INTRODUCTION
Tour operation business have high contribution in tourism industry. There are various types of operators such as inbound, outbound, domestic. They all arrange different travel packages for consumers as per their requirements (Lin, Yu and Chang, 2018). Lcb tours operates its business in tourism industry and it works as tour coordinator in UK. Current study will analysis recent trends in this industry. Furthermore, stages of developing a holiday will be assessed. Selling price calculation will be done in order to set the price of particular holiday. In addition, suitability of several distribution methods will be explained in this assignment.
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Stages and Timescale for Developing Holidays
In order to develop a holiday package Lcb Tour has to ensure following stages and have to design package for specified timescale. Stages involved in this development are as below maintained:
- Researching
- Planning and scheduling
- Contracting
- Costing
- Financial evaluation and pricing
- Brochure creation
- Advertisement
- Operations and execution
- Post tour management
Lcb Tours company will has to conduct first market research in order gather insight detail about market condition and needs of buyers. This supports in designing the holiday package as per the specific requirements of consumers. Planning is another phase in which Lcb tours have to plan the activities that would include in planning and have to schedule the days accordingly. Next phase is to make contract with suppliers. Lcb tours will have to negotiate with suppliers and will have to deal with hotels, airline companies in order to provide accommodation and transportation services to consumer (Lindsay and et.al., 2018). Once contracting has been done then company will have to set the price and have to evaluate the entire financial plan. This helps in analysing unnecessary cost. Once all these things have been completed then entity will have to create brochure in order to make consumers aware with the new holiday package. Advertisement has to be done then in order to promote the services and products of company. After advertisement, Lcb tours will have to execute this plan and have to take feedback from customers and have to manage post activities. This is the entre process of developing holiday package.
Methods of Contracting
Companies are required to make agreement with suppliers. They have to first negotiate with all hotels , airlines so that company can provide holiday package to consumers at reasonable rates. Several contracting methods are as below maintained:
Fixed contracting
In this type of contracting method agreement held between stakeholder and tour operator. Stakeholders are such as transportation supplier, hotel for accommodation etc. Lcb tours first look upon such supplier which can offer firm products at reasonable prices. Then it makes contract with the most suitable stakeholder (Hsieh, Hsieh and Chu, 2014). Entity has to pay amount to these suppliers in advance for pre-booking of hotels, airlines for their holiday package. Lcb can make contract with the supplier that offers high quality at affordable rate thus, this is quite cheaper. This is beneficial in order to raise profit of business unit and assured providing luxurious services to clients.
Allocation
This type of contract is generally form by such operators those who arrange travel for consumers throughout season. They book the seats, hotel of travellers in advance. Negotiation is possible in this type of agreement thus, entity becomes able to generate high profit.
Ad-hoc
Such kind of contract are generally form in certain situations. This helps the tour operator in dealing with any kind of sudden issues properly. If travellers demand for additional services then Lcb tour operators have to immediately contact with relevant supplier who can meet with need of consumers and can offer them sudden services. But this is little costly because entity has to pay high amount to supplier as negotiation is not possible in this type of contract(Chang and Katrichis, 2016).
Calculation of Selling Price
Selling price can be defined as amount at which product is sold in market. For calculating the prices Lcb tours has to add all its expenditures first. Entity takes support of mark-up pricing strategy in which it add all expenses and add required profit margin into it. This is the best way to calculate the selling price for holiday in company. Calculation is illustrated as below:
Supplier charges |
£25 per person |
Staff wages |
£50 |
Cost of loading |
£10 |
Rent |
£15 |
Miscellaneous cost |
8 |
Mark-up |
10% |
Total cost |
108 |
Selling price |
108*10%=£118.8 |
Thus, if Lcb tours offers its holiday packages to consumers at £118.8 then it would be able to gain profit of 10%. This is the best way of generating revenues in business. Overall expenditures are 108 and after adding mark up the selling price has been calculated.
Conclusion
From the above study it can be concluded that mark-up pricing strategy is effective in order to calculate selling price
Entity has to make fixed contract with its suppliers that helps in generating necessary profit and offering quality services to consumers.
Evaluation of Planning Decision
Lcb tours always ensure to take adequate decision so that customers complains can be minimised. For that it makes effective planning that helps in identifying consequences and opportunity of any judgement. In order to design a brochure entity considers various things:
- Cost: It takes decision of designing of brochure. Company ensures that its cost remain in budget and designing should be appropriate. Then Lcb tours also decide copies that need to be made and overall quality of brochure. All these decisions are helpful in creating an attractive brochure within budget (LANE, 2016).
- Format deciding: It has to plan weather brochure would be single or double folds. There are many companies that provides booklet type of brochures. It plans for the format according to its consumer’s demand and entities objective.
- Target market: According to target market Lcb tours makes planning decision related to quality, budget, volume of its brochure. If consumers are not ready to pay high amount, then firm has to plan for designing simple but attractive brochure.
- Print specification: It has to decide style of font, colour, nature of destination specified in brochure that can make it more attractive (Lindsay and et.al., 2018).
- Timescale: furthermore, deadline of launching etc. needs to be decided carefully.
All such kind of planning decision help Lcb tours in creating an attractive brochure that can gain attention of mass audience and can help firm in generating demand for its holiday package.
Suitability of Alternatives to a Traditional Brochure
There are many tour operators those which are using traditional brochures for attracting consumers towards the company. But in the technological era physical distribution of brochure to target audience is time taking process and unable to aware people for services of business unit. Thus, there are many alternative options to a traditional brochure (Chang and Katrichis, 2016).
E-brochure is the most commonly and effectively used method. In e-brochure firm can add multiple pages with attractive images and artistic work. This can be distributed through websites, email, online banner etc. This is cost effective and time saving technique. By this way entity can reach to mass audience and can make them aware with its new products and services. Increasing use of internet has created opportunities for business to distribute e-brochures to customers. There are around 11.4 million people in UK those who are accessing internet frequently. Furthermore, it is environmental friendly way to distribute the news (Hsieh, Hsieh and Chu, 2014).
Another method of distribution is social networking websites. Faceboook, Twitter are highly used networking sites. Firm can make connection with the consumers through these social sites. This aids Lcb Tours in uploading images, videos in order to make people aware with its holiday packages. It is fast and cost effective to distribute holiday packages information. Being a outbound tour operator this distribution method would be more suitable for organisation because by this way it would be able to make connection with mass audience. It also give facility to give immediate response on consumer’s quarry (Takamatsu, 2014). This is the best way to identify needs and requirements of travellers. This may support business in offering satisfactory services to consumers as per their needs.
Different Distribution Methods to Sell Product of Company
Here are some non-traditional methods for distribution of holiday packages for Lcb tours.
Direct Distribution- In this method, the company direct send mails to their visitors, it is very effective method because company provide facility of cancel the services, discount, special offers , family packages. Direct mail is individualized, highly flexible and Lcb tours company can include some picture and information about visiting place in mail to look more effective. Direct distribution method helps company in dealing with consumers directly (Distribution Channels, 2018). If there is no intermediary then it would be better for consumer to get low price goods because no additional charges would be taken by intermediary. Furthermore, entity would also be able to get immediate reviews of clients whether they are satisfied with services or need any kind of additional services.
Through social network website- social site is best place, to find large number of people, to communicate about holiday packages like twitter Facebook or any other social site. Tour operator can impart the feedback of tourist, information of package. A lot of people can be infused at the same time through the social site. It also affects visitors to buy holiday package. Lcb tours can sell its holiday packages to consumers through social sites. People also get quick response on it, if they have any quarry for the product then can ask to firm directly. This helps the entity in offering high quality products at reasonable rate to consumers (Tirasattayapitak, Chaiyasain and Beeton, 2015).
Travel Agencies – This is the best method in which Lcb tours can keep touch in with travel agencies through phone or by internet. travel agencies can give brochure to their passengers while traveling and can be promote the services given by tour operators. These travel agencies have direct relationship with customers (Chan and Tay, 2016). They work as intermediary. Lcb can make connection with these travel firms and can give them additional benefits for selling its products and services.
Government website is another great way to sell products. This is generally applying by the specialised tour operator that organises particular tours only. They have to make connection with government of that nation and authorities give them permission to upload their detail on its websites (Sangpikul, 2017).
Strategic Decision of Tour Operators
Positioning and image/branding- This is a policy in which the tour operator identifies consumers in an efficient manner, and helps in establishing those products and services. It helps in market segmentation. An important decision by tour operator to create brand and image of their tour products. Lcb tour operator implements cost positioning strategy in order to develop its image in market. Furthermore, branding is done through social networking sites. This is the best way to create unique brand image in the mind of customers (Chang and Katrichis, 2016).
Pricing Strategy- Considering the cost involved in the design and development of the package, decision regarding the price of the package is a strategic decision. During the decision of amount of tour program and the holidays package, tour operator must think about the discount on the package. Lcb tours provides attractinve discounts to its consumers and it takes support of skimming stratgey. that aids business in attracting more people. Because it offers low cost products to them that helps in influencing mind of travelelrs (Hsieh, Hsieh and Chu, 2014).
Choice of product in relation to customer portfolio- In this type of strategic decision, it is important to determine the products according to the needs of the customers. Lcb designs holiday packages to customers as per their requirements. That aid firm in enhancing satisfaction level of them and making them positive towards brand.
Distribution Decision- It selects the delivery tasks in decisions related to distribution and identifies the chain management as well and enter the contract with the middleman. Lcb always prefer to distribute its products directly. This helps in generating high profit and resolving issues of consumers quickly (Takamatsu, 2014).
Tactical Decision
Strategic decisions for execution of operations can be understood by the tour operator on regular basis. It is essential for tour operator that to make tactical decisions in different types of situations that can support firm to sustain in market for longer duration.
Tactical Responses- If needs of consumers get changed and they are moving towards other competitors then entity can give them response by offering additional services. Lcb can offer free insurance to customers during tour booking. This response may influence the mind of travellers (Lin, Yu and Chang, 2018).
Tactical Marketing- If economic condition is not good or there is changing demand of consumers then in such kind of situations Lcb tours is required to implement effective marketing strategy. This would be better for the firm in gaining attention of customers. It can market its products through social networking sites.
Tactical Pricing- In high competitive situation Lcb tours has to ensure attracting more people towards brand. Thomas cook, TUI are the big organisations that are operating across the world. These firms creates competition of Lcb . They offer different holiday packages to consumers that influence their mind (Chan and Tay, 2016 ). In such situation Lcb turs has to take tactical pricing decision. It has reduced its rates of products as compare to other tour operators. By this way it would be able to gain attention of more people that will aid in sustaining in market for longer duration.
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CONCLUSION
From the above report it can be concluded that tourism industry always concentrates on recent trends and offer customers products accordingly. Holiday planning always require to make effective negotiation with suppliers and come into right contracting. This supports companies in offering quality services to travellers. It is essential for tour operator that to make strategic and tactical decisions for satisfying consumers and retaining them in business for longer duration.
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