The report is prepared to discuss about the channels of distribution within the tourism and hospitality sector in Australia. The topic will present about the distribution theory consisting of how the price discrimination can be helpful for influencing the buying behaviors of the customers. The report also presents relevant information about the distribution channels through which the products and services are made available in the market along with the integration of technology to improve the overall efficiency. Lastly, the emerging channels of distribution will be illustrated in this report as well for achieving the core outcomes (brightonsavoy.com.au, 2018).
In the context of hospitality and tourism, there are various channels of distribution used to make the products and services available for the consumers in the marketplace. A proper and successful distribution channel management strategy could allow the hotel named Brighton Savoy Hotel to sell inventories at the highest rate possible, furthermore make reservations for the guests at a lower cost. This might be a daunting task, though the carious distribution channel options available should be considered and how it could be integrated with the sales model with ease and effectiveness. This would also enable using the terms operators and suppliers interchangeably, furthermore designate the suppliers of the tourism and hospitality according to the production of products and services for the customers. The channels of distribution within the tourism and hospitality sector included call centers and travel agencies (Law, Buhalis & Cobanoglu, 2014). The new distribution channels are travel agents and even act as intermediaries between the properties and global distribution system for Brighton Savoy Hotel, Australia. The hotel has a call centre that provides extensive customers’ services. The centralized call centers within the hotel companies could allow for providing consistent services and reduce the costs of managing business operations perfectly, furthermore promote management and training aspects for ensuring successful mergers and acquisition too.
The main products of the hotel company are accommodation services, food and hospitality services along with providing services that can fulfill the leisure needs and preferences. Brighton Savoy Hotel offers exclusive wedding packages to manage events where large numbers of guests can visit and enjoy during their stay (Cooper, 2013). There are event packages, Christmas lunch and dinner, New Year lunch and dinner along with food services at special occasions. The hospitality services are excellent because of the weddings, conferences, functions and the seaside view of the restaurant can make the customers satisfied and gain positive mindset regarding the organization. According to the distribution channel theory, the hotel should pay for the expenses, understand the costs, and mark up needs. Prime discrimination is a major aspect of the theory where the hotel must offer discounts and offers to attract the purchasers and keep consistent communication with them making them believe that they are being value and so prices are differentiated as well. A distribution channel must include the market price for the products and services so that the customers could pay the right amount, neither more nor less (Thakran & Verma, 2013).
The hotel companies consist of call centers that could provide consistent customers’ services as well as reduce the overall costs of operations and furthermore manage the human resources properly through training and development programs provided to the individuals. The different call centers include CRS reservation facilities that could act as intermediaries between the channels and the property management system or PMS. Brighton Savoy Hotel has provided third party call centers, who could communicate with the customers as well as make them handle the incoming calls, furthermore make them know about the ways by which they would be able to obtain the services and products offered by the organization. The centralized call centers have different types of call centers that manage CRS reservations and at the same time, provided central reservation services for the companies that do not have access to CRS (Schuckert, Liu & Law, 2015). There are both lower yield and higher yield travelers in the individual business segment where the lower yield travelers could book the rooms and avail the accommodation services all throughout the year whereas the higher yield segments would be generated from OTAs and using hotel booking engine. The distribution of products and services within the tourism and hospitality industry would also be possible by understanding the offline and online channels (Leung et al., 2013). The online distribution channels were managed by OTAs with the use of direct booking engine and by involving social networking websites. The offline channels for distribution could include reservation services provided according to voice interactions over phone or by email conversations and chats too. The offline channels, on the other hand, should consider collaborating with the voice reservation services along with the tour operators and wholesalers for checking out the prices, scopes and opportunities and activities for the upcoming trips (Brotherton, 2015).
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Strengths · The hotel companies also manage distribution of products and services both offline and online. · The business mix optimization could identify the different segments of travelers who would like to book at the property, furthermore enable diversification of business mix and ensuring optimization of the distribution strategy. · The company has focused on the online tourism and hospitality by including the OTAs and managed direct booking engine to accommodate the travelers in their suitable rooms. |
Weaknesses · The individuals who are less knowledgeable about the use of internet can find it difficult to book hotels online · The online reservations and bookings do not always show the exact prices of products and services. |
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Opportunities · The growing popularity of Internet usage for the businesses has increased the numbers of people who utilize the platforms for online shopping in tourism and hospitality sector. · GDS bookings could also be useful for managing the demand and supply requirements and attract more customers too. |
Threats · Rise of competitors in the hospitality and tourism sector. · Improper payments and transactions while paying online sometimes could be another threat. |
Figure: SWOT analysis (Brotherton, 2015)
Other than the desktop computers and laptops nowadays, the use of smart phones has allowed them to book the hotels and make travel related arrangements properly at Brighton Savoy Hotel. The hotel company maintains a proper website where the various products and services offered are presented and this has created ease for the customers to purchase the core services. It is also beneficial for the company to distribute its products and services in different market segments, furthermore has made the company influence its customers by making them know about the company products through assessment of information provided in the content of the company’s webpage (Riley, 2014). Social media platforms are considered as other effective platforms where the company has made them aware of the products and services offered. While surfing Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, people often would like to go through the services once those pop up o the screen and they would be guided to the main website managed by the hotel company. This would increase the number of visitors in the website and should make more people aware of the products and services offered, furthermore influence their buying behaviors and attitudes too. With the huge competitive in the marketplace, Brighton Savoy Hotel has could also use Property Direct as an effective booking channel for the management of meetings, contract formation and walk-in to compare between the different hotel segments. GDS bookings are other ways of distributing the products and services and meeting the demands and supply requirements for the tourism and hospitality sector as well (Legohérel, Fyall & Poutier, 2013).
There are various ways by which the technological applications and information technology have been integrated to optimize the operational efficiency within the tourism and hospitality industry. Tourism and hospitality are social phenomena and the hotels within he sector are associated with the various information technology systems and applications for marketing the products and services along with making people aware of those to influence their buying behaviors. By making investments in the information technology, Brighton Savoy Hotel has managed to induce changes and conducted researches to distribute the findings among the various departments and ensure choosing the right marketing strategy (Ye, Li & Law, 2013). The empowerment of customer within the tourism and hospitality hrough the customer centric marketing as helped in using IT to support the consumer centricity and even even customized the products and services to improve their experiences and creating ease for them to purchase the services online. Based on various findings, it could be understood that the consumers, prior to making a decision, go through the various stages of the decision making process, which includes need recognition, searching for information and data, evaluating the alternatives, making a purchase decision and post purchase behaviors too. The customers could look for the offers at the company’s website and check for the availability of rooms, check the prices and other offers associated with the bookings. The customers were allowed to utilize a search engine and with the use f mobile technologies, it has become more convenient to collect information from any location and know about how to reach the hotel as well (Bethapudi, 2013).
The local tourists were seen to be less interested while purchasing the hotel services than the international tourists in Australia. The housekeeping services and front desk serves along with the sizes of rooms are considered as important factors that can contribute to the perception of hotel standards and make the customers gain the interest to search for the hotel rooms and then make a purchasing decision. The customers could look for the reviews and feedbacks provided by other tourists from the company website and rely on the hotel branding strategies while making online reservations for the rooms at Brighton Savoy Hotel, Australia (Tang, 2014). The electronic word of mouth information and online security could make them more understand whether their needs could be met or not. Brighton Savoy Hotel offers services for managing events and wedding ceremonies as well, which can be booked online with the use of internet and the extensive customers’ services have allowed remaining connected with the customers and delivering products and services accordingly for the fulfillment of their needs and preferences. The company’s values require excellent presentation, mutual respect, commitment and dedication for bringing excellence (Denizci Guillet & Mohammed, 2015).
With the integration of various technological applications, it has become easy for managing continuous communication and streamlines the experiences of the guests right from the reservation until the checkout. The experiences start as soon as the customers visit the hotel’s website and watching the photos of the location and knowing about what to expect. The use of internet technologies have brought immense benefits by providing information about the products and services online and through social media involvement. The information repositories hold relevant amount of data and information about the customers, which can allow for communicating with the customers afterwards and make them know about the offers, discounts for products and additional benefits offered by the hotel. Brighton Savoy Hotel has involved the online interfaces including Expedia and Orbitz, which not only reduces the costs of booking for ravel businesses and also offers the client with benefits regarding additional discounts and offers on hotel bookings (Xiang et al., 2017). By using the mobile communication technologies, the hotel can also make the customers informed about the delay notices, offer deals and carry out sponsor location based advertising for enhancing the brand transparency and openness among the customers through use of emails and text messages (brightonsavoy.com.au, 2018).
The emerging distribution channels are the Online Travel Agency or OTA that has grown considerably for the last few years and it makes penetration to the end chain scale segments easier for Brighton Savoy Hotel, Australia. The OTA channel has experienced a huge increase when the economy reduced and this helped in maintain a balance between the demand, supply and growth of products and services. The OAT business model including merchant, retail and opaque, which enhanced the growth and room revenue share for Brighton Savoy Hotel in Australia. The travel apps like Expedia, MakemyTrip, etc, are few of the mobile applications that are developed, by using which the customers can easily get additional discounts and good offers for every purchase they make. The computerized front desk technology enabled the agents to manage the check in roles based on the availability of rooms and make reservations too (Minazzi, 2015). The billing of the guests is integrated with the use of information technology system at the hotel and allows the customers to gather information about the kinds of rooms they want. The agents would be provided with real time information for facilitating the effectiveness and reduce the waiting time too. Innovation brings efficiency in the production process and can enable distribution of products and services in different market segments along with management of effective transactions. This has lead to reduction in costs of operations as well as increased the market niches through commercialization and better management of roles and responsibilities within the tourism and hospitality sector (brightonsavoy.com.au, 2018).
Conclusion
From the report, it was understood that Brighton Savoy Hotel focused on the distribution channels to ensure that the customers could properly access the products and services provided by the hotel. The report also included the distribution systems and theories and how it had contributed to the price discrimination techniques at the hospitality sector. The involvement of social media platforms, travel applications and OAT also facilitated the online reservations and made bookings easy for the customers. This improved the distribution channels’ efficiency and created a better experience for the customers of the tourism and hospitality industry.
References
Bethapudi, A. (2013). The role of ICT in tourism industry. Journal of Applied Economics and Business, 1(4), 67-79.
brightonsavoy.com.au (2018). Retrieved from https://www.brightonsavoy.com.au/
Brotherton, B. (2015). Researching hospitality and tourism. Sage.
Cooper, C. (2013). Essentials of tourism. Pearson Higher Ed.
Denizci Guillet, B., & Mohammed, I. (2015). Revenue management research in hospitality and tourism: A critical review of current literature and suggestions for future research. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 27(4), 526-560.
Law, R., Buhalis, D., & Cobanoglu, C. (2014). Progress on information and communication technologies in hospitality and tourism. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 26(5), 727-750.
Law, R., Leung, R., Lo, A., Leung, D., & Fong, L. H. N. (2015). Distribution channel in hospitality and tourism: Revisiting disintermediation from the perspectives of hotels and travel agencies. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 27(3), 431-452.
Legohérel, P., Fyall, A., & Poutier, E. (Eds.). (2013). Revenue management for hospitality and tourism. Woodeaton: Goodfellow Publishers.
Leung, D., Law, R., Van Hoof, H., & Buhalis, D. (2013). Social media in tourism and hospitality: A literature review. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 30(1-2), 3-22.
Minazzi, R. (2015). Social media marketing in tourism and hospitality. Heidelberg: Springer.
Riley, M. (2014). Human resource management in the hospitality and tourism industry.
Schuckert, M., Liu, X., & Law, R. (2015). Hospitality and tourism online reviews: Recent trends and future directions. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 32(5), 608-621.
Tang, L. R. (2014). The application of social psychology theories and concepts in hospitality and tourism studies: A review and research agenda. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 36, 188-196.
Thakran, K., & Verma, R. (2013). The emergence of hybrid online distribution channels in travel, tourism and hospitality. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 54(3), 240-247.
Xiang, Z., Du, Q., Ma, Y., & Fan, W. (2017). A comparative analysis of major online review platforms: Implications for social media analytics in hospitality and tourism. Tourism Management, 58, 51-65.
Ye, Q., Li, T., & Law, R. (2013). A coauthorship network analysis of tourism and hospitality research collaboration. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, 37(1), 51-7
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