Distribution Strategy - Group Project - 1.5 pages case study

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Mobile Application for Hospitality Industry

Marketing Environment

Marketing Mix of the Mobile Application

The marketing mix involves the 4ps, including product, price, place, and promotion that enhance product and service offering in the market (Al Badi, 2018). 

·      Product: The company will develop a user-friendly application app that can integrate hotels under the Marriott umbrella to offer their products and services to a pool of customers. The application will allow customers to select the best hospitality facility of interest through comparison and undertake various actions such as booking, payments, room access and receiving notifications.  

·      Price: The mobile application will have a moderate price that all hospitality companies and customers can afford to enhance its acceptability and affordability. The pricing strategy will depend on the type of services offered by the facility.

·      Place: Customers can download the application using their smart mobile phones through the Google Play and Apple Store. It will have a simple method for downloading in customers' comfort without increased effort. 

·      Promotion: To enhance the popularity and information about the mobile application, the company will use social media advertisements and ad pop-ups on various websites. The company will use direct outreach via email and phone to contact the sales department to pitch the hotels to get on board with the product. The company will also host online webinars and ted-talk style presentations for the public to join to release more information about the product.

Market Orientation

The company will use a product orientation approach, which involves continuous product and service improvements. It focuses on quality improvement, and customer need to enhance customer experience (Kopp, 2021). 

Most Microenvironment Influential Actor 

Employees are the most influential persons for developing a mobile application for managing and offering hospitality services. Innovations emerge from employee ideas that enhance new technologies and through research. They improve technological advancements, which replace outdated technologies with new ideas. Through employee innovation, this mobile application development found its way. 

Most Macroenvironment Influential Forces

The most influential factor for this mobile application for the hospitality industry is the technological advancement that has changed lifestyle such that every person sticks onto their smartphone devices (Khatri, 2019). It has triggered the need to provide hospitality services to their convenient places, particularly mobile phones. Technology will allow customers to access various hospitality services using their smartphones. 

Buyer Behavior

The Purchase Process of the Application

The purchase process is a critical aspect of product marketing in any company. It is a process buyers go through when making a purchase decision for particular goods or services. It starts with recognizing a product through awareness, evaluation, and purchasing a new product in the market (Kotler & Armstrong, 2020, p. 169). The mobile application for the hospitality industry will use B2B because a third party will develop the application and sell it to multiple hotels to set them ahead by creating a competitive advantage. It will enable hotels to offer services to customers with reduced costs due to the reduced number of employee requirements. The most critical stages in the buying process include problem recognition and evaluation. Before developing the application features, the company must understand, and research customer needs based on the technological changes and service level. Problem recognition starts as a result of internal and external factors influence. Externally, buyers get ideas from ads, websites, people, or other sources of information (Kotler & Armstrong, 2020, p. 169). The evaluation stage involves comparing consumer needs with the list of solutions identified. This case will include looking at customer preferences and the features needed for the app to offer them the best services. 

The Strongest Influences on the Buyers

Numerous factors act as influences to business buyers. However, businesses are more concerned about economic and personal factors (Kotler & Armstrong, 2020, p. 167). The most decisive buying influence on hotels for purchasing this application is the increasing competition and customer preferences on online services in the hospitality industry. In this case, the company will develop a mobile application that will allow hotels to offer multiple services with reduced employee requirements, leading to reduced costs. The application will include features that will enable customers to request and pay for various services without seeking assistance, making it easy for hotels to serve a pool of customers at a time without errors. 

The Stage of the Product in the Diffusion of Innovation Curve

The diffusion of innovation curve is a process that explains how customers adopt a new product and the rate at each stage. The mobile application is in the innovators' step in the diffusion of innovation curve because it is the first time to enter the market and has not started operating. In this stage, a product generates negative or low profits due to low sales and increased expenditure on marketing (Kotler & Armstrong, 2020, p. 263). Because of its low popularity, the application will have few buyers as hotels have little knowledge and experience about its performance and benefits. We will have to elevate our social media presence to increase the product’s popularity to strategically market this to our buyers given where this product falls on the innovation curve.

References

Al Badi, K. S. (2018). The Impact of Marketing Mix on the Competitive Advantage of the SME Sector in the Al Buraimi Governorate in Oman. SAGE Open, 8(3), 215824401880083. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244018800838

Karimi, S., Holland, C. P., & Papamichail, K. N. (2018). The Impact of Consumer Archetypes on Online Purchase Decision-Making Processes and Outcomes: A Behavioural Process Perspective. Journal of Business Research, 91, 71-82. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.05.038

Khatri, I. (2019). Information Technology in Tourism & Hospitality Industry: A Review of Ten Years' Publications. Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Education, 9, 74-87.

Kopp, C. M. (2021, February 27). Market Orientation. Investopedia. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/market-orientation.asp

Kotler, P. & Armstrong, G. (2020). Principles of Marketing (18th Ed.). Pearson.