Marketing mix in travel and tourism

Thinking about Marketing Mix might sound a bit frightening when you think about what it is and everything that it covers, but when you understand what it all means it doesn't look as scary. At the moment I am an eighteen year old student studying Travel and tourism at college and on this blog I’ll hopefully be successful in teaching you all about marketing mix. 

So, first I’ll start with what Marketing mix is. Marketing mix is the main function in marketing. In the mix there are 4 P’s which are Product, price, place and promotion. They are used when a company is marketing a product and they use the 4 P’s as a guide for their planning. It’s like a life cycle on how companies market the products they have to sell; they use it before and after the product has been distributed. The first part of the cycle is deciding what product the company wants to sell, next they will start promoting the product to find out how much it interests the public, they will advertise it and sales will increase with the research they do and the developments they do on the product if it’s not what their customers are wanting. The third part of the cycle is deciding what location the product should be sold. They will need to choose the correct place to sell their product. For example they don’t want to be selling something really expensive in a location where research shows that the people living there don’t like spending a lot of money for things. When they find the correct place to sell the product the sales will rise. The final part is the price. This is when the possible sales target has been achieved but now sales slowdown because of competition products.  

A company needs to think about their product and how they will deliver it to the consumers. For example I will be using Virgin Atlantic throughout this blog and apply the 4P’s to Virgin Atlantic. Virgin’s main product is to sell luxury type flights and holidays across the world for their customers. Within the product there are some characteristics. A characteristic is what gives the products an identity making it stand out to people. The characteristics for Virgin are the red colour that’s always been used, it’s a recognised name around the UK, the full service, scheduled flights they offer and the professional and unique image they have created and kept. Since Virgin was founded in 1984 there have been changes in the brand to make it more suitable for their customers and to keep up with the trends and new aircraft. By doing this they have gained more customers as they have done what their customers want to make it better. Personally I think it’s a good idea that they are fitting in with trends and expanding the company as they will gain more customers who want to go on the new types of aircraft etc. The company logo writing hasn't changed since they were founded as it is still on the tails of the aircraft and the brand is still full service and a luxury brand. 

When a company is pricing their products they will need to think about the market they are going to sell it in. customers will always want more for their money and to get what they want. This is why Virgin offer deals and have sales to bring more custom and keep everyone happy to make them feel like they’re getting more for their money. They have discounts for people who have their frequent flyer programme and they have advertisements which gets them more business (virgin advertisement here) The pricing market for Virgin is mainly for people who can afford the luxury brand as the holidays aren't exactly cheap but it’s a full serviced flight, but when they have discounts on they may get a different range of customers flying with them as they might be able to afford it. On their website they have a page which shows all the low fare holidays they have to offer such as a flight to Australia in economy from £847 and Florida holidays from £549. Virgin offer these discounted holidays as well as their luxury brands to compete with other luxury airlines such as emirates. Virgin travels all over the world but their headquarters is in Crawley, UK and their main operating bases are Gatwick airport, London Heathrow and Manchester airport. 

      

Next, there’s the Channel of distribution. This is where companies sell their products. Virgin mainly sells their holidays through the internet for their customers to book online. They also have call centres so holidays can be booked through telephone and there are a few virgin travel agents around the country for people to go in and book as well as other travel agents where they sell virgin holidays as well as their own.  They also have brochures that people can order online or can pick up in a travel agent.

Promotion is when a company advertises their product and services to the public to make it a known product. They want to try and target current customers as well as potential customers. Virgin promotes their holidays and deals in advertisements, social networking sites, radio and magazines to gain customers and to compete with other brands. Without promotion Virgin may lose customers and would have a lot of competition against other airlines as they will be ahead of them from promoting. But all their methods of advertising costs except from social networking sites and free ads where they can advertise their brands for free. They can also email their current customers about their new deals.

So I think that’s about all you need to know about marketing mix in virgin! Hope I helped you out a bit here! :)