Market Opportunities At Thorpe Park

Role and functions of marketing at Thorpe Park

1. Explain the role and purpose of marketing
2. Understand the different forms of Market Research that can be used for Thorpe Park. Discuss Primary and Secondary research and how this is used effectively in Thorpe Park
3. Explain a product in Thorpe Park and the ways in which it is:
• Priced
• Promoted
• Placed
4. Explain the main features of a Marketing plan relate this to Thorpe Park and how they plan ahead for new rides.

Thorpe Park is an amusement park that has been built to develop customer experience and there is a lot of things that are to be built up on the park itself. Just like other companies Thorpe Park also has marketing, health and safety, human resources, administrative and finance activities as well. The majority of the business and its assigned roles are on a permanent basis and they combine all the different challenges and the variety with a view of having fantastic scope so that the business can progress their career even if the environment seem quite interesting to them.

The business park also offers a number of behind the scenes roles that are important to run the park efficiently. There are more than 1000 staff that looks after the park every day for smooth running of the park. The commercial business support department manages the stock ordering operation and warehousing facilities that ensure that the commercial teams of the park have the right products at the right times. Finally the cash office is an essential element in the operational context of the park that generates the work every day. According to the authority of the park people those who are working outside the park are also entertained like the other people those who are working here in the management authority as well. They mainly focus on satisfying their customers so that they can bring in more profit for the amusement park and also the families can recommend it to ensure higher quality of the customer services. The employees are expected to be paid highly and some of them also expect good rate of pay. They expect that their salary must be at par with the level of work that they are doing. The employees in turn also expect better promotional opportunities so that they do not have to remain in the same position for a longer span of time. According to the management authority of Thorpe park the customers are made to feel confident within themselves so that the customers are satisfied with the services being offered by the tickets that the customers are buying at a high price from them (Cacciolatti and Fearne, 2013).

Different forms of market research and their use in Thorpe Park

Thorpe Park had used various forms of market research techniques that includes qualitative research, quantitative research, primary and secondary research techniques also to help to analyze their growth and development and their strong business objectives as well.

Qualitative research: Qualitative data is that form of data which is used for adding extensive meaning and experience to the business. When Thorpe park was developing their new ride which is known as ‘The Swarm’ the management authority had used qualitative research because they wanted to see and analyze what the public think about their upcoming new ride and also gain feedback against it if any further improvement was required against it. Thorpe Park strategized and asked people to create small groups known as focus groups and then let them decide about their new ride ‘The swarm’.

Quantitative Research:

This method involves using a pre-set questions among a large group of people so that they can provide statistically valid data that they can interpret uniquely. Thorpe Park has used quantitative research techniques to find out the most popular rides in the park and also to check the rates of the tickets. They also found out strategies to invent few more new rides. They used data collected by them to see how many people did visit Thorpe park during the year 2011 and also they got a  view to analyze the opinion of the customers and they thought that this was the best time to release their new ride ‘the swarm’ in their business.

Primary research: this research technique involves gathering of first hand data which is considered to be tailor made according to the firm’s own products and services that are being offered by the market. Thorpe Park did used primary research while collecting information from the customers about having a particular brand name associated with the business as well (Lin, Venkataraman and Jap, 2013).

Secondary research: Secondary research involves all about gathering information which already exists in the market from various other external sources. For example government reports this type of research is also known as desk research. They have used this type of data to find out what the other theme parks are offering in terms of the prices that are been offered by the other theme parks as well. Thorpe Park uses secondary research as it seems cheaper and quicker. They have used this against looking at the reviews that have been offered and also suggest ways to the Swarm to help to improve it.

Marketing mix of The Swarm ride

The Swarm is characterized mainly as a steel wing coaster that is designed at the Thorpe park which is considered to be a theme park in United Kingdom. The Swarm was the world's second Wing Coaster designed by Swiss roller coaster manufacturer Bolliger & Mabillard and the United Kingdom's first Wing Coaster. Construction commenced in May 2011, and the coaster opened on 15 March 2012.Starting in 2013, the last two rows of each train face backwards, while the first five rows face forward.

The 775-metre-long (2,543 ft) ride stands 39 meters (128 ft) tall and features five inversions. On the one-minute twenty-five second ride, riders experience speeds of up to 59 miles per hour (95 km/h) and 4.5 times the force of gravity. A marketing campaign for the ride began 11 months before The Swarm was opened to the public. The ride has generally been well received, ranking highly amongst other roller coasters of its type.

The four Ps involves the following marketing mix for the Swarm ride.

Product: the ride has been strategically been organized in the theme park. The park is supposed to have been built in an extremely thrilling way that have led to the development of the park uniquely and in a proportionate way. There are various other events been organized by the management authority of Thorpe Park. Families can come here and enjoy together along with several rides. Sometimes the park gives annual passes at the end of every year. The park also organizes food and drink facility for the park authority so that they can retain their employees as well (Huh and Park, 2010).

Place: the ride is been strategized along with niche market profiling. The market seeks to have all the thrill seekers and audiences from all over the country. It is considered to be a park of the UK’s thrill capital and the riders enjoy the ride with huge excitement and fun.

Price: The pricing strategy for the ride is been done to target the volume of masses from all over the country. All the costs associated such as development costs and overheads costs involved are all added along with the entry fee of the theme park along with the rides as well. The pricing is been compared with football matches ticket prices as well. Fas track is considered to be the biggest margin driver among them.

Promotion: Promotion was been done through on site and also using local as well as national strategies. Various online strategies were also been used to promote the products and insist large number of customers to visit the park (Kim et al., 2013).

Marketing plan for Thorpe Park

Complaints are considered not only as bad publicity or negative feedback. They could be used also as a tool to improve and further development the product, service and its quality resulting in better visitor experience. The challenge would be related to managing variety of aspect and combining it into one system, which creates final outcome - happy customer. Such approach should consist elements of interrelated levels: human resources, operations and high quality of service. Such complex would create environment for positive attitude and feelings of the visitor towards the attraction.

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