Marketing strategies and public relations of hotel Burj Al-Arab Dubai

Abstract

The twenty first century has been the age of advance technology, information and communication systems. So, in this age of travel and tourism has been simplified due to the advances in communication technology. The trends related to travel and tourism has increased significantly. Change in attitudes, lifestyle, more holidays taken, appeal of popular destinations and the development in hospitality industry influence people in travel and tourism. Travel and tourism is a leisure activity served by the tourism and hospitality organizations. By encompassing travel and tourism there has been an evolution in the increase in tourism and hospitality organizations in the market. Tourism and hospitality market is getting popularity day by day for its potential. This is why this market is becoming competitive. To survive and prosper in competitive business environment marketers require developing marketing strategies by which they can compete in the market. Tourism and hospitality marketing is becoming dynamic and challenging all around the world because of its competition (Briggs, 2001).

The tourism and hospitality marketers are moving from traditional marketing practices to innovative marketing practices because of its market demand. Meeting the customer’s increasing needs and demands require marketers to develop innovative marketing strategies. Marketing people are continuously trying to improve their tourism and hospitality product and services for the customers. Today customers are very much service oriented because they have variety of options to chose the brand. To develop the brand marketers are continuously trying to improve their brand by providing extended services to the customers. The significance of public relation in tourism and hospitality organizations is increasing because of its effectiveness. By building public relations the organizations are moving to the varied approaches of marketing where the marketers are having its benefits. Our research will investigate how Burj al Arab a seven star hotel is performing their varied marketing strategy approaches to the competitive business environment. Our research will find out what marketing strategies are effective for the Burj Al Arab as a tourism and hospitality organization. We will analyze the different marketing strategies in tourism and hospitality organization. How Burj Al-Arab is operating their public relation tactics in this market.

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Chapter 1.1 Introduction

Tourism and hospitality marketers have tended to expand their market share worldwide by approaching their marketing strategies and efficiency (Tepeci, 2009). Marketing is the process of creating value for the customers. Survival in the market requires brand recognition in the particular market. Burj AL-Arab is a seven star hotel in Dubai (UAE). The very fact is that they have gained brand recognition owing to effective public relation strategy. Tourism and hospitality market is a dynamic market. Because the customers needs and wants are changing. To meet with the changing customer’s needs and wants development of goods and services is an essential requirement. Tourism and hospitality sectors are service oriented market. Customer expects better service as well as satisfaction. But the word ‘satisfaction’ is difficult to perform.

The first requirements of customer satisfaction are developing quality products and services. Burj al Arab being a luxury hotel in Dubai has target customers in tourism and hospitality market and hence satisfaction of this target segment is vital. Normally tourism and hospitality marketers require relationship marketing rather than transactional marketing. Transactional marketing is only buying and selling approach and there is no tendency to build up relationship with the customers. But for sustainable marketing it requires relationship marketing. Relationship marketing creates long-term relationship with the customers. But building relationship with customers is not easy task. When a brand tends to build relationship with its various markets requires some strategic marketing approaches. Brand development or branding is very important for developing relationship with the customers. Different company develops their brand in different way.

Burj al-Arab has developed their brand in tourism and hospitality industry as world’s first seven star hotel that provides exquisite service. The product and service quality add the additional value to this brand. Successful branding is important in this market as a successful brand acts as a statement for the company to the customer segment.

How can a company can develop their brand in this competitive age? Delivering quality products and service continuously to the market can give brand recognition to the company. Market is always competitive in nature for its rivals. By differentiating the product from the market or form the competitors a marketer can develop their brand. Then brand positioning is significant to get response from the market. Brand positioning is very much effective for the company to harvest form the market. Burj al-Arab has brand positioning in the market. Tourism and hospitality organization target customers are tourists, business people, traveler, event management, sports team and so forth. All of these are customers are the single time customers. They buy products and services again and again. So, organization can build relationship marketing with this customer so that they buy the product and services from this brand customer loyalty is an important asset for the brand (Kapferer, 2008).Customer loyalty provides the brand loyal customers. Loyal customers are asset for the company because these customers can create many more customers for the company. It is not easy to create loyal customers. It requires reliability and creditability in the market. Why people will buy products and services from the same brandWhy customer will remain loyal to the brandIs it the ability to trust.

Customers expect guarantee of their sacrifice (Price). Customer is the king in the market it should provide value to the customers needs and wants. Customer’s expectation is more now in the market. Marketers will have to meet with customer’s expectation. A strong brand is a promise to the customers. Burj al-Arab is a brand that promises to deliver high quality product and services to its target market. By doing this continuously they can develop a brand. Brand creates a faith to the mind of customers than the brand is providing a solution to the problem positively. To have a positive image over the market marketers can provide more than customer’s expectation. A delighted customer will act as the brand ambassador to the brand. Marketers can target the customer’s heart and mind to win over them and will provide positive emotional bonding which will develop a mutual beneficial relationship focusing on trust, good understanding and support. These marketers can develop a strong brand in the competitive market environment. To perform these activities marketers may require sufficient market research activities to know what customer wants. Why they want when they wantAnd how they wantA good solution of this question will provide marketers to reach the customer’s emerging demand to provide satisfaction.

Public relation (PR) revolves around this world, people act based on their perception of facts (Wilcox, 2003). Public relation is one of the promotional strategies. It is not like advertisement. Public relation is very strong tools of communication in the competitive market especially in tourism and hospitality firm. Our organization Burj al-Arab is a big organization in hospitality market. Such an organization has huge opportunity of performing public relations activities by which they can enhance their marketing network and public image in the market. Normally public relation creates awareness to the mass market to the brand. Today customers face so many brands in the market. This is why they can forget any brand. So, public relation is very much effective tool to create special awareness to the customers by focusing positive side of the organization. Public relation is more effective in terms of its cost and benefits (Raja, 2004). Public relations provide an improved understanding in the market between marketers and customers. Competition is increasing day by day. To face the increased competition public relation provides the awareness to the company’s actual and potential market.

Today marketers are also focusing on network and relationship marketing strategy. Relationship marketing strategy is very much significant in tourism and hospitality market because the customers of this market are repeated. A business man frequently comes to London for his business purpose. So, the relationship marketing is effective in this market. Relationship marketing can create a customer network.. Better product and better service will keep remain customer loyal to the brand. Then a satisfied customer can create more customers through the network. Only marketers require maintaining regular communication with the customers. Due to increased competition, marketers are shifting to strategic customer relations. Strategic customer relation increases customer’s loyalty to the brand. To meet with customers unlimited needs and demands marketers develop various products and services while marketers launch any new product or services than marketer conduct viral and guerilla marketing activities. Viral marketing is done to generate huge amount of buzz and brand awareness to the customers. For example launching a new package tour product or introducing any new service Burj al-Arab can conduct viral marketing campaign for high public awareness in the market. On the other hand guerilla marketing is an unconventional marketing promotion activity. These marketing activities are not for any target customers. Guerilla marketing may be any public space, where people have crowded to spread the information. Marketing activities have become more speedy and effective since last decades because of internet availability and accessibility. E-marketing has solved various marketing problems. Now tourism and hospitality operators can invite guests through e-marketing or electronic marketing technology.

Chapter 1.2 Statement of the problem

Significance of marketing activities and public relations of hotel Burj Al-Arab.

Chapter 1.3 Significance of the problem

Any products or services can’t move to its customers without marketing activities. Burj al-Arab is renowned brand in hospitality market around the world. They have a target customer and market segmentation strategy. But it is also important to inform the target customers about their offerings in the market. In previous time marketers would think that advertising and other marketing activities are waste of money. However times have changed. Now we are living in global village where information is very important to reach the customer’s door. In this global age tourism and hospitality market is very much competitive because of free market economy, information super high way, faster communication. Tourism and hospitality is becoming growth factor of economy in many countries. Different countries are developing their tourism and hospitality product and services. So, the competition is increasing among the continent. In these circumstances customers are also facing variety of brands. Customer’s expectations have increased due to brand overcrowding. So, to develop the brand in the market, marketers are developing their strategy to capture their customers. To have the loyal customer’s marketers need to improve their service. The relationship marketing and public relations have become significant to the both marketers and to the customers. So, our study will verify to learn marketing strategy and to understand the significance of marketing strategy in tourism and hospitality market.

Chapter 1.4 Purpose

The main purpose to study of this research is

1. To investigate the significance of marketing strategies and public relations in tourism and hospitality market.
2. To evaluate the effectiveness of marketing strategies in competitive tourism and hospitality market.
3. To determine how Burj al-Arab is conducting their marketing strategies and public relations in their business development.

Chapter 1.5 Statement of hypothesis

Marketing strategies and public relation (PR) has significant role in promoting tourism and hospitality product and service.

Chapter 1.6 Limitations

Our research may face some limitation in conduction this study. As we will use secondary data to conduct this research so, that data may be invalid. The collected data and information may be expired to get the effective outcomes from the study. The unavailability of data may be another limitation of our research.

Chapter 2.0 Review of related literature

Tourism and hospitality management organizations are facing competition in the market due to customers growing needs and demands (Deuschl, 2006). So, marketers are developing their marketing strategy to manage tourism and hospitality in the competitive market. Due to increased competition in the tourism and hospitality market, marketers are developing package tours and travels to attract variety of customers in the market. But they need to communicate this to their customers. In travel and tourism industry marketers target both local and international customers. Hence the target market is global. Each and every organization needs to have market sustainability. Brand image and brand loyalty provides the marketers sustainability in the market. Both of these marketing management activities provide the brand good positioning in the market.

So when customers are dissatisfied with the product or services then they switch off towards another brand. Marketers require customer retention in the market. Customer retention provides the marketers good sustainability in the competition. Customer retention is more important than gaining new customers. In tourism and hospitality market organization can develop their strategic relationship with customers. To retain the customer tourism and hospitality organization launch strategic marketing campaigns such as VIP membership card, special loyalty card, life time customer club card. Tourism and hospitality marketers can move from transactional to relationship marketing approach. Hence successful relationship marketing is more effective than transactional marketing. Transactional marketing emphasis only on single transaction but relationship marketing provides emphasis on to the customer’s retention and customer loyalty. All of these marketing activities are focusing the customer loyalty. Burj-Al-Arab can launch customer loyalty program to have loyal customer in the market. Public relation (PR) activities are involved with management of reputation of the brand. Brand reputation is very important for the company’s market image (Oliver, 2004).

Public relation activities provide customers positive attitude to the organization and its brand. Such type of promotional activities influence customer to stick to the brand. Thus marketers gain competitive advantage over the market. Burj Al-Arab has huge opportunity as a 7 star hotel to conduct public relation activities which give them good market reputation in the market. So, it’s an easy and effective way to conduct public relation activities by which they can gain market recognition in the highly competitive market. They also can have third party endorsement of opinion from any political or celebrities. In today’s marketing management a good public relation is important than ever before. Now customers are very much informed and intelligence with knowledge. It is also true that public is bothered with the exaggeration of advertisement for products or services. The difference between advertising and public relation is the public relation provides more important information to the public. It provides valuable information for customer’s awareness. Credibility is very important in public relation.

An organization is to maintain high level of credibility in public relation. An organization is to maintain high level of credibility in public relation campaign (Andrew, 2009). In this case marketers can make a good relation with a local news paper who will write a good relation with a local news paper who will write a good article regarding the brand and their activities. To make effective public relation the organization can do extraordinary activities in the society. The public relation provides trust worthy news to the society which creates brand image in the market.

Hospitality marketers develop new product and services for customer attraction. Very common marketing strategies by tourism and hospitality organization they create joint marketing promotional activities with travel and tourism organization. In this situation the organization can develop a package product for the customers. Their new product may be a new destination tours and travel; they can arrange an event, entertainment and recreational arrangements to attract customers. A brand loyal customer can create many more new customers. By performing word of mouth (WOM) company can have good market recognition.

Market recognition is important for building and developing relationship marketing. At present marketers is laying emphasis on relationship marketing. Relationship marketing is performed for attracting and retaining customers for long time. To attract and retain customers organization requires quality product and service delivery. A brand’s responsibility is to make customer happy with their product and services. To gain loyal customers a marketer’s responsibility is to provide customized service for individual customers. A market oriented organization delivers customer oriented service or customized service by which they can make happy the customers and can keep then loyal to the brand. Marketers require to be continuously monitoring customer satisfaction. Customer’s needs and wants are continuously changing. So, to meet these changing requirements of customer it requires satisfaction monitoring. Customer satisfaction monitoring provides marketer efficiency to provide market oriented product and service. Burj Al-Arab is a hospitality organization. They must monitor customer satisfaction to keep the customer’s needs and demands update. By motivating this marketers develop their new product or can improve the existing product. Network and relationship marketing is a new requirements for the marketers point of view (Shafi, 2008). Network and relationship marketing provides strong network connection with company’s various customers. Thus network and relationship marketing benefits marketer in two ways one being connected to customer’s remaining loyal to the brand.

The other importance is customer can provide their reaction to the brand. Customers can provide their ideas, need and demand to the marketers. In tourism and hospitality organization can build network and relationship marketing strategies. By building and maintaining network and relationship marketing strategy company can increase their market share. Strategic relationship provides company market survival and growth. To survive and significant prosper in the market strategic relationship is very important. Hospitality organization can build strategic relationship with other organization which is involved with travel and tourism service. For example Burj Al-Arab makes a strategic relation with British Air ways. Strategic relation is a contract between two parties. In this case the hospitality organization can contract that are passengers in British air ways will get special benefit from Burj AL –Arab to take hospitality service. Thus this hotel can increase their customers and market share. Viral and guerilla marketing is effective for new product launch in tourism and hospitality organization. E-marketing or electronic marketing is very significant for tourism and hospitality organization. Now customer can do everything being at their home. Internet and e-marketing has made it easy. Tourists can buy their travel ticket, hotel booking and spot renting everything they can perform without any effort. So, e-marketing is very much effective for travel and tourism.

Chapter 3.0 Description of the research design

Research design is very important to conduct a quality research. Our research will be qualitative and quantitative. Both qualitative and quantitative research will provide us effective outcome. Qualitative research h will provide us in depth understanding of research problem statement. On the other hand collected data will be analyzed in quantitative form with numerical presentation. Both of this will provide us good result our study.

Chapter 3.1 Sources of data

Our data will be collected from the secondary sources. The secondary data will be available in the previous research paper, journal of articles, newspaper, book, trade magazine and in the internet.

Chapter 3.2 Sampling Procedures

Conduct this research will take selective sample. The selective sample will provide our research significant result.

Chapter 3.3 Data gathering instruments

Our will collect our field research representative. They will collect necessary data from various sources. To collect data they will contact the responsible organization earlier.

Chapter 3.4 Statistical treatment

To get significant result from our study we will conduct statistical treatments. We will cluster analysis, regression analysis.

Chapter 4.0 Data analysis

analysis is very significant part of the research. Our analysis data will be presented with appropriate text, necessary tables and figures and chart.

Chapter 5.0 Major findings

Major findings of our research are:

1. Marketing strategies are significant for Burj Al-Arab as a tourism and hospitality organization.
2. Brand image is important for customer’s loyalty.
3. Brand loyalty provides customer retention.
4. Public relation provides good customer management and reputation for the brand.
5. Public relation tactic provide customer retention in the market to specific brand.

Chapter 5.1 Conclusion

Marketing is creative and dynamic. There are various customers in the market with different needs and wants. Marketer’s responsibility is to meet that customers needs and wants by providing quality products and services. There are different hotel are operating in tourism and hospitality market. Burj Al-Arab is one of them. To attract tourist customers they have different marketing strategies. In this way they differentiate from their nearest competitors in the uniqueness of services provided through innovative public relation campaigns they have good customer relations to provide them satisfaction. Strategic marketing is providing them market efficiency to complete in the market. Thus they are developing their market day by day and are force to reckon with in the luxury hospitality market segment

Chapter 5.2 Recommendation for the further investigation

• Further investigation my be on impact of brand image in customer retention.
• Significance of relationship marketing in tourism and hospitality organization.
• E-marketing to manage customer relation.

Reference:

Dennis L. Wilcox, Public Relations Strategies and Tactics, 2003, ISBN-0205360734

Hasim Raja, significance of public relation in tourism market, 2004

Harper Deuschl, Development study of tourism and hospitality organization, 2006

Jean Noel Kapjerer, The new strategic brand management, 2008, ISBN-13:978074945085-4

Mustafa Repeci, Increasing brand loyalty in the hospitality industry, A journal of article, July 2009

Sandra Oliver, Public relation strategies, 2004, ISBN-0749435410

Susan Briggs, Successful Tourism Marketing, 2nd edition, 2001, ISBN-0749434694

http://www.flightmapping.com/airlines/QatarAirways/,Access date: 16/01/2011

http://directrooms.com/uae/hotels/burj-al-arab-hotel-dubai-731.htm, Access date: 17/01/2011

http://www.onecaribbean.org/content/files/UNWTOTOURISMOUTLOOK2010.pdf, Access date: 17/01/2011

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