Marketing Strategies And Performance Of Intrepid Travel Essay.

1. Describe the marketing background of the company that includes key information about the industry indicating where the company fits and/or positions itself paying special attention to sustainable practices- environment, society, resources use, etc

2. Describe and analyse the following marketing strategies used by the company

Target Customers and Specialization

The current report will discuss about the marketing strategies and marketing background of Intrepid Travel. This is one of the major organization in the travel and tourism industry of Australia, which is considered to be the largest company in organizing small group of adventure tourism. The marketing plan that are implemented will be on the basis of that will help to maintain sustainability within the market. The marketing mix element will be used as a major part of the marketing strategy, which is helps to decide upon marketing policy. The 4Ps of the marketing element will be used to decide upon few of the important parameters of marketing that will include pricing and the promotion strategies.

The report will also compare the business performance of Intrepid travel with that its closet and biggest rival. It will therefore be possible to provide proper strategies to deal with the marketing issues and maintain sustainability and competitive advantage within the business environment.

Intrepid Travel is one of the biggest travel and tourism organization of the world, who specialized in the department of adventure tourism. The company have more than 1500 itineraries tour that are organize across 120 nations. Most of the tours are conducted in the small adventure groups. Hence, the company offers wide ranges of choice for the clients. Some of the top destinations for the company includes Latin America, Asia, Europe, Australia, Middle East regions and also that of in Antarctica. Headquarter of the organization is located in Melbourne and currently over 1600 people are employed (de Grosbois 2016).

One of the elements for the competitive advantage of for the company is due to the fact that it offers different adventure tourism packages in some of the rarest parts of the world. The company also conducts essential marketing research activities that help them to deal with the latest trends in the sector of adventure tourism. The company believes in providing detailed ad accurate information to the clients, which help them to make decisions about choosing their destination of visit. This is believed to be one of the effective ways that are maintained by the company to deal with sustainability of the business. The company also offers the program of destination management that helps the company to provide high level of professional service and that are needed as a part of the tourism planning. This is believed to be one of the effective ways to understand the business environment of the any particular destination of tourism (Buchmann 2017). The environmental impact of the destination can also be decided and it is helping the company to reach out to all potential customers. It is also possible for the company to have effective level of business partnership with the local stakeholders that includes the tourism department of the respective nation.

Marketing Mix and Product

The company also introduced the concept of digital detox that is one of the effective ways implemented to improve upon the level of communication used to provide information to the customers. This tool uses the methods for digital and social media network as the platform of spreading the useful information that is needed to spread the popularity of each categories of tour. This also one of the effective ways to reach out to wider range of audience in the society. Hence, the usage of the digital service is believed to be one of the effective ways to promote the tourism service.

The target group of customers for the company mainly includes the people of young age and adventure lovers. The company also targets the sports person, who are also enthuastic about the group adventure tourism, most of which are associated with adventure sports (Dwyer et al. 2013). With the help of the effective forms of business communication, it is always possible for the company to capture a significant part of the adventure tourism industry at the global scale. Effective supply chain also helps the company to provide their service to customers all around the globe. Being the biggest market share holder if its domain, the Intrepid travels enjoys a healthy competitive advantage. 

The Intrepid travel uses the policy of marketing mix as an important part of marketing strategy.  According to Armstrong et al. (2015), the marketing mix strategy consist of various controllable elements that can be modified by business organization according to their marketing plan. Company can also change the parameters depending upon the change in the external business environment. The marketing mix policy can also help to execute the exact plan of business.

The following are the major elements of marketing mix

The product is a primary and most important part of the marketing mix element. In case of Intrepid travel, the primary product is provided in the form of tourism service. The company mainly focuses upon the adventure tourism services that is schedule in all parts of the globe in around 120 Nations. The company also provide all type of equipment and materials that are needed for conducting adventure tourism in the form of adventure sports. The specialty of the service that are provided by Intrepid travel is about conducting small group tour packages. Hence, it is possible for the customers to have customize the plan of the tour. With wide ranges of choices in the planning, it is possible for the company to provide a diverse range of services to the customers.

Pricing Strategy

The tourism products that are sold by the company includes that all types of equipment and materials needed for the conducting the adventure sports and tourism. In order to maintain product sustainability, it is essential to maintain a fixed quality within the service. According to Zeriti et al. (2014), sustainable product or service can we define as a company's offering that can satisfy the need of target customer groups. The quality of service or product should reflect the high reputation of a brand value. It is also the social duty of the company to improve the quality of social life and environment by providing the perfect type of service. In case of Intrepid Travel, it is highly essential to consider the diverse range of options that available to the customers while deciding upon their tour packages. The company also has strong infrastructure provide wide ranges of information that are needed to attract the adventure lovers.

Maintaining effective level of supply chain is also one of the important parameters for sustainability in product or service quality. Hence, it is essential for the company to ensure that the service or product are being inaccessible to all groups of people (Borland and Lindgreen 2013).

It is highly essential for a company to introduce effective pricing strategy. This parameter is determined by the quality of product or service that are provided by company. It is also important to consider the parameters like the manufacturing cost and demand level of the product in the external policy before implementing the same in practice (Helm and Gritsch 2014).

The cost of the tourism service of Intrepid travel is highly dependent upon the local expense of a region, what the adventure tourism are being conducted. It is important to mention that being one of the top Organization in the adventure tourism industry the company can implement effective and premium pricing policy. This is needed to provide top quality and luxury services that have high demand in all parts of the globe. The company also implements value based pricing strategy that are needed to deal with the issues related to that the safety of the clients as many activities within the adventure tourism includes high level of risks (Wilson 2015).

It is highly essential for a business firm to include the plan of economic or competitive pricing strategy. This is considered to be highly effective in maintaining business sustainability as it will help to minimize the threat from competitive rivals. It is important for the company to analyze the external business environment, which can help them to bring about changes in the pricing strategies according to the change of the demand level in the market. The price differentiation characteristic is considered to be Highly Effective to maintain the level of competitive advantage in a respective industry (Khan 2014).

Promotion Strategy

With the help of promotion strategy, it is possible for the company to provide proper form of information to target group of customers. The Intrepid travel mainly used the channel of online media for carrying out most of their promotional activities. Most of the promotional strategies implemented by the company are mainly aimed to gain significant competitive advantage. It is also important to note that most of the issue related to that of poor level of sale can be recovered with the help of effective promotional strategies (Rezaei et al. 2018).

In order to maintain sustainability, it is important for the promotional strategy to influence upon the public opinion and change their perspective of making buying decision. Effective promotional strategies can also help the customers to change their perception and Lifestyle depending upon the quality of product or service. Davari and Strutton (2014), have added that effective promotional strategies need to focus upon addressing the environmental and social issues that is a major cause of concern for all major business organization. Proper sustainable marketing strategy also need to promote credibility as a part to increase the range of customer group. It is therefore essential to improve upon the trustworthy level of the customer, which will help to ensure that the company is able to retain them for longer period. In case of Intrepid travel, it is essential for them to introduce new type of promoting strategy along with effective supply chain management (Li et al. 2014).

The Intrepid Travel follows the strategy of Green advertising marketing, which is aimed to promote the factors that will help in the protection of environment in most of the travel destinations. This also helps to improve the level of awareness of the tourist to enjoy and ensure maximum possible safety for the environment. The products are also prepared in environment friendly manner that will cause minimum harm to the local community.

Effective level of business communication is also believed to be one of the essential part of Sustainable promotional strategies (Kumar and Christodoulopoulou 2014). The company need to have open form of communication, which can provide rich and detailed information to the clients and convince them in choosing the service. One of the effective way to convince the client is to use premium quality in the service and use different kinds of well-known labels that is needed to provide certification to the brand name. The customers are also encouraging to use recycle product, which is believed to be one of the effective part of Green Marketing strategy.

Green Advertising Marketing

One of the important factor for success in business is to have the right product or service in right place. It is often highly critical for a business organization to select the proper place for making sales (Kraus et al. 2016). The adventure tourism surface of Intrepid Travel spread in over 120 Nations all around the globe. This is believed to be one of the effective strategy that is implemented by the company in order to maintain sustainability of business. As the service is spread across different nations, it is possible for the company to maintain sustainability in business.

Effective use of supply chain and logistics are also one of the essential criteria for maintaining business sustainability (Rishi et al. 2015). It is also essential to use effective conventional approach for distribution management. This can help the company in proper distribution of the service and ensure that the customers are able to enjoy the same independent tourist destination. The price of tourism service can also vary depending upon the local place. It is essential for the company to arrange the service depending upon the local demography and expense.

Adventure Tours Australia and Peregrine Adventures are two of the biggest rivals of the Intrepid Travel. Nevertheless, the biggest competitive advantage for Intrepid Travel is due to the fact that the company is able to maintain premium quality of adventure tourism service and also provide a wide range of choices to the customers. In the aspect of service quality and pricing strategy the company is quite ahead compared to its nearest rivals.

Intrepid travel captures nearly 34% of the total tourism market in Australia. This is almost 2 times more market share compared to that biggest rival in the respective sector (Rice 2014). In spite of the fact that the pricing level of the company is high, it is important to consider about the fact that service quality of the company and premium quality of rating they are able to provide the best available service to the clients (Voyer, et al. 2017).

In respect of the positioning map of marketing Intrepid travel is the only company in the tourism sector, which is positioned in the sector of high price and high quality. This is mainly possible due to the premium quality of service.  

Recommendations and Conclusion

It is highly recommended for the company to improve upon their plan of Sustainable development within the business. It is also essential to deal with the issues of environmental degradation that is believed to be one of the major threat to the adventure tourism industry. Maintaining effective level of safety can also help them to improve upon their service quality.

Business Communication

In order to maintain the sustainability of the environment, the adventure tourism company need to make effective choice for travel destination and use environmental friendly way of transportation. This will help to minimise the total amount of carbon emission and carbon footprint due to their business activities. Using of Eco Friendly materials as a part of their product sales and avoiding materials like plastic bags and high amount of energy consumption is also highly recommended. The company can also use recycled product in order to minimise the overexploitation of natural resources in any tourist destination (Baumgartner 2014).

Providing detailed information as a part of the promotional campaign can also be effective in raising the level of awareness within the customers.

Hence, it can be concluded that due to the effective marketing policies and sustainability in the business planning, it is possible Intrepid travel to be gain significant competitive advantage in the tourism sector.   

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