Hospitality Management Marketing and Customer Service Quality

Introduction

Aqua

Crowne Plaza Reading's 2 AA Rosettes- awarded restaurant “Acqua” opens onto sun-drenched terrace overlooking Thames and providing fabulous view to its guests. It contributes around 25% towards the total revenue of the hotel. Acqua offers different menu for business meetings and events, a la carte menu and buffet for weddings and other celebrations along with special menu for kids. Apart from being strategically located and serving good food it also offers various facilities to its guests like free Wi-Fi, complimentary parking, priority club rewards to its loyal customers etc (Crowne Plaza, Reading, 2012). But still it is far behind its competitors in terms of technology, coordination, creativity and customer relationship management. The reason behind this is the ineffective marketing plans and poor marketing strategies of the hotel. Marketing plans and strategies are the set of tools and techniques that enable an organisation to achieve its overall marketing objectives (Ref:- Lancaster & Massingham, 2010).

Scoping Statment

Acqua is 2 AA Rosettes- awarded restaurant, being a part of Crowne Plaza Reading hotel it contributes around 25% towards the hotel's total revenue.A customer survey was conducted to understand the effectiveness of Acqua's current marketing strategies. The outcome of the survey highlighted that most of its guests were not very satisfied with their menu, services, online bookings, website, prices etc. and preferred River Spice over Acqua. Also Acqua was rated 7/10 whereas River Spice got 9/10.

Chapter 1: - Marketing Audit Of Acqua

Marketing audit is a process to review, evaluate and improve the overall marketing effectiveness of an organisation (Armstrong & Kotler, 2009)

1) Internal Capability

Functions Audit: -

A marketing mix refers to the elemnts that are directly involved in the determining of the offerings being made by the brand or the product. It often elaborates upon the place, promotion, people and all other elements that are involved in marketing and selling a product (Kerin, Hartley, 2001). Various functions performed by Acqua in the form of 7P's of marketing are:

Fig.1. Source: Made by Author (Staff & Customer Survey, Crowne Plaza. 2012)

Teh Marketing Mix of Acqua Restaurant can be analysed using the three traffic colours:

Fig.2. Source: Figure 2: Analysis of 7Ps of 'Acqua'

Made by Author (Staff & Customer Survey, Crowne Plaza. 2012)

Summary:- Acqua being a part of Crowne Plaza Reading hotel is very strategically located, it menu is evenly priced and has got friendly staff but still Acqua needs to focus on brand promotion, updating ineffective systems and adding few more dishes to its menu.

Productivity Audit

Teh hotel as not much doen a lot in terms of the marketing efforts and thus, the advertisement and promotional activities of the restaurant have not bene undertaken particularly. The major only customers that the restaurant has include the leisure and business travellers who live in the Crowne Plaza Reading hotel and are seen enjoying the dinners and breakfast; otherwise Acqua usually goes through the lean period. Thsu, the reveues are reduced and the overall cost is incrreased as shown in the table below:

Food and Beverage Revenue ...