The Marketing Plan of Travel Smart

The success of any organization depends on its ability to have a competitive advantage over the other companies in the market offering the same products and services. To achieve this, the company or agency needs to have a strategic plan to give it a competitive advantage in all the four strategies of marketing (Lovelock & Patterson, 2015). Travel Smart aims to give provide its customers with travel services locally. It targets international customers because they are the most likely to use their services, otherwise most local citizens have a constant means of travel. Their main target market is group travellers. They have convenient cars for travelers and have to implement a marketing strategy that ensures that they have an impressive market position. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the marketing plan of Travel Smart, relating to the four P’s. These are the main marketing strategies required to gain its competitive advantage. They include the product, place, price, and promotion.

Product

The product offered by Travel Smart is local travel services. It has cars that are classified depending on the customers that should be using them. For instance, it has vans for those on vacation, small cars for lone travellers as well as business class vehicles for business travellers. Since Travel Smart partners with hotels, airports, and international businesses that have local branches, it mostly transports people from the airport to their hotel rooms or places that they would want to tour locally (Lovelock & Patterson, 2015).

Customers can either make bookings with Travel Smart from their hotel rooms or the airlines they use to travel into the country. At the time of booking, they can classify the type of ride they would want to have, and their destination as well. This is done through the Travel Smart system that is linked to the hotel. Payment is made through credit cards. After booking, the agency would then know which type of vehicle to disburse for the customers. In the case of a change of plan or inefficiency of the car, Travel Smart gives opportunities for its customers to change the vehicle at no extra cost. The agency has a competitive advantage over its competitors because of its variety of products and services (Vellas, 2016). The competitors include cab companies such as Uber. However, Travel Smart offers better products such as touring vans for those on vacation and an unlimited time of driving services at affordable costs.

Place

Travel Smart operates locally, though it targets both local and international customers. Therefore, the demography of the business is a small area, mostly within major towns and cities. However, it still provides services for customers who want to move from town to town. For facilities for business travellers, there are comfortable seats and onboard unlimited internet to allow the traveller to work as they travel. The vehicles are available are convenient depending on the service required by the customer.

Price

Travel Smart sets its prices depending on the distance between the pick-up location and the destination of the customers. The prices are also set depending on the type of service offered. The business class cars are disbursed at a different price as compared to the vehicles used by vacationers. The advantage of the pricing strategy used by the agency is that it allows their customers to decide what they would want. For instance, a business traveller may not necessarily want to travel to a business class car. Therefore, so long as this is stated at the time of booking, the price is calculated depending on all these factors. It allows the customers to select only the services they would require for travel (Silva & Goncalves, 2016). However, the booking system displays all the available services, so that the customer can decide what they need and what they do not. It is better because the customers only pay for the services that they need. The agency’s aim is to have an advantage over its competitors such as cab companies. Therefore, it has subsidized the prices, to a point that the revenue meets the costs, and at the same time, it does not overwhelm the consumers (Silva & Goncalves, 2016).

Promotion

For any business to be successful, it has to promote its services through various marketing strategies. This is through media that is likely to reach the consumer easily. Travel Smart advertises its services in newspapers and magazines, especially the ones that are given at the airport. In the present age, it is important for any business to maximize its social media presence. The agency advertises on social media networks, considering the number of users using such platforms today. It reaches both local and international consumers (Ryan, 2016). It also advertises on travel blogs because that is where most of the consumers are. It has seasonal promotions with offers where customers can access products and services at subsidized prices. Its advantage is that it advertises in more than one outlet (Vellas, 2016). Travel Smart broadcasts information on its products and services in media outlets. It also does multiple print advertisements.

References

Cifci, M. A., Cetin, G., & Dincer, F. I. (2018). Marketing tourism experiences. In the Routledge Handbook of Destination Marketing (pp. 49-59). Routledge.

Lovelock, C., & Patterson, P. (2015). Services marketing. Pearson Australia.

Ryan, D. (2016). Understanding digital marketing: marketing strategies for engaging the digital generation. Kogan Page Publishers.

Silva, G. M., & Goncalves, H. M. (2016). Causal recipes for customer loyalty to travel agencies: Differences between online and offline customers. Journal of Business Research, 69(11), 5512-5518.

Vellas, F. (2016). The international marketing of travel and tourism: A strategic approach. Macmillan International Higher Education.