Marketing Management: Hobbiton

Hobbiton will gain advantage through the inbound operators as they will help in planning, selection of the product and look after the reservation of the customers. It will also help in bringing new components in the business by offering accommodation, transportation and meal packages for the tourists. These operators help by successfully operating in the domestic market and helps in targeting a certain section of people in the market. It will help the company by giving the products at value for money to the tourists. The operators will help in developing strategies that will help in increasing the inbound sales for the company (Benton, 2015).

The travel wholesalers will offer the same services as the tour operators will do for the company. The wholesalers can offer packages to the tourists of Hobbiton at a cheaper price that will help in getting more clients. They do not make the tour happen but helps in organizing the tours and get maximum clients for the company (Li et al., 2017).

The online travel agents will also help the company by acting as managers of the channels that will help the company to distribute its channels on various sites, which will help in reservation by the tourists. Another distribution plan will be direct contracting, as the agent will build a relationship with the tour operators (Organ, 2013).

A full-day trip of Hobbiton from Auckland would include the pickup facility from Turner Street, Fort Street or Darby Street within 9:30-10am and the drop-off to the same location will be done between 7:30-7:45pm. The tour will include the guide and the entrance fee to the park and will be done by walking. It excludes the food and drinks unless the tourist has booked it in advance. The tourist will receive the confirmation of the tour at the time of booking it and children needs to be accompanied by an adult.

The main highlights of the tour will include a full-day tour of the movie set, which will include the sightseeing of hobbit holes and various other sets from the movies The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. The tourists will get a complimentary drink at the Green Dragon Inn and the tourists will have lunch at Matamata. The tour of the movie set will approximately take two hours where the tourists can take photos in front of Bilbo Baggins’ hobbit hole and can hear the stories from the JRR Tolkien classic books (Ling, Guo & Yang, 2014).

There are many advantages and disadvantages of a tourism operator. The principal advantages are:

• The tour operators will invest in marketing, advertising, and other promotional activities so that it can help in attracting potential customers on a global scale and will help in retaining the existing customers as well.
• The online booking system is popular amongst the customers because they can compare the prices with other websites and apply for the best price that is available online. The customers can get benefits such as accommodation costs and various services that the tourism operators would like to offer to the customers (Benur & Bramwell, 2015).

The disadvantages are:

• The tour operators through online booking systems can charge commission on the sales that are being made to the customers and can range between 10-20 percent of the entire cost that is being taken from the customers.
• The imposing of terms and conditions by the tourism operators such as cancellation by the guest and reselling policies are available in the websites (Tribe, 2015). 

Reference List

Benton, N. (2015). Magic of New Zealand's Middle-earth. Australasian Leisure Management, (111), 38.

Benur, A. M., & Bramwell, B. (2015). Tourism product development and product diversification in destinations. Tourism Management, 50, 213-224.

Li, S., Li, H., Song, H., Lundberg, C., & Shen, S. (2017). The economic impact of on-screen tourism: The case of The Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. Tourism Management, 60, 177-187.

Ling, L., Guo, X., & Yang, C. (2014). Opening the online marketplace: An examination of hotel pricing and travel agency on-line distribution of rooms. Tourism Management, 45, 234-243.

Organ, M. K. (2013). 'Please Mr Frodo, is this New Zealand? Or Australia?'...'No Sam, it's Middle-earth.'.

Tribe, J. (2015). The economics of recreation, leisure and tourism. Routledge.