Background of Buckingham Palace

Buckingham Palace is official and main royal London home for queens. It has been the official residence of Britain’s empire since 1837. Queen Victoria was the first to live in the Buckingham palace. The palace is also used for the administrative work for monarchy. Queens carry out their official and formal duties as head of state of UK in the working headquarter (Royal Residences: Buckingham Palace, 2018). The state banquet of Buckingham palace is the highpoint of royal entertaining. In this report, marketing plan for Buckingham palace is developed. When developing internal analysis, the palace need to undertake external environmental analysis using situation analysis tools like PESTLE analysis of country and internal analysis uses SWOT.

The external analysis of market includes PEST analysis of country.

Political factors

The political factors deal with the interference of government in the economy. The local government and country government are present in the economy of London. London is headquarter of the government of UK. It hosts various key departments of government. The security in London cannot be compromised which provides good platform to the tourism industry. It is considered that the current political stability is likely to remain more stable in the coming years (Samiee, Chabowski & Hult, 2015). London is located in European nation and has potential of attracting many tourists.

Economic environment

Economically the country ranks as sixth city in the world. London had a GDP of $615 billion and GDP per capita of $74,766 according to the data released by statistics in 2012. The country has an ease of doing business in it’s environment. The country is economically potential as pound is being one of the strongest currencies of the world. The analysis of economic factors includes interest rate, exchange rate, inflation rate and free market analysis. The current economic condition and future forecast of economy predicts success of Buckingham palace if investment is made. This palace is likely to generate more revenue as 15 million tourists visit palace every year (Feng, Morgan & Rego, 2015).

Socio cultural environment

The social factors of country deal with cultural factors which affects an organisation. The native language of country is English. It is considered as official language of doing business on international level. The adoption of new strategies and policies face some resistance towards organisational change due to negative approach towards organisational change. The society is identified to have high low tolerance to uncertainty which means that people are risk adverse. 

External Analysis of Market (PEST Analysis of Country)

Technological environment

Many software and hardware are being invented due to increase in the rate of scientific innovation. It helps in solving operations of tourism industry (Ribeiro & Faloutsos, 2015). The waiting time of customers can be reduced by making use of emails. The country has one of the best transport networks in the world. Heathrow airport is one of the largest airports and handles 73million passengers every year. The passengers can reach London within a very short time (appendix).

Every year more than 50,000 people come to visit palace as guests to functions, lunches, dinners and royal parties. The internal analysis of Buckingham palace includes SWOT analysis.

Strength

Official ceremonies: Buckingham palace has strong roots in the history of UK. It is the administration centre of British royal family. The huge building and widespread gardens are an important site of official and political affairs in UK. It is equally a major tourist attraction.  The foreign leaders are invited at Buckingham palace for celebratory events and political meetings.

Convenient visit: It is convenient to visit Buckingham palace as it is open to visitors from 21 July until 30 September. The state rooms are used for court ceremonies. The queen at Buckingham palace attends a large number of formal and informal guests to palace (Aspridis, Sdrolias, Kimeris, Kyriakou & Grigoriou, 2015).

Diplomatic Relations: The diplomatic reception is the main occasion in London. It reveals the importance of queen in the diplomatic relations of country. The diplomatic reception is the main reception held at Buckingham palace. It takes place every year in early November (Healey, 2012).

Weakness

Restricted entry: The entry is restricted in the Buckingham palace. General public is allowed to visit only in the certain period from July to October. Audience is invited only on special occasions like occasions, lunches and receptions (Visit London, 2018).

Searches less flexible: The searches on Eurostar are less flexible. There is no modifying search option. So, a person has to adjust dates and times and have to start again from scratch.

No clear information about ticket collection: The customers can print tickets at home or at a faster ticket machine. The customers travelling to London are advised to do this before 45 minutes of departure. But there is no third option of mailing tickets for the people who do not have printer (Royal Collection Trust, 2018).

Opportunities

More trains: The closest station to Buckingham palace is London Victoria. More trains can be connected to London by Eurostar. The regular service by Eurostar can create more opportunities.

Internal Analysis of Buckingham Palace (SWOT Analysis)

Social events: The Buckingham palace can increase number of social events. The public is always excited to attend events at the palace. So, it is a huge opportunity for the palace to increase share of marketing. More social events lead to more service by Eurostar.

More meetings of government: More meetings of government can be arranged other than the weekly audience with prime minister. The number of queen’s garden parties can also be increased by three (Gregory, 2015). 

Threats

Old momentum: It is seen that youngsters now a days are losing interest in old momentums. They are more interested in visiting new places.

Less diplomatic reception: The diplomatic reception is held just once in a year. It shows importance of queen in diplomatic relations of country (Madhavaram, Hunt & Bicen, 2017).

Porter’s five force analysis

Barriers to entry (high): To enter into industry one need to acquire different licenses. For instance, Eurostar need a license for approval to use euro tunnel. There are various safety laws which are required to meet. The specialised knowledge is also required to meet.  

Substitutes (low to medium): There are not possible many substitutes for air and train travel. E-commerce is good for people who love to shop online. National car holidays can be reflected as substitutes because people can easily travel by their car to places like Butlins, Alton towers and more. Latest technologies, TV and internet can be considered as seeing Buckingham palace and the royal family instead of travelling.

Bargaining power of buyers (high): The buyers can bargain in many ways within the industry. It is possible by booking early. They can avail tickets at cheap prices and at higher discounts. There are also student discounts through which students can take visit of Buckingham palace.

Bargaining power of suppliers (medium): Most of the companies in this industry have same suppliers for the type of travels such as railway has the same manufacturers. Less availability of suppliers makes it difficult to bargain.

Rivalry (high): There is rivalry in between airlines and rail in UK. There are various competitors such as airlines and sea like British airways and P&O. 

Increase sales

Buckingham palace allows audience to visit palace from end of July to beginning of October every year. The palace can increase it’s sales by increasing number of visiting months. It can increase market share by organising special and royal exhibitions (Baker, 2016).

Marketing Strategies for Buckingham Palace

Build brand awareness

Buckingham palace is already established and significant office accommodation. It can create brand awareness by promoting programme of introduction to royal family.

Grow market share

The palace can increase it’s market share by delivering diversity and variety of simultaneous functions which are critical to the scheduling of royal family programmes. The palace can expand it’s share by increasing number of formal events and official engagements every day.

Target new customers

Buckingham palace can target new customers by offering discount coupons and special discounts on it’s website. The customers can be attracted by giving discount to students for the learning purpose (Fourie & Fourie, 2014).

Segmentation starts by identifying the potential visitors. It allows dividing population into different groups with similar characteristics. It makes to understand need and want of customers so that services can be customised and target to groups who prefer to visit Buckingham palace. Visitors can also be segmented on the basis of socio demographic characteristics such as age, gender and social class (Camilleri, 2018). The other demographic information such as age, income, employment rate, education and service preferences can also be used for segmentation. The ArkLeisure model can be used for segmentation. It can be divided into three elements known as aspirations, life factors and purchase scenarios. Aspirations are made on the basis of quality results. The life factors are decided on the basis of life stage and income. The purchase scenarios are finalised on the basis of preferences, perceptions, satisfaction, purchase drivers, choices made and purpose of trip.

Positioning refers to the visitor’s perception of a product or service in relation to competitive products or services. Market positioning refers to the stage of establishing image of a brand that visitors perceive it in a certain way. The positioning of brand involves marketing the product or service in a way to create image within the mind set of consumers in the target market. It requires on going marketing initiatives to reinforce target market perceptions of product or service.

Buckingham palace can use differentiation strategy to position itself in the mind of consumers as it provides unique service and consumers will pay more for such service. They cannot find comparable experience anywhere else in UK. The consumers expect more from differentiated products.

Cost leadership can also be used by palace as it attempts to position itself in the mind of visitors as the palace provides service to visitors at a reasonable price and extra discounts can also be provided to the students.

Segmentation and Targeting

It is a model to boost components of marketing mix. It describes marketing options to meet specific customers’ needs and demand. It means putting the right product at right place, right price and right time.

Product

The product or service offered by palace is visit to state rooms, gardens, household cavalry museum, queen’s gallery, grand stair case, paintings, audio tour, the throne room, flags, clocks, state banquet in ball room and the special exhibition.

Price

A genuine price is charged by palace to take visit. Buckingham palace is open to public in summers from 21 July to 30 September. The tickets can be booked in advance to visit royal family’s palace and queen’s residence. There is always limited availability of tickets (Khan, 2014).  

Place

 The Buckingham palace is located in central London. It is the official London residence and administration office of British royal family. The access for public is limited. During summers travellers can pay visit to state rooms, throne rooms, gardens and can admire the masterpieces in Victoria picture’s gallery. The travellers can pay visit only when the queen is on holiday in summer from late June to September in Scotland. 

Promotion

The promotional coupons are provided by the website of royal collection trust. The promotional codes and coupons are provided by website such as 15% or 10% off with any order, discount on the adult tickets, tea and cake, special discount, special saving Charles and special discount is given on disabled tickets and more. The visitors are always attracted to have royal experience.

People

The persons who are attracted towards historical monuments take visit of Buckingham palace. The palace relies on the people who conduct the daily activities in palace from correspondence mangers to guards. It is essential to have right people because they have a great role behind maintenance and working of palace.

Process

The head of visitor services at Buckingham palace is handled by Royal collection trust. The workers at Royal household work closely with colleagues to maintain high standard of presentation within the historic buildings. The royal household provides necessary facilities to deliver day to day operations by scheduling of royal family’s programme.

Physical evidence

The services provided by palace include physical elements whereas the customers paying for services are intangible. For instance, palace provides visit to palace with memorable experience. Even if it does not provide physical evidence, audience is still receiving a physical product (Choi, Liu & Kim, 2015).

Conclusion 

In the above report marketing plan for Buckingham Palace has been discussed. It includes the external environment of the market of London which affects palace. Internal analysis of Buckingham palace has been explained. The objectives set for Buckingham palace as per marketing plan are discussed and for meeting objectives, STP (Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning) has been set out. The marketing mix plan is also prepared to produce marketing plan with palace’s resources and objectives. 

References 

Aspridis, G., Sdrolias, L., Kimeris, T., Kyriakou, D. and Grigoriou, I., 2015. Visitor Attraction Management: Is There Space for New Thinking Despite the Crisis? The Cases of Buckingham Palace and the Museum of Acropolis. In Cultural Tourism in a Digital Era (pp. 329-347). Springer, Cham.

Baker, M.J., 2016. What is marketing?. In The Marketing Book(pp. 25-42). Routledge.

Camilleri, M.A., 2018. Market Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning. In Travel Marketing, Tourism Economics and the Airline Product (pp. 69-83). Springer, Cham.

Feng, H., Morgan, N.A. and Rego, L.L., 2015. Marketing department power and firm performance. Journal of Marketing, 79(5), pp.1-20.

Fourie, I. and Fourie, H., 2014. Targeting users in information provision–more than researchers, students and professionals. Library Hi Tech, 32(1), pp.164-172.

Gregory, J. 2015. Buckingham Palace: The Official Residence of England’s Royal Family. AV2 by Weigl. 

Healey, E. 2012. The Queen’s House: A Social History of Buckingham Palace. Pegasus Books.

Khan, M.T., 2014. The concept of’marketing mix’and its elements (a conceptual review paper). International journal of information, business and management, 6(2), p.95.

Ribeiro, B. and Faloutsos, C., 2015, February. Modeling website popularity competition in the attention-activity marketplace. In Proceedings of the Eighth ACM International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining (pp. 389-398). ACM.

Royal Collection Trust, 2018 available from https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/visit/the-state-rooms-buckingham-palace/practical-information#/  [accessed on 21/03/2018]

Royal Collection Trust, 2018. The State Rooms. Available from https://tickets.royalcollection.org.uk/state-rooms-buckingham-palace/state-rooms/2018 [accessed on 21/03/2018]

Royal Residences: Buckingham Palace, 2018 available from https://www.royal.uk/royal-residences-buckingham-palace [accessed on 21/03/2018]

Samiee, S., Chabowski, B.R. and Hult, G.T.M., 2015. International relationship marketing: Intellectual foundations and avenues for further research. Journal of International Marketing, 23(4), pp.1-21.

Visit London, 2018 available from https://www.visitlondon.com/things-to-do/place/427311-buckingham-palace [accessed on 21/03/2018]