Strategic Marketing and Marketing in Specific Industry Contexts - Case Study Example

RESEARCH REPORT MAY 2013 Executive summary This study is was about finding out more about the clients of Yerragon village and their experiences. The findings were to be used in improving the services offered to the clientele. The study involved a total of 427 respondents. The study grouped the respondents according to the social nature of travel with majority of the respondents indicating that they visited as spouses. The respondents were also asked about their family background and it was found that majority were spouses without children at home. The most common transport mean to the facility was found to be use of personal cars with 94.1 of the respondents falling into the group. The clientele of Yerragon were found to be locals as 98.5% indicated that they were from Australia. This research used descriptive statistics to investigate on some of the variables like overall satisfaction, the frequency of visit and expected length of stay where the mean, standard deviations were some of the important outputs that were given. Other variables which were analyzed by descriptive statistics were expenditure by the respondents on accommodation, retail and food and beverage with the mean values being found to be 285, 82.65 and 32.47 respectively. an investigation on customer information sources revealed that 72.45 of the respondents did not get the information about the village from any particular information disseminating source the but were well aware of the facility well before. The respondents were asked about their purpose of visiting Yerragon and it was that the leading purpose was food and beverage buying at 48.7% then rest stop at 28.85 and shopping was at 26.6% followed by other reasons. Correlation test was done on some of the variable and a positive significant correlation was found between the expected length of stay and the amount the respondents were to spend on food and beverages. Another test that was done was t-test which indicated that there was a significant difference in the ages of men and female the male having a higher value of 4.75 and the female having a lower value of 4.24 with the ages being grouped with the lowest group of 15 years to 25years having a value of one and the highest age of above 70 being ranked 7. The study concluded that the facility had a lot of potential that had not been fully exploited. There was need to promote Yerragon village beyond its local neighborhood and beyond Australia. The services were to be improved as currently the services were ranked as being average by the respondents. Introduction When any company launches their product their aim is to increase their market share. The success of the products and services offered is highly dependant on the nature of market that is being targeted (Kuester, 2012). The consumers are varied in terms of their purchase behavior. It is upon the marketer to find out the unique need of their customers (Scott, 1991). For this to become a reality an in-depth study is usually necessary which usually involves external and internal environment study of the customers as this is beneficial in formulating market plans (Sandhusen, 2000). The behavior of the consumer involve all processes involved in decision making and also the physical aspects that are part of he acquisition, evaluation, utilization and also the disposal of the goods and the services (Scott A. & Terry O. ,1971). The behavior of the consumer is to be viewed as a function with numerous influences on marketing and also on the process of purchasing. The process of purchasing any products and services originates in the mind of the consumers which has a bearing on what the consumer will end up making as their choice this being highly dependant on the relative demerits and merits (Khosla, S. , 2010). Also the way the consumer behaves after purchasing the goods or services is also of great importance as this acts as an information source to the marketer regarding the success of the project (Hirsh, et al, 2012). There have been various studies which have been done on purchase of new products with varied opinions being generated. The behavior of the consumer is regarded as a very important with regards to product consumption and they involve both the physical activities and also the decision making processes (Blackwell, et al, 2006). The consumer of a product will always be seen as having many dimensions and being complex and dynamic (Foxall, 2005). If all these are put into consideration it is upon the organization to look for appropriate strategies that will make them have competitive advantage. This scenario shows that the channel to be used by any company to be very important when it comes to determining the success of the product in the market (Kardes F. R. et al, 2011). It is therefore, upon the company formulate and implement a sound marketing strategy as the behavior of the customer will definitely determine the perceived customer value. The strategy of marketing that is to be adopted will need to include the analysis of the market, strategy formulation and decision making. Before decision are made there is need for recognition of the problem, information need to be searched fully and evaluated with the selection procedure being next and all this bearing in mind the decision that has to be made by the consumer of the product. The way the consumer behaves after the product consumption is dependant on the level of satisfaction they will have experienced from the product (Laermer, R., 2007). This research particularly involves services and product offered in hospitality industry. The research was done in Yarragon village and the respondents were asked to highlight their experience and these were to help in improving the services offered to the customers. Results From table 1 it is observed that the highest group of visitors is spouses with a contribution of 35.8% contribution in the second rank are those who visit as family followed closely with those who travel alone with percentage contribution of 25.0% and 23.3% respectively. Table 1 Travel Group Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid Alone 99 23.2 23.3 23.3 Spouse or partner 153 35.8 36.1 59.4 Family 106 24.8 25.0 84.4 Friends 66 15.5 15.6 100.0 Total 424 99.3 100.0 MissingSystem 3 .7 Total 427 100.0 In table two the family background of the respondents has been given. In the table 51.3% of the respondents were found to be couples who do not have children at home while 16.5 were couples singles who had under 16 year old children. The least group represented was those who shared a house with no children with 8.8% representation. Table 2 Family composition at home Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid Live alone 61 14.3 14.8 14.8 Shared house with no children (e.g. friends) 36 8.4 8.8 23.6 Couple without children at home 211 49.4 51.3 74.9 Couple or single adult with children under 16 years 68 15.9 16.5 91.5 Other 35 8.2 8.5 100.0 Total 411 96.3 100.0 Missing System 16 3.7 Total 427 100.0 Cross tabulation of variables and chi-square Table 3 gives the details of type of travel group the respondents belong to and their family composition. From the table it can be seen that a total of 96 respondents travelled alone 25 0f which happen to live alone, 40 were couples without children. From the row giving the details of spouse or partner it can be seen that those who live alone and indicated that they travelled as spouse or partner 6 , those who travelled as spouse or partner and were couples without children 109 this being 74.7% of this travel group. There were a total of 146 respondents who travelled as spouses or partners and this was 35.7% of all the respondents. The chi square table clearly indicated that there is a relationship between the travel group of the respondents and family composition with a chi square value of 79.015 (P0.05) and thus the null hypothesis (There is no significant difference in frequency of visit between male and female) is accepted while the alternative hypothesis is rejected. For the test on overall satisfaction the mean score for male on level of satisfaction is slightly higher at a score of 4.55 as compared to 4.49 for the female counter parts. The difference is not significant as revealed in table 12 where t (380) =.668 (p>0.05). From this result the null hypothesis is accepted while rejecting the alternative hypothesis. When considering age the male are seen to have a higher mean age than the female with scores of 4.75 and 4.24 respectively. This difference is statistically significant t (383) = 3.327 (p Read More