1. Executive Summary
UniTour (short for “Uniting Tourism”) is a niche travel service provider that offers affordable prices for families and young groups of people. UniTour targets people who want to take a break from the technology and enjoy the genuine virtue of real-life communication. The second major target segment are families with communication problems. With the help of UniTour’s special services, its customers can experience a truly unique vacation that improves their relationships and encourages them to get to know each other better. UniTour’s motto is “No cellphones. No laptops. Only what truly matters.”
Key components of UniTour’s strategy execution revolve around uniqueness of its services, revenue generation through large customer volumes, word-of-mouth advertising, effective referral strategy and a wide network of partners. UniTour will perform its marketing and promotional activities mainly via online mediums and social media platforms.
2. Target Customers
UniTour mainly targets groups of individuals of 16-30 years, regardless of their gender and marital status. The second key target segment of UniTour is families and couples, with a particular focus on those couples and families who have communication problems. Our customers have a low to moderate level of income and live in large cities of the United States. They are interested in active leisure far from metropolises with a major focus on socializing, natural sightseeing, outside activities and eco-tourism.
Target customers of UniTour want to get closer with their friends or families by taking a refreshing break from social networks and technology. They want to escape the excessive noise and tense atmosphere of a big city for a while. Varying socialization activities, sports, and magnificent natural landmarks are all important drivers for enhancing attraction of target customers.
3. Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
USP of UniTour lies in the nature of its services. While the vast majority of tourism agencies focus on special features of the destinations they offer, UniTour provides a unique opportunity to improve relationships between friends and families, and to strengthen interpersonal bonds. UniTour encourages its customers to leave their cellphones, laptops and other electronic devices with the representative of UniTour for the duration of their stay by offering special incentives. This way they can truly spend quality time with their friends or family, entirely focusing on socializing and getting to know each other better.
4. Pricing and Positioning Strategy
UniTour will position itself as an affordable niche service provider within the group travel and family vacation market. UniTour will offer a basic travelling package and optional features, such as services of an entertainer or a family psychologist, guided tours, etc. Initially, UniTour will provide a variety of tours to picturesque locations of the United States and Canada.
Prices of UniTour will be positioned in the lower price segment. UniTour is a travel agency for groups and families. Therefore, affordable prices will generate necessary volumes of customers to reach target profit levels.
5. Distribution Plan
On early stages on functioning, UniTour will distribute its services primarily through the company’s website. Additional distribution channels will include online travel agencies such as Expedia and Travelocity, and global tourism distribution systems like Travelport.
After brand recognition improvement and customer base expansion, UniTour will consider a wider distribution spectrum, including third-party suppliers and distributors like TravelCLICK and similar solutions providers.
6. UniTour Offers
Offers are a vital element of UniTour’s marketing strategy. They will include service packages, group discounts and special offers.
Service packages will contain varying combinations of services in addition to lodging, including plane tickets, tourism equipment rental, services of entertainers or family psychologists, and other additional services. Ordering a service package will be cheaper than purchasing these services separately, making it an attractive option for customers of UniTour.
Group discounts will be fixed or percentage-based, and will depend on the number of people in the group. This feature will strengthen the effectiveness of word-of-mouth advertising, and enhance UniTour’s referral strategy.
Special offers will include uniting programs for families and groups, and “no tech” discounts. Uniting programs will allow families and groups to get to know each other better and will help to solve communication problems. These programs will be developed by competent psychologists, and will feature psychotherapy sessions, as well as entertaining outside activities and quests conducted by entertainers. “No tech” feature provides a 5% discount on lodging if the customers leave their cellphones, laptops and other electronic communication devices with UniTour’s representative for the duration of their stay. Safety of the devices is fully warranted by UniTour.
7. Marketing Materials
UniTour will promote its business primarily through the company’s website, social networks, and catalogs. These are the most effective marketing materials for promoting tourism services.
8. Promotions Strategy
The key element of UniTour’s promotion strategy is word-of-mouth advertising. UniTour offers a truly unique experience, and customers will be eager to tell their friends about our service provider. Other major instruments of promotional strategy include online advertising and press releases.
Online advertising will be mainly performed through social networks and contextual advertising. As UniTour mainly targets people who want to enjoy the value of real-life communication outside of virtual reality, this promotional mechanism is extremely effective. Press releases will underline the uniqueness of UniTour’s services and largely contribute to attraction of new customers.
9. Online Marketing Strategy
UniTour will make the best use of all online marketing components, including keywords, search engine optimization (SEO), paid online advertising, and social media.
Keyword strategy will revolve around the following major areas: family communication problems, group tourism, socialization, real-life communication, and quality time vacation with family or friends.
UniTour will outsource a SEO marketing function to competent professional marketing agencies. This will ensure the effectiveness of keyword strategy, and increase the effectiveness of reaching customers via general search engines like Google and Yahoo!, and specialized tourism search engines like TripAdvisor.
UniTour will execute its paid online advertising strategy chiefly through popular online tourism portals and travel search engines such as Kayak and TripAdvisor. Contextual advertising will also be a major point of this strategy.
UniTour will hire marketing specialists to manage the company’s accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, and other social media platforms.
10. Conversion Strategy
Testimonials of past clients are the key medium of UniTour’s conversion strategy. UniTour will publish them on the company’s website, and spread them via social media platforms and press-releases.
11. Joint Ventures and Partnerships
Joint ventures are not an important element of UniTour’s strategy. However, UniTour will actively engage in partnerships with a number of service providers on mutually beneficial terms. Potential partners include: airline companies, lodging service providers, tourist equipment rental service providers, competent family psychologists, and entertainment agencies. UniTour will constantly expand the network of its partners, by this means improving the assortment and quality of the services it provides.
12. Referral Strategy
Referral strategy is one of the most important elements for UniTour in terms of advertising, brand recognition and customer attraction. An essential instrument of UniTour’s referral strategy is group discounts. People are encouraged to attract their friends in order to receive a higher discount. Unique selling points of UniTour also contribute to successful implementation of referral strategy.
13. Strategy for Increasing Transaction Prices
UniTour positions its services in the lower price segment. Therefore, the main strategic focus of revenue generation is placed on increasing the quantity of customers rather than raising prices. However, some elements of transaction prices increase strategy are still present. Among them are service packages and uniting programs.
UniTour service packages offer additional services and features for lower prices. Customers are motivated to pay a slightly higher price to make their vacation more diverse and entertaining.
Uniting programs hold the true essence of UniTour’s services. The majority of customers will order this special offer to experience a truly unique vacation that brings people closer together and strengthens bonds between friends and families.
14. Retention Strategy
In order to retain its customers effectively, UniTour will constantly update the assortment of its services. The number of available destinations will also increase, initially within the U.S. and Canada, and overseas expansion on later stages of operation. Past customers will be informed of these updates via e-mail, regular mail, social networks and SMS. This will motivate past satisfied customers to return and experience new services and features.
Another important element of UniTour’s retention strategy is quality control. It will be performed by analyzing the feedback from customer surveys. Based on the results, UniTour will take necessary actions to maximize customer satisfaction levels and establish a base of loyal customers.
