Marketing Audit for Hilton Hotels and Resorts

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MARKETING AUDIT FOR HILTON HOTELS AND RESORTS

Group Assignment

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History of innovation:                                                                                                                

When Mr. Conrad Hilton bought his first hotel in the year of 1919 everything began in the world of hospitality and hotel. From there on wards he and his crew put them self in front line in order to create a creative and innovative approach and handling to the hotel brand, service and appliances. Due to this approach today Hilton group of hotels leads as one of the stylish, global and creative thinking units in the market place.

Brand History in different eras:

• 1927: Waco Hilton opens its first ever air-conditioning room with cold air filter.
• 1947: The Roosevelt Hilton New York celebrated its success in installing Television in market as the first brand.
• 1948: Multi Hotel reservation systems were introduced in all Hilton associated hotels and it is still followed in the modern days.
• 1950:first amenity kit for its female traveller was established with sewing kit and book of contacts in emergency

• 1957: Brand wide telephone service and booking was introduced
• 1959: Hilton’s first airport hotel was introduced and opened in San Francisco.
• 1973: first centralised reservation service was introduced
• 1987: guest loyalty programme was introduced
• 2008: Hilton Vancouver Washington gets registers Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) and Green Seal certified.

Source: (Hilton Worldwide , 2015)

Brand to fit the lifestyle of everyone:

Aiming to support and cater all sorts of life styles and occasion in order to plant and firm its brand name in the industry of hospitality and hotel sector has been Hilton’s modern dilemma. They tend to focus in the means of luxury, full service, focused service and life style canopy in order to add creativity and innovation to its employees and customers.

Marketing environment Audit:

According to a set of demographic market segmentation that include gender, age, social class, income and life cycle stage. Base on those information, the target customer of Hilton is upper social class with middle and high level income and senior aged person. In addition, the main target of Hilton Hotels & Resorts is the person who pursue luxury life. Therefore, the Hilton will charges high price for their products and services with high quality (Dudovskiy, 2013).

Based on an article (Demography-challenges and opportunities in a changing world, 2011) that there are two main challenges posed by demographic changes in Hilton Hotel.

Changes in the workforce:

Recently, a decreasing of the working age population has been observed in some developed countries, and it will be intensified in the next few years. In the EU, the working age population will reduce about 15% in the next 50 years. However, this is not only happened in developed countries, but also in developing countries, such as China. “Elderly people in China are projected to triple from 8% to 24% between 2006 and 2050, to a total of 322 million” (Demography-challenges and opportunities in a changing world, 2011). Therefore, the gaps of employment and skills will become dramatically in different industries, and the economic growth and productivity will be also decreased.

Changes in the customer base:

In some developed countries, the purchasing power will be reduced by elder population, so the products and services should create for demand of aging consumers. However, in developing countries, the products and services should consider about lower income customers, in order to increase purchasing power. In all markets, the trend is more obvious in economics, the consumers have higher income and spending power, and it leads to people prefer luxury products and services.

According to the above challenges, Hilton adopts some methods to deal with their threats. First of all, staff training is a good way to keep their employees, because training is able to help employee to gain knowledge and job skill which provide feeling of confidence. Moreover, through a good training, employees are not only gaining knowledge and skills, but also they will be able to occupy vacancies at the higher level (Ahammad, 2013).

Secondly, in order to keep their customer loyalty, Hilton has a HHonors program that provides member benefits for their membership. There are four types of card, include blue, silver, gold and diamond. Each card has its features, such as late check-out, express check-in, select customer room preferences or second guest stays free (Member benefits, n.d.).

Since Hilton is a worldwide hotel, there is an article (Dudovskiy, 2015) that base on Hilton in the UK to analyses its economic factors. In the UK, National macroeconomic situation is the main factor to influence Hilton Hotels & Resorts business. For instance, during the 2012 Olympic Game in the UK, most of hotels had been booked, but this kind of situation was totally different since the Olympic Game finished. Moreover, the exchange rate of GBP with other main counties’ currency and inflation rate are also the major factors to impact Hilton business.

According to the “Travel with Purpose of Hilton” that the company created a Light Stay, which is a system and framework of sustainability measurement. The Light Stay is able to help Hilton Hotels responds to the challenges and opportunities in different levels. Since 2008, the Light Stay had developed to analyse, report and calculate on Hilton Hotel performance. In addition, through the Light Stay, the Hilton Hotels keeps improving sustainability and economic performance, moreover, the Hilton Hotel has saved more than $147 million in utility costs (Travel with purpose, 2012).

Hilton Worldwide has signed a three year commitment with World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to decrease their influence on the environment. WWF as signature environment partner of Hilton Hotel, they are going to work with Hilton to develop their global business practices. “The collaboration also will further WWF's mission to protect and conserve the Earth's life-supporting resources by making the hospitality industry more sustainable” (Staley, 2015.). Nowadays, more and more Hilton Hotels have contributed to decrease waste and save water as their target.

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