outline on the basis of
which research is conducted. It tells which category is to be
surveyed, what should be the sample size and how the
respondents should be chosen out of the population.

• Feedback collection: Collecting customer feedback can

help product, customer success, customer support, and
marketing teams understand where there is room for
improvement.
Pg. 25 DeclarationDeclaration

Research Methodology
My study on the impact of Pandemic on Marketing industry follows
Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses
guidelines and contains two main features: developing research
questions and determining search strategy. The following research
questions have guided this review:

 What aspects of the hospitality industry at the time of the

COVID-19 pandemic have been studied?
 What research methodologies have been used to investigate the
impact of COVID-19 on the hospitality industry?

In order to address the above questions, a search strategy was

developed to list and review all relevant scientific papers by (a)
defining keywords and identifying all relevant materials, (b) filtering
the identified records, and (c) addressing the risk of any bias. Web of
Science, Science Direct, and Google Scholar were used as database
search tools.

Keywords were used to discover relevant articles and identify 175

articles with relevant content. Because this topic is rapidly evolving, it
is important to mention that article discovery was finished at the end
of August 2020. After developing the main database and identifying all
relevant papers, a formal screening process based on specific exclusion
and inclusion criteria was followed. Because of the very timely issue of
the COVID-19 pandemic, we included documents in the forms of peer-
reviewed academic publications, grey literature, and pre-print articles.
Pg. 26 DeclarationDeclaration

Survey:
A survey was conducted which studies to investigate different
hospitality industry aspects, including social costs, customer
preference, expected chance of survival, and travel behavior.
Contingent valuation is a survey-based economic technique for the
valuation of non-market resources. The survey asks questions about
how much money residents would be willing to pay to keep a specific
resource. The study attempted to investigate how residents perceive
the risk of tourism during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Pg. 27 DeclarationDeclaration

Conclusion
With this study I have tried to provide a systematic review of the
published research topics relevant to the understanding of the
hospitality industry in the time of COVID-19 pandemic.

Marketing during a pandemic was probably not on the agendas of

many marketing professionals in 2019, yet its 2020 and here we are.
As businesses across the country continue to cope with the crisis,
they’re asking themselves how marketing is being affected, and what
they should do.

Beside this study I also had an amazing time working in a corporate

setting for the first time, the lessons that I’ve and the challenges that I
face during this time are sure to help me a great deal in the future.
 Pg. 28 DeclarationDeclaration

Questionnaire
Name
Age
Gender (if willing to share)
Contact Info.
address
Have you worked in a marketing business Yes ◯ NO ◯
before
Factors Importance to you Importance to you
before the pandemic now on the scale of
on a scale of 1-5 1-10
Billboard advertisements in your
surrounding area
Political and environmental actions of the
brands that you support
Posters and banners of advertisement

Public gatherings of small group

Public gathering of large groups

A clean atmosphere

Attention to local culture

Future security from your current job

Hygiene of your workplace

Items of disinfectant provide to you like

hand sanitizers and alcohol wipes
 Pg. 29 DeclarationDeclaration

Building is safe and reliable

Rooms are well ventilated

The company’s contribution to the global

fight against the pandemic
Green consumption in encouraged and
environment protection measures are
implemented
Going out of your house
Pg. 30 DeclarationDeclaration

Annexure
Representations gearing up to tap post covid-19 opportunities (traveltrendstoday.in)

Marketing During a Pandemic: Are You Up to the Challenge? | IndustryWeek

Marketing During a Pandemic: 20 Stats You Should Know (impactmybiz.com)

Three Tips For Planning For The Post-Pandemic 'Renaissance' (forbes.com)

Coronavirus: impact on the advertising and marketing industry worldwide | Statista