Family Travel and Tours Company Analysis

Family pop off and Tours Company Analysis atom ONEFamily Travel and Tours has specialised in affordable, inclusive summer and winter sun lead mail boats for roughly forty years. The two insensible of our survive bidings keep back been price and predictability. Our prices were passing competitive, although they be less so this instant, and our nodes want to grapple ahead of duration exactly what they whoremonger expect from their travel exist. However, wobbles in the tourism mart agree ca employ our sales to stagnate, and we currently have zero growth in our guest modus operandis and fewer echo guests. Although according to the National Travel Survey, the number of tourers taking inclusive parcels have change magnitude signifi erecttly in the past twenty years, so has the number of outlets through which customers locoweed leverage their pass travel (Shaw and Williams 2004). The primary reason for our lack of growth is this increased competition.In price, w e have been adversely affected by a bang-up increase in the number of discount travel companies forthcoming to price-conscious consumers, specially over the internet. Whereas we once had just instantaneously competition from a limited number of local anaesthetic anaesthetic agencies, some of those who would have been our customer base argon etymon to experiment with online qualifications. This capables our market up non only to separate UK competitors, besides likewise to agencies from other countries. For example, the Ameri disregard company Cheap Tickets offers international flights, tours and cruises at highly competitive rates. One has only to run a elementary search under discount travel packages to reveal literally hundreds of competitors where our customers could compact their holiday send away. Many of these competitors likewise do not maintain brick-and-mortar branches, allowing them to offer even more than than competitive prices as they have lower hit costs.Additionally, individually year as a greater percentage of the community becomes comfortable purchasing over the computer and more and more tribe try out online spending, FTTs competitiveness on the basis of price is reduced. Customers be too finding they push aside create their own packages, as they potentiometer now research hotels, carry and activities online and subscribe to their own reservations for all of them.to a greater extent family-oriented travel destinations are also now providing inclusive packages on their own, and are able to offer these through online marketing. Whereas once our contacts with local travel companies allowed us to offer all-inclusive packages available to the consumer only through a travel agency, now there are a number of mails the typical traveler can book their desired holiday. For example, Disneyland Paris has its own hotels, restaurants and transportation. As such it can market directly to the customer without need of a midd le-man travel agency. Many other popular family holidaymaker destinations have similar offerings. Cruises are another all-inclusive alternative that can now be book directly without use of a travel agency.We have not reacted chop-chop or easily enough changes in the market and in customers themselves, leaving us in a vulnerable position. FTT therefore needs to make changes to its products and marketing strategies quickly to retain its market position in the forthcoming.SECTION TWOFTT has benefited from catering to two distinct customer groups, although twain on the basis of predictability and price. During the winter period, FTTs customer base tends to be onetime(a) good deal escaping the winter cold. The take up business in this niche is substantial and breaks come out further into two groups. The first wants to return to the same perspective each year, often even requesting the same room. The second group prefers packaged tours, typically taking a tour of a different l ocation each year. Both highly value predictability that is, they want to eat the foods they are used to and stay privileged their comfort zone even when traveling, rather than experience any kind of local culture. They also want to know when booking the details of their holiday, such as daily schedules, and want to spend their winter holiday in warm, sunny locations. This customer group has shown less stagnation, as the increase in competitors from online travel brokers has not penetrated this market group substantially as of til now. It is presumable that it will in the near future, however, particularly as the computer-friendly segment of the population expands and ages.Summer customers are typically middle-class families feeling for a convenient and affordable holiday experience. They also want to know ahead of time the details of their holiday, nevertheless more to ensure activities and fit accommodations are available for their children than for any deep-seeded need for sameness. Destinations with child-friendly attractions such as beaches and makeup parks are foundational in sales to this group. This segment of our customer base has suffered the most from increased competition. Where we or agencies like FTT were once the only place families could go to have their entire travel needs satisfied, online travel agencies and the attractions themselves are now providing equally planned holidays at prices at or downstairs ours.As we examine what changes need to be made, it is helpful to consider tourist motive from two step-downist and structuralist perspectives regarding our stagnant customer base. Reductionism views tourist motivation as a tension between the search for the new or novel experience and the requirement for some degree of familiarity (Shaw and Williams 2004, 140). This is true of twain winter and summer customers. They wish to experience a holiday foreign their current existence whilst maintaining a predictability that will allow them, whether older tribe or children, to be sure of a accepted level of comfortability.It is flimsy that we will be able to compete strictly on price, as was the case many times in the past. in that respectfore expanding the balance of variation and predictability in our current products is likely to be our strongest marketing asset for future growth. The question then becomes how to address these customer motivations in the changing and more competitive market.SECTION THREETodays postmodernist society is now consumer led, with the consumer dictating the location and activities they expect rather than evidently choosing from a limited assortment of package options (Sharpley 2003). Customers can now choose not only travel options we have available, exactly also those succeedd by remote travel operators and attractions themselves. Further, customers are more and more likely to create their own travel packages, as they now have access to information on local attractions, lodgi ng and transport for a given area. Their expectations are higher as far as flexibility and options are concerned, making it more difficult for FTT to plan or provide all-inclusive packages, particularly at any significant reduction in price.In accessory, as the divide between work and leisure has been reduced, and recreational avenues are more available throughout the year, the insolence of taking the family to the beach or theme park has diminished. Consumers are more likely to seek a holiday experience that allows them to escape from their day-to-day honesty rather than simply play instead of work (Sharpley 2003). Todays mass tourist desires to be in a place which is both real and yet fantastic at the same time, and to encounter commonwealth who are both authentically other yet also fun and fictional (Coleman and Crang 2002, 157). As such, our customers are beginning to demand travel packages that go beyond simply macrocosm at the beach or a certain location, solely also offe r some type of fantasy or brave opportunity.The immediate gratification and visually-based information preferences of the postmodern society also add to use upher themselves strongly to the convenience of internet booking provided by our competitors (Sharpley 2003). Now customers can actually see the room where they will stay, satisfying their predictability needs, yet individually reserve it in an instant, with the simple click of a mouse. The entire act is charged effortlessly to their credit gameboard, almost making it seem as though the holiday was free.This signals a change in our customer, especially those in the summer/family group. Whilst they still have a need for predictability so they can plan for their children and the children feel comfortable, there is an increased desire for new experiences, visually-based marketing, and easy, quick booking.SECTION FOUROne difficulty we are currently experiencing is the change in customers perceptions of our services and their at tributes, an event common over time in service-based sectors (Palmer 1994). Whilst they are still strongly motivated by predictability, they seek at the same time authenticity in their holiday experience. Authenticity can be viewed from the perspective of the place visited, or from the perspective of the tourist doing the visiting. fit to Handler and Saxton, the meaning of the term authenticity refers to experiences through which tourists feel themselves to be in touch with both the real arena and their real selves (Shaw and Williams 2004). There are three kinds of authenticity in the tourist experience. Two, objective and positive authenticity, are object-related. The third, activity-related authenticity, refers to a state of being that is to be activated by tourist activities (Shaw and Williams 2004). It is that place where one is true to oneself (Shaw and Williams 2004). For example, beach holidays whitethorn be seen as providing a relaxed, playful environment where people can be their true selves like they were as children, without the sometimes-false pretenses maintained at work or in the community.As our world becomes increasingly more connected, a certain homogeneity is affecting the authenticity of place. McDonalds restaurants provide an example. Although there is some regional adaptation (one can order wine in France or get kosher sandwiches in Israel), the chains product mix of a hamburger, fries, and a coke is constant throughout its restaurants in over 100 countries (Vignali 2001). all time a Tesco moves into a town, a number of the areas local merchants are likely to go out of business, reducing the regional differences of that area as opposed to the rest of the country. Shaw and Williams (2004) report Boorstin saw mass tourism producing a homogenization and standardization of the tourist experience through the commodification of culture (135). The create global culture of tourism accepts anything or any place being produced and reproduced, m oved and recontextualised in any place whatsoever this process label the proliferation and increased consumption of experiences that are depthless simulations, separated from tradition and history (Coleman and Crang 2002, 156). This makes it harder for FTT to provide unique travel packages.SECTION FIVEFTT needs to meet these changes in society and in the level of competition head on, addressing issues related to both our products and our target markets. First, we need to drop by the wayside viewing the internet as our finis and begin to view it as a means of increasing our customer base. Although we have a website, it is not as user friendly as it could be, and does not offer a wide range of holidays. We could expand our travel product available online. Instead of simply listing our set packages with prices, as our current website offers, we could experiment with creating an a la carte method of creating packages. With the invent software, this would be possible to do completely online, and agents wanting to make a booking could even use the same online system when dealing with customers. In this scenario, a customer could access our website and choose the components of their holiday, appealing simultaneously to the postmodern desire for novelty and our established customer need for predictability. For example, one family may want to have a less expensive lodging but hire a larger car. They would be able to do this on the website, and after all their bookings would have created their own package, as inclusive as they desire. This would also provide a price incentive as customers could pass for only the level of or types of provision they really desire.In addition to increasing the number of customers purchasing holidays from us, such flexibility and convenience in booking is also likely to increase the spend of our existing customer base. Whereas once one of our established customers might use us only for holiday travel, a convenient website might also lead to other bookings by the same customer, such as business travel, expanding our product base. We would also be able to attract more customers from outside the UK, or from areas inside the country where we do not have strong branch presence.We also need to change the product mix of our fixed-package offerings to include more novelty and fantasy. For example, we might add adventure activities to a beach holiday in such a vogue that they meet the safety needs of parents. Including ski lessons as part of a beach holiday provides some adventure, but because it includes instruction and a supervised environment it retains the safety and predictability our customers value. The entire family can together enter into an activity outside their normal circumstances.For our winter/older customer group, changing the type of tour or travel available would probably not be popular, but adding additional and more audacious locations where a level of comfort and predictability could be guarantee d would be advantageous. For example, as bomb seeks entrance into the European Union, it has become a country more open to tourism, providing a wealth of new places for tours, and usually at competitive prices. change magnitude availability and reduced price of air travel also now allow us to offer tours farther abroad, and we need to look into areas of the world such as India and Mexico, which were typically too far and too high-priced to be considered by our customers for a holiday. We would need to work closely with local lodging, transport and other providers to ensure the level of comfort our customers require, but these locations provide an opportunity to introduce adventure and fantasy in an appealing way to our older customer group.FTT should also expand our marketing via the internet, particularly to repeat customers and potential customers who have already initiated contact with us, such as those who stop by a branch to discuss travel options, but do not purchase right a way. Email is a simple and super inexpensive way to contact customers with various offerings. This would also allow us to increase our target markets. For example, the UK Tourism Survey shows that an increasing number of two-year-old working-class families are taking holiday abroad. As younger people are more likely to have computer access and be knowledgeable in computer operation, it figures that this is a potential market where FTT may increase market share.Working class families without computers could still be include in the target market, but through other means of penetration. oer forty million loyalty cards were in circulation in the UK in 1999, and that number has undoubtedly increased substantially since (Evans 1999). Most cost-conscious Brits now have several such cards, and those motivated by price are particularly keen on using them. Partnering with several major cards could not only increase our visibility and presence, but attract customers that might not consider h oliday travel.For example, we could offer a discounted package as a reward for points earned by a major loyalty card intention, such as Tesco. Alternatively, we could join the scheme itself and offer points for a customers spend with us. In any case, being included in a scheme with extensive emails, newspaper inserts, and other advertising would reach cost-conscious consumers, a distinction of our traditional customer base, who might not have considered package holidays before. We may also attract those who had purchased their packages elsewhere, at least to the point that they might call for about our offerings, either in person or online. Some in this market will be surprised at the affordability of many packages. It is also likely that since customers attracted from this target market have never had a holiday abroad before, they would be nervous about both planning and going. As such they would find our servcies as a travel agency both convenient and comforting. Once they went once on a holiday package from us, we could make them part of our database, and provide various marketing endeavors to encourage their repeat patronage.The marketing changes discussed above give FTT the opportunity to once again master the travel package sector of our industry, to attract and retain customers from a wider customer base, and to ensure future growth and profitability. Our society is changing, but if we change with it we can continue for another forty years of travel excellence.REFERENCESColeman, S. and Crang, M. (ed) (2002) Tourism amidst Place and Performance. Oxford Berghahn.Evans, M. (1999) Loyalty schemes and the Orwellian Millennium. British Food Journal, 101(2) 132-147.Palmer, A. (1994) Principles of Service Marketing. capital of the United Kingdom McGraw-Hill.Sharpley, R. (2003) Tourism, Tourists and Society. Elm Publishing.Shaw, G. and Williams, A.M. (2004) Tourism, Tourists and Tourist Spaces. London Sage.Vignali, C. (2001) McDonalds think global, act loc al the marketing mix. British Food Journal, 103(2) 97.WEBSITESwww.cheaptickets.comwww.cooptravelshop.co.ukwww.expedia.co.ukwww.gate1travel.comwww.travelbag.co.uk