Discussion
The purpose to write this plan is to analyze and frame the marketing plan for Buckingham palace. It is situated in Westminster, London. The Buckingham palace is the London residence and administrative headquarters of the monarch of United Kingdom (The Royal Family 2018). The plan will highlight the internal analysis and external analysis with the help of two framework specifically, SWOT and Porter’s five forces. The analysis will help to evaluate the strength, weakness, opportunity and threat, and the effect of suppliers, new entrants, substitutes and buyers in the existing industry. The palace is beautifully built in an area of 77,000 square meters. The objective of the Buckingham Palace is to create awareness in the market regarding its history to all its consumers and establish the palace as a strong competitor and brand in the market both in domestic as well as in the international markets. The Buckingham palace maintains its café and provides a shopping experience as an additional benefit to its visitors. The palace focuses on the target customers of all the age group ranging from nursery kids to old people. The 7 P of the marketing mix is also analyzed for the palace where it is seen that the market condition of the palace is well operating and effective to the market.
Before establishing a strategy plan it is important to analyze the internal and external environment of the Palace. The internal surrounding is implemented to utilize the strengths to take the opportunities, be aware of the threats and overcome the weakness (Armstrong et al., 2014). The external environment is analyzed to understand the forces that will affect the business external decisions.
SWOT analysis
Strengths
- Its past history and tradition will become the pull for the strength
- The destination and strong presence in the social media is its weakness to grab more people from all over the country.
- It already has a strong brand establishment
Weaknesses
- Low awareness among the younger generation is its weakness which affects its visitor’s average.
- The stiff schedule of the opening and visiting days to the palace can restrict many of its visitors to visit the palace.
Opportunities
- A wide opportunity of the tourists from both international and national visitors
- Opportunity to improve its social media presence
- The location of the Buckingham Palace, is the easiest availability to the visitors which can turn out to be an opportunity
Threats
- The threat of competitors such as the St. James Park and historical London ship’s
- Its high maintenance cost that makes the palace more beautiful
Porters five Forces
Threat of substitution is low as the brand itself is valuable and worthwhile source of information. In other words, it is unique and irreplaceable.
Threat of new entrants is depending upon the entrants and exit from the market. There are less chances of any to enter the market as the Palace is a well established brand due to its history.
The industry rivalry is high as the historic strength is also available to other destinations which can attract the customers. However, other rivals of its can also enjoy the same advantage to gain competitive advantage.
Bargaining power of buyers are of a moderate risk because the prices to entry to the palace is acceptable but still the price can go high as the maintenance cost gets affected and it attracts international tourists. The product is highly differentiated from other destinations.
Internal Analysis
Bargaining of suppliers is of low risk as most of the employees are hired by the Buckingham Palace itself and supports the overall services that are offered to the visitors.
The Buckingham palace is the London residence and administrative headquarters of the monarch of United Kingdom. It was built in 1703 for the Duke of Buckingham, then it was acquired by King George III in 1761, and later it became the British monarch after the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837. The establishment and focus on the branding of the Palace will help to increase revenue and in term spread the historic importance to the people (Joffe 2017).
- To establish Buckingham Palace as one of the effective brandin the international tourist market. It will enable to stand as one of the strongest competitors among all using the most effective strategies.
- The objective is to create awarenessin the market and to each of the visitors of the essentiality and regarding the history of the palace.
- To increase the brand awarenessof the Buckingham Palace. It is the main objective of the business. It is focused to make efforts to achieve its awareness in the international tourism markets and as well in the domestic market.
There are mainly 4 kinds to market segment which needs to be considered while framing a market plan. The four types of segmentation are: 20 words
Demographic Segmentation: demographic segment is one the important and most widely used segmentation method used to get the right target market for the product. Segmentation is done on the basis of the age, gender, family size, income, religion, occupation, race and nationality (Craft and Hassan 2015).
Behavioral Segmentation: this type of segmentation is done on the basis of the behavior, usage and decision making perception. Behavioral market segmentation is also done at the time of festivals as at that time the purchase decision and other patterns are entirely different from the other normal days (Szolnoki and Hoffmann 2014).
Geographic Segmentation: Geographic segmentation divides the population according to the location of the consumers. It is believed that people have different needs as per the geographical location of them and requirement can vary based on the geographical location (Hill, Jones and Schilling 2014).
Psychographic Segmentation: This type of segmentation uses lifestyle of people, the activities and the interest that defines the market trends. It is similar to behavioral segmentation. It covers the aspects of the consumer buying behavior. The consumer thinking, opinion and the social standing are also considered in the segmentation of a product (Mishra 2016).
The Buckingham Palace invites all the profile of segmentation as its customers because it widens up the value and interest for each of the age group and while attracting the visitors/customers the Buckingham palace implements the geographical segmentation in terms it invites all the international and national tourist.
The strategy to place the product that is the Buckingham Palace in the right place by positioning accurately in the consumers mind and in the market as well is considered as brand positioning. The Buckingham palace is to be put forward to fulfill the need of the consumers targeting the population from nursery students to families till the old age people of the society.
External Analysis
There are several programs including school activities, family pavilion events with the beautiful scenario of the garden and the lawn consisting of a garden café which offers a selection of refreshments, sandwiches and pastries, tea and coffee.
The palace also provides with a shopping experience to its visitors by offering a wide variety of gifts crafted by royal palaces and art works inspired by the royal collection. The royal palace is focused to provide its visitors with the guide to the entire tour of the palace. Overall the positioning of the palace is to be done in a way that it can attract more customers domestically as well as internationally.
Product- the product is the main attribute that fulfils the need of the consumers and its expectations. The product here is the destination of the Buckingham Palace itself which covers total 77,000 square meters area. It is built with following a neoclassical architecture (Schwarzer 2016).
Price- Price is the factor which always should be presented as it is giving a good value of money. The palace offers its visiting tickets in three different category, that is for adults it cost £23.00, for the visitors above 60 age group and for the students it is £21.00, and for the children under 17 age it costs £13.00.
Promotion- Promotion is the practices that increase all the key communication for an organization (Armstrong et al., 2015). The Buckingham palace maintains a website which clearly gives all the information a customer/visitor needs. In addition to it, the Buckingham Palace communicates with people with the help of social media and also has a strong presence in the market. It maintains a Facebook page, and an Instagram page.
Place- The availability of the product has to be easiest for the target customers. The palace is in Westminster, London SW1A 1AA, UK. It is located specifically in between the St. James Park and the private gardens of the palace.
People- People includes all the working staff that runs the front line of the product. The Buckingham palace is maintained by over 600 staffs including the curatorial, conservation, learning, publishing, communications, digital and visitor services. The greatest art collections are inspired by the people of the royal collection. The people are managed for kitchen services and employ the household women for cooking. Equal opportunity for all the employees is considered (The Royal Family 2018)
Processes- the process of delivering of the service of the product to the customer is considered under this factor. The palace offers the visitors with a garden café including tea, coffee and pastries and with a shopping experience of art works and crafts inspired by the royal creation. The employees handle with care a range of all those events that take place in the palace.
Objectives
Physical evidence- This indicates the physical elements of the product for which the consumer is paying. The events including those for the tourist visitors, the education events that attract the schools and students to visit the palace and the museum which is available throughout the year are an effective program that helps to grab customers. The tour guides that enhance the experience of the complete tour of the palace also add to creating brand awareness. The royal household supporting the garden café promotes the food facility of the palace.
Conclusion
From the above discourse it can be concluded that the Buckingham palace situated in London attracts a wide range of visitors from domestic and international market. It takes upon various events to seek attention and popularize its brand awareness among the market. The destination and the history of the architecture is its biggest strength and the stiff timings of opening days are a weakness. The opportunity arises with the social media presence and the wider market open to welcome the visitors. The Buckingham palace focuses on the age group of almost all the groups concentrating on the students and their event programs to attract them. It maintains 600 staffs under it, to serve its visitors with the service. The Buckingham palace will effectively operate once the strategies are properly positioned and implemented in the palace. The execution of the 7P will help to efficiently increase the operations of the market. thus, it can be observed from the above that the plan of Buckingham palace will be successful with high rate of return in its revenue collection with only one main threat of the maintenance of the palace affecting the overall decisions. The scenario and the gardens, balconies and the entire architecture are a part of its strength and essential point of attraction.
References
Armstrong, G., Adam, S., Denize, S. and Kotler, P., 2014. Principles of marketing. Pearson Australia.
Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M. and Brennan, R., 2015. Marketing: an introduction. Pearson Education.
Craft, S.H. and Hassan, S.S., 2015. Global consumer market segmentation strategy decisions and managerial assessment of performance. In Revolution in Marketing: Market Driving Changes (pp. 26-30). Springer, Cham.
Hill, C.W., Jones, G.R. and Schilling, M.A., 2014. Strategic management: theory: an integrated approach. Cengage Learning.
Joffe, S.L., 2017. “The Little Hot-Bed of Fresco Painting”: Queen Victoria’s Garden Pavilion at Buckingham Palace. In Victoria’s Lost Pavilion (pp. 13-29). Palgrave Macmillan, New York.
Mishra, A., 2016. Psychographic segmentation.
Schwarzer, M., 2016. The Sources of Architectural Nationalism. In Nationalism and Architecture (pp. 41-60). Routledge.
Szolnoki, G. and Hoffmann, D., 2014. Consumer segmentation based on usage of sales channels in the German wine market. International Journal of Wine Business Research, 26(1), pp.27-44.
The Royal Family. 2018. Royal Residences: Buckingham Palace. [online] Available at: https://www.royal.uk/royal-residences-buckingham-palace [Accessed 31 Mar. 2018].
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