Hilton Tea Café

According to my business plan, I want to operate a tea cafe in downtown Orlando near Audubon Park. The company’s name will be Hilton Tea Café. Hilton Tea Café will serve hot and iced teas as well as appetizers such as pastries, cookies, bread, scones, cakes, and sandwiches. According to the Tea Association of the United States of America, the foodservice tea market was worth $1.35 billion in 2016. According to the survey, as Americans’ interest in tea culture grows, tea is becoming a greater and more essential offering in all types of restaurants and cafés. In addition, Orlando City has a population of at least 260,000, and Thornton Park is famous for hosting original events that attract tourists, college students, and locals. Therefore, I am interested in a tea café because of the growing interest and popularity of tea in the American culture as well as the availability of a large customer base.

Audubon Park is a favorite area in Orlando City that hosts a lot of weekly events such as live music venues, street parties, costume balls, book readings, children friendly activities, bicycle rides, and adventure games. The area has a number of tea restaurants such as Stardust Coffee, Café 906, Barnie’s Coffee and Tea Company Espress, The Sanctum Café, and Se7en Bites. Therefore, I must consider the fact that these businesses are well established with a large customer base, and competition will be stiff. As pointed out earlier, major trends in Audubon Park are the original events such as street parties, costume balls, book readings, bicycle rides, adventure races, and the community market that occurs on Monday evenings from 6-10 p.m. These events attract a large weekly gathering of locals, tourists, and students.

My target customers would be individuals aged between 21-65 years, that is, teenagers to the elderly who seek high-quality tea and an inspiring environment. The clientele is composed of the locals and visitors (tourists) who want to enjoy Orlando’s city tea flavors. Visit Orlando, the city’s official vacation planning resource reported that 68 million people visited the city in 2016 and the number is expected to continue increasing. Population statistics show that over 74.3% of Orlando City’s individuals are over 21 years. Therefore, the potential market consists of 138,085 people, but because the competitors are well established, I estimate that roughly two-third of them are loyal to the existing brands. Therefore, a realistic estimation of our target market is approximately 40,000 residents. Tourists are very curious people, and they show enthusiasm for trying out new things, and I expect that they will try our flavor of teas.

A tea café should offer a pleasant, relaxing environment where people can meet and share with friends. Also, quality holds a prominence over price and therefore, providing a variety of high-quality teas will attract committed tea lovers. Therefore, Hilton Tea Café seeks to offer a relaxing place where friends and family can share an excellent tasting cup of tea. The positioning line will be “Welcome to the home of relaxing and great tasting tea at a great value.” The positioning line communicates that Hilton Tea Café stands for the following: a relaxing place where people can enjoy great tasting tea and leave satisfied because of the customer value experience they have received. Hilton’s major strength is my knowledge and expertise in the art of tea brewing. Having worked for two years as a tea brewer in New York, I have learned on how to produce the best tasting teas, and I am confident that we will deliver on our promise of exclusive and delicious tea.

Moreover, Hilton Café is going to be different by allowing customers to sample the variety of teas such as green and black. Customers can try the available flavors, and the expectation is that if they like it, they will become regular customers. Also, establishing a relationship is crucial, and where possible, we will take the customer’s home address and mail them free tea samples on a monthly basis. Thus, difference and uniqueness is what will set us apart from the other tea cafes, and one way is to maintain a close relationship with our customers.