Travelodge UK: Competitive Advantages Essay.

Travelodge

Competitive advantages are referred as a condition which offers a company or country to manufacture a good or service at a lower price for customers. This strategy allows company to generate more revenues in a certain period of competition. It is an attributed to a number of elements involving brand, distribution network, intellectual property, support from customer and cost structure. It is a report which will focus on hotel of UK. It will be helpful to know the factor of attaining the competitive advantages. The description will be made in this report about the positioning of the organization to gain or maintained the competitive advantage. Along with that marketing strategy of tour travel lodge will be mentioned including porter's five models, target market analysis and positioning strategy. It will be helpful to make better understanding about the competitive advantages. Competitive advantages give an edge over Rivals and capability to produce higher value for a firm and its shareholders (Sutherland, 2014). It will describe the position of travel lodge in the UK in recent years and the recommendation will be provided to get success in next 2 to 5 years.

Travelodge hotel is considered as a private company which maintains its business in the sector of hospitality industry. It is the hotel which comes in the budget hotel sector and secured third position in the queue of biggest hotel chain in the UK due to its higher number of bedrooms that is 32600. There are so many facilities are provided by the hotel to the tourist such as free tea and coffee, LCD, Wi-Fi connection and en-suite bathroom. The size of the room in the hotel is wider in comparison of other hotel. The reviews of customers towards the hotel are good which seems that it is liked by many tourists to stay. The staff of the hotel is very friendly and supportive towards their client. It provides various menus in its restaurant which makes different from other hotel. The main quality of this restaurant is that it is nearby lots of restaurant, shopping centre and tourist place.

Figure 1: Travelodge

Source: (Travelodge, 2015).

Positioning is considered as a Marketing concept that determined what changes are required to the organization for its product and services to its customers. In the context of positioning, it builds an image for the services and product based on its targeted customer. This plan is outlined by the organization to utilization of price, place, product and promotion. Strategy of positioning demonstrates the efforts of marketing and facilities purchaser to move for the product and services of the organization. The main focus of the Travelodge is on positioning and to attain the more competitive advantages, Travelodge need to consider some concept such as target market analysis, positioning in advertisement, Positioning in sales location and positioning through prices (Baines, Crawford, Shaughnessy, Worcester, and Mortimore, 2014).

Human resource plays a crucial role in the hotel of Travelodge. It is required for the hotel to hire the staff with qualification and provide them training in proper manner. the HR staff of Travelodge need to give entire information, duties and responsibility about the hotel to the potential or new hired staff. It would be helpful for the hotel because once customer get happy from the services, they will definite come again. There is a software program of CRM hat would be helpful to retain the customer and make the positioning of hotel effective. It is the software which keeps all information about the customers such as birthdays and anniversary. By sending them the greetings, it will remember them about the visited place. Customer feedback is also vital for the hotel. Human resource need to take the feedback from the customers about the services, it will make them feel valued.

Positioning

The best initiation for positioning analysis is attaining knowledge about the Desire and demands of targeted market. By providing the efficient product and services as per the demand of the customers will be helpful for the organization to generate more revenues from the competitive advantage (Cox, 2015). Travel lodge need to organize a marketing team for developing a positioning statement which will facilitate organization to reach as much of the target market as possible.

Advertisement is the process to promote the particular product and services in the market. Travelodge need to determine that on which they are targeting and what kind of client is being met. The hotel should focus on the compatibility of the client while staying at the hotel. The services of the hotel should be different from others so that it can attract many customers from different areas.

Positioning is important for the Travelodge to determine that what kind of distribution channel they are choosing for promoting the services to the targeted market. To make better Positioning, Travelodge should consider some places where the demand of tourism at higher level, it would be helpful to make aware tourist about the place of travel lodge and their facilities for the clients (Janiszewska, and Insch, 2012).

Price is an important element for the marketing strategy. It has been observed by the Reserve that Travelodge is secure second positioning in budget hotel. For maintaining the positioning of the hotel, it can provide the different offers to the customer related to the services. It would attract various travelers to stay in the same Hotel.

The broken steps will be helpful to keep the concept as simple as possible but it is required a great deal of clarity and conviction to follow through. These steps will be helpful to know about the clarity component, but in the case of conviction that should be progressed internally if it doesn't already exist. It is essential for the marketers to know about the conviction of the organization because this process from beginning to the end brings degrees of certainty going ahead that cannot be substituted any other way (Sud, Friedrich, Adhikari, Taccone, Mancebo, Polli, Latini, Pesenti, Curley, Fernandez and Chan, 2014). There are 6 steps that can be followed by the Market Positioning.

Draft a positioning statement

The positioning statement will be helpful to travel lodge in the result of plugging those actuality about the formula sentence structure and basic.

Compare and contrast to recognize your own uniqueness

It is required for the Travelodge to make difference between the messaging strategy and the channel of communication, and all of your competitors disclose initiating in the target market that positioning of Travelodge’s message should address.

Competitor analysis

It would be helpful to Travelodge to determine the strength and weakness of its own business which is measured against the competition. By knowing distinguishes between organization and its competitor is Central to searching gaps in the selected market that can be filled.

Determine current position

Human Resource

It is important for the Travelodge to determine its existing market position because it is essential for the competitor analysis. It will give better idea about the positioning of the traveler in the market so that it would be able to compete (Gbadamosi, 2013).

Competitive positioning analysis

It is considered as an accessory for the competitor analysis. Competitive positioning analysis recognizes the situation of the market that impacts how much power competitors are able to exercise (Rothaermel, 2015).

Make a different positioning idea

All above analytical data will be helpful for travel lodge and it has a better idea of who it is, what is not and who its best customers are.

Michael Porter define the five forces of competitive position analysis that decide the intensity of competitive and effectiveness of a market which point out the place where are remains in the situation of business. The competitive positioning analysis will be helpful for travel lodge to know the elements that affect profitability in the market where it desire to compete. The analyzing data will also helpful for hotel to make decision concerning whether to enter a certain industry or new market or not. Porter's five forces contain supplier power, bargaining power of buyers, competitive rivalry, threat of substitution and threat of new entry (Porter, 2008).

Figure 2: Porter’s five forces

Source: (Solomon, 2014).

It is required for Travelodge to determine about the availability of finance for the project of hospitality. Skilled management and employees are necessary to compete with the competitors. Travelodge has various competitors who have skilled management and able to attract the customers. Competitiveness of food and beverage suppliers, energy and utilities can be considered in the bargaining power of supplier. It has been analyzed that there is a huge demand to increase the Global information and booking rooms and Restaurant capabilities in the industry of hospitality (Yunna and Yisheng, 2014). In comparison of other industries hotels are not only subject to the bargaining power of suppliers and pressurize on their competitiveness. It is required for the Travelodge to maintain a certain advantage of Cost over potential competitors. Suppliers can get more bargaining power when their products are essential input in the success of industry. The input of supplier is vital to the progress of the product and services of customer such as local tourist operator.

It has been mentioned by porter that the purchase of goods and services from the industry of hospitality may be strong if they are more focused in comparison of players in the same industry and can reduce the prices as well as the margin of industry. The buyer can buy in a huge volume from the industry, thus forcing down prices or enhance cost by demand for higher quality product and services (Clark, 2016). The group of certain buyer has bargaining power as an outcome of their focus on purchasing of hotel rooms. Domestic or International Airlines, tour operators and huge customer are considered in that group.

Michael Porter defined that substitute products is not existing product but also potential product and services which have the capacity to perform the same function. Substitute products are able to decrease the cost and provide the better quality performance which gives the result of technological innovation. The industry of hotel in all major cities is not threatened by the substitute product. There are certain changes such as domestic travel can take place of international travel and specific destinations can take place of more expensive ones on first ground. Thus, substitute products are able to perform the same function by reducing the court and provide with effective services due to advance in technology (Dolnicar and Leisch, 2017). It has been analyzed that there is no threat of substitute to a hotel's product and services. Hotels can have the powerful buyer if its strategy of marketing focuses on attracting tour groups.

Target market analysis

As per Michael Porter, threat of new entrants are demonstrated by barriers to entry that involve scale of economy which involve scope and size of needed operations to attain the viable cost structure and switching cost and customer loyalty which is build by quality and reliability. Hotel industry as per global is differentiated by high capital cost and proportion of certain cost to total cost. The scale of economy is considerable in the industry of Hotel. The high cost of capital need in comparison the outside the hotel project should be arranged to gain the most cost effective utilization of resources which should be applied to construction, equipment, finance and Furnishing (Dobbs, 2014). Travelodge fill their rooms as profitably as can, both by levels of room occupancy and applicable tariffs. There are two certain factors that are able to differentiate themselves are attractive location for the targeted market and the service quality.

Intensity of rivalry is based on the size and number of competitors and the balance between competitors may lead Organization in the way of intense competition. It is done due to the growth of business which is higher than the level of growth of the industry. The market share of rivalry becomes intense in the condition of lower product differentiation and switching costs. In the context of hotel industry, intense in certain cost specifically in Greater carrying cost Industries. In the part of rivalry, Travelodge has pressure to sell capacity through cutting price excluding holiday seasons and weekends. There are two kinds of barriers that is internal barrier and external barriers. The main reason of external barriers occurs because of strategic, economical and political factors which attains competitors in the same industry (Dolnicar and Leisch, 2017).

The position of Travelodge has been changed and the new formation done in recent year the improvement has been done in the form of wider rooms and restaurant facility. It provides food facility to their customer and offer prices of room in the budget of customer. Recently, the amendment is done in the Travelodge and its provide LCD and Wi-Fi facility to its customer.

Conclusion

It has been concluded that competitive strategy is necessary for the growth of the particular industry to attend the competitive advantages. Travelodge hotel has been taken in this report to analyze the competitive advantages. Positioning is an important element for the concept of marketing that describes what requirements are needed for the organization to its product and service. It helps to develop an image for the services and product which is based on its targeted customer. The certain step has been mentioned in this report to develop a market positioning. In the context of competitive positioning analysis, five forces model has elaborated which contains five forces model that is bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power of customers, threat of substitute, threat of New Market and competitive rivalry. The complete understanding has been made in the context of porter's five models which will be helpful for further study and to know about the competitive advantages in the term of travel lodge. To gain the positioning in the next 2 to 5 years, analyze the demand of the customers and make some amendment in a hotel. Travelodge should offer the various packages and shake hands with airline and huge customers. It would be beneficial for the clients when they will get all facility at one place such as food facility, accommodation, rental car return facilities and many more. It will be facilitated to maintain the positioning of hotel for a long period. Time flexibility should be there because it is not necessary for the visitors to come as per the visiting time, flexibility in time would bring the change in the hotel and most of the tourist who visit or arrive on odd time can prefer this hotel due to its accessibility. 

References

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