Marketing Case Study: Impact Of COVID-19 On Adventure Tour Australia

Question

Task:
You are suppose to select a restaurant of your choice. It is advised that the restaurant operates a website or an e-commerce site. The marketing case study is critical because of COVID-19. You must consider the current situation, which has a significant influence in applying basic marketing strategies.

The following topics should be present in the case study.

Topic 1: Current condition of the organization due to COVID-19. Consider current competitive situation. At least two environmental should be considered from micro and macro environment.

Topic 2: Identify the current segment and positioning strategy.

Topic 3: Propose new sets of product, price, place and promotional strategies due to current situation.

Answer

Introduction to Marketing Case Study
In the last five years, the tourism sector has benefitted greatly from a large uptick in foreign tourists. Ten years earlier, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Japan and the United States were the main foreign suppliers for the sector. Although the bulk of the foreign arrivals from these countries were in 2015-16 according to TRA, the number of arrivals from Asia, in particular from China, Malaysia and Indonesia rose strongly. Today, after New Zealand, China is Australia's second largest source of foreign tourists. This rise was attributed to the increasing prosperity of the Chinese middle class, which enabled Chinese tourists to invest more money on leisure habits including travel. TRA also reports that Chinese tourists have the highest foreign business tourism spend. This is attributed to the duration of their stay, which is more than 40 nights on average. The continued rise in foreign visitors' arrivals and nights is expected to lead to a 3.9 percent improvement in industry sales in 2015-16.

In the following study Adventure Tour Australia has been selected as the role organization in order to analyse the current tourism industry of Australia. Along with this, the study has also focused on the effect of COVID 19 on the Adventure Tour Australia and it current market situation. The macro and micro environmental factors of Adventure Tour Australia has also been highlighted in this study.

Identification and overview of organization
According to Triari, Jones and Satyawati (2017), Adventure Tours Australia offers programs and equipment relevant to travel and purchases parts for specific trips. Of their manufacturers in particular and placed them together in a kit tour, later sold directly or via the medium with their own package costs. The key responsibility for the supply and maintenance of the facilities listed in the package tour is the organization. Expert manuals, special lodging and finest memories in the past are the resources that the organization delivers. Currently, the organization provides a range of enticing locations to its clients, such as Kacadu and Top Edge, Uluru, Arnhem Land, Kimberly, West Coast, Kangaroo Island and the South Ocean (Divisekera and Nguyen, 2018). Adventure Tours Australia also offers local contacts so that tourists do not struggle with any kind of protection problems, they also provide lodging, transportation and responsible travel on their road (adventuretours.travel, 2021). The resources the organization offers include the community of the First Nation, nature and overland, brief breaks and new trips.

Topic 1
Current condition of the organization due to Covid-19
Australia's tourism industry was one of the most badly affected industries by the COVID-19-pandemic, which also had difficulties as a consequence of the destructive summer forest fires. As commented by Hassanli and Ashwell (2020), restricted national or international air transport and domestic boundary closures have triggered a substantial decrease in company and leisure tourism in 2020. These includes the 'Ring of Steel' that divided metropolitan Victoria from Melbourne, and the latest outbreaks in Sydney and Brisbane. However, several promising indicators remain for the sector, as the mechanisms for effectively controlling outbreaks, the capacity for foreign bubble travel and the commencement of vaccine supply in Australia and internationally have strengthened in our states and territories. Any segments of the travel sector, including tour operators and the global air force, have been hit significantly and have been unable to rebound from the disease outbreak until the end. For some, though, there are ways to push extra pressure on domestic tourism and profit from the restless Australians.

Current competitive situation of the organization
As mentioned by Voyer, Barclay, McIlgorm and Mazur, N. (2017), in the last five years, respectively domestic and international weekends with tourists have risen. This is attributed to the weakening of the Australian dollar during the last three years, elevated rates of flexibility and the proliferation of subsidized reduced aviation services to and from Australia. Domestic tourism has risen slower than foreign travel, as inexpensive airfares and the Australian high dollar have forced many Australians to travel overseas for three years from 2012–2013. Since demand is stronger, the business of Adventure Tour Australia has risen, but at a slow pace. This demonstrates that Adventure Tour Australia is in the quality development phase of its lifespan. This sluggish growth is the product of rapid growth in markets such as restaurants and bars, restricted by restructuring practices in other fields including transportation companies for sightseeing and attractions (Altman, 2018).

The pace of technical progress in the Adventure Tour Australia is modest and focusses on growing the productivity and comfort of companies in the industry. Along with this, modern and more fuel effective aircraft have been progressively bought from airlines to minimize expense, and connect to facilities like wireless internet. Other market participants, for example food and beverage service suppliers, have shown fewer technical improvement, since they remain focused on labor (Frawley, Goh and Law, 2019). In the last five years, however, the gradual rise and adoption by customers of Internet usage for study, reservation and analysis of different tourism items such as accommodation and visits have influenced the industry. Bricks and mortar travel agents and certain hostel companies, for example, are fighting the growing rivalry from web booking sites like the Airbnb room sharing website.

Two micro environmental factors
Wilson and Verlis (2017) commented that in Australia, tourism industry in terms of business value is about 63 billion dollars. Yet there was a decline in the amount of tourist nights in the domestic sector in 2009-2010. The reality that Australians are major domestic visitors, amid other potential environmental challenges, is the source of the dramatic increase in national tourism today.

The industry is highly focused on domestic tourism, which allows more than 70% of industry's sales from domestic households and companies. As per the viewpoint of Pham, Nghiem and Dwyer (2017), in the last five years, domestic tourism has been decreasing due to a dramatic rise in the amount of Australians traveling abroad from over era. This is partially attributed to the resilience of the Australian dollar in all three years from 2012-2013 and the growth in the foreign sector of low-cost airlines with reduced fares. This made flying internationally increasingly cost-effective for Australian citizens, impacting demand for most business enterprises. This pattern has benefitted Adventure Tour Australia, as many have been air flying overseas due to geographical isolation in Australia. Further, Queensland's that is a main tourism industry venue, floods and cyclones have adversely affected domestic tourists to the state in 2011. In 2010-11, this contributed to a reduction in industry sales, with Tourism Study Australia (TRA) reporting that tourism related investment fell in that year.

Two macro environmental factors
McLennan, Becken and Moyle (2017) opined that travel and tourism have an immense effect on a country's socioeconomic development; making it available to industry, exchange and financial projects, generating worker employment and entrepreneurship, and retaining the culture and heritage values. However, government, policymakers and companies worldwide need credible and reliable knowledge about the impact of the sector in order to appreciate its effect. Data is important in order to determine policies guiding potential growth in the industry as well as provide information to drive effective and profitable financial decisions in Travel and Tourism. Tourism has specifically impacted social and cultural dimensions, community living standards, technology and knowledge exposure that drive patterns in society. Improving the ranges and amenities in Adventure Tour Australia such as accommodation, festivals, restaurants, sports, pubs, bars, and clubs for nights, transport services, transportation companies, tourism services, membership programs, tourist destinations, event planning, self-catering amenities, holiday parks and guest houses have created a range of employment as well as developments in infrastructure throughout the countries and qualifications.

Topic 2
Current segment and positioning strategy of the organization
The demographic area of Adventure Tour Australia involves the division into identifiable divisions of spatial and factual data. Age, gender, income, employment, marital status, family size, race, faith or nationality may be included in demographics. This processes of segmentation are a popular tool for consumer segmentation for Adventure Tour Australia since demographic variables can be conveniently computed. As mentioned by Goh, Nguyen and Law (2017), the age spectrum of business travellers generally ranges from late 20s to the mid-50s. Young employees travel for business and their shopping habits are totally different from their older colleagues. The total percentage of teenagers in the last year is 7.4% work visits, relative to the Xers 6.4% group and the baby boomers 6.3% (Kourtzidis, Tzeremes, Tzeremes and Heryán, 2018). The chances of securing flights rely on incentive programs are decreased for young passengers. Its airline service and customer experience are more likely to book your ticket. Young travellers, by contrast, are more prone to use common room channels like Airbnb, than other categories. Large hotel chains, though, are not substantially endangered. Uber and other systems of riding sharing are now common across all age groups and can cost less than taxis. The range of age in the Adventure Tour Australia is very broad and quite different from those on the consumer industry. When they go overseas with their family, children may play an essential part in leisure travel. Early to mid-twenties, young people too are eager to make their own disposable revenue eligible for travel. At the other end of the continuum, we have citizens who are relatively healthy and flying in a good financial state.

New targeted market of the particular organization
The Adventure Tour Australia aims at "high value travellers" who are driven by “what we have to offer and will” most probably choose Australia for their next marketing or vacation event. Worthwhile tourists enjoy touring, dreaming of visiting Australia and the experience of Australia. More relevantly, more is expected to spend, stays longer and is scattered further. More importantly, when Australia held the ICC Cricket World Cup in 2015, there was a 42% significant jump in tourists from India to Australia. Consequently, Cricket played a major role in transforming Australia into an Indian travel destination, accompanied by the belief that users started to travel not just for the game but also outside of tournament.

Repositioning of brand
Worldwide tourist attractions have the task of repositioning themselves in their new positioning policy, by modifying the logo or reclassifying the tourism commodity. Reasons for repositioning involve growing foreign tourism competitiveness. Adventure Tour Australia has to be repositioned and it helps attractions to rejuvenate themselves in order to showcase their strengths and photos in order to draw visitors in the face of intense rivalry. Adventure Tour Australia can be classified by general (demographic and geographic), desires, motivations and drives (psychographic) or buying (competence) characteristics, so that these can be targeted. Instead of wasting outlets to draw all consumers, destinations should then target profited industries. The section may then be profiled using many techniques. Adventure Tour Australia has also created new promotional posters for branding itself that delightfully offers customers a wide range of tourism package that includes family vacation, couple vacation, and business vacation and so on.

Topic 3
Proposed new sets of products
The Adventure Tour Australia can conduct investigations to develop strategies in the existing market that incorporates economics, market research and diverse specifications, past market information as well as modern economy and tourist attractions patterns (Volgger, Pforr, Stawinoga, Taplin and Matthews, 2018). The company is developing various options for different customer segments in the assessment of the market and tourism circumstances in order to meet the demands of each section of individual people. The Adventure Tour Australia can introduce affordable packages for young travellers that visits Australia not only for tour, but also for education. Hence, young travellers might attracted by the product that is offered by Adventure Tour Australia (adventuretours.travel, 2021). Along with this, the company must ensure people about its safety norms in the situation of COVID 19, so that travellers can be able to understand that the company is providing a securing traveling experience in this pandemic situation.

The price of the products
For Adventure Tour Australia, a rack cost should be there, until discounts are offered which is normally issued to distributors and published on booklets for the coming season. Their complete prices are more vulnerable for distributors and amusement operators with no day reductions, but the price can adjust almost a week for the month to two months’ time for the holiday operator, and specifically the centre of the industry. From the viewpoint of Cole and Wallis (2019), using a price blend during the year for the medium, high and low seasons is a common approach to meet varying demand patterns due to the duration of the year for Adventure Tour Australia. Usually the days are same per year, but may also qualify for school holidays and local activities with annual dates. The strategic price structure for Adventure Tour Australia to boost demand through discount, is the creation of bundles with free tourism partners around the world or with value-added elements.

Marketing place of the products
Besides the international market, Adventure Tour Australia needs to focus more on its domestic market. The domestic tourism market of Australia has seen a huge decrease due to economic downtime in the situation of pandemic. Along with this, Hardiman and Burgin (2017) stated that the company can offer loan on its tourism packages so that customers can be able to visit Australia with the EMI facility. Hence, this step will also help to remove the economic burden of traveller and the company can gain more customers. On the other hand Adventure Tour Australia should focus on the lower economy countries and that can be a major turnaround for the company (adventuretours.travel, 2021). Many people from lower economy cannot be able to international events such as Cricket World Cup, Olympic due to high price of travelling.

The promotional strategies of the company
At the middle of 2016 Adventure Tour Australia have used activity of a strategic campaign to promote the employee inbound tourist scheme of Australia. The company plans to step up its efforts by deepening and focusing on young people in 2017/18. People might even understand how hard the industry is to young travelers. They make a contribution around 17 billion dollars in tourist expenditure each year and are about a quarter of Australia's outbound travel. Adventure Tour Australia aims to improve the performance of the industry by seeking opportunity to boost economic growth and address demand considerations. A three-phase framework was used for implementing the strategy. In order to attain the aims of the Adventure Tour Australia, an improvement in quality is required. Solid advances have been made and the sector is on track to reach the target of 6,000 to 20,000 new room’s additional (Nepal, 2020). Approximately 40,000 new, $42.7 billion short-term lodging rooms are being provided. Adventure Tour Australia has undertaken extensive research on major international markets so that customers can better explain what encourages potential companies to travel and can test their appeal for Australian experience. The insights from this work allowed the company to reflect on major markets and formed the marketing plan of corporate events.

Conclusion and recommendation
From the following study it can be stated that tourism plays an essential position in Australia's economy and contributes greatly to national income. While many economic, political, societal and regional considerations have had a positive effect on sector development, they are seldom free of obstacles that impede success and growth. However, the Government of Australia is hopeful that development in the sector can inspire the strong industry role in the world in the coming years, develops and retains stable ties with emerging markets. Adventure Tour Australia should more focus on its local travellers so that it can be able to earn more profits from domestic tourism. Due to COVID 19, the number of foreign travellers has decreased on a heavy note so the company must introduce affordable packages for international tourists so that foreign travellers can be able to visit Australia after having an economic downtime.

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