Contiki Tours : Marketing Strategy Analysis Essay

Contiki Tours is an organisation that offers packaged holidays to a variety of local and international destinations. Their targeted market place is limited by age. Clients essential be between 18 and 35 grades old. The analysis give focus on Contiki *s Australian market for international holidays. Contiki view adopted a concentrated marketing strategy in identifying market segments. This means that they submit elected to focus their marketing efforts on gaining a richly share of one particular segment of the market (i.e. 18-35 year olds). The advantage of such a strategy is that it allows specialisation which may kick upstairs economies in proceedsion, distribution and promotion. However, it does entail approximately risks in that market call for can change or competitors may enter the segment. The risks and benefits of this strategy leave behind be examined more closely in the analysis of the marketing mix. proceeds In drift to assess the effectiveness of Contikis mar keting strategy it is important to understand the nature of the yield offered by the organisation in terms of the benefits that it provides. Broadly, it is a service crop (eg. flight, bus trip, food preparation) although elements of the product are physical (eg. food, t-shirts).It is a specialty product given that it meets a specialised need and consumers are willing to spend quite some clip searching for and evaluating. It is also bargain ford infrequently. It would also be considered a high requestment product due to the relatively high risks of purchase. The notion of purchase risk will be explored in more detail in an analysis of consumer behaviour. Price The nature of the product, characteristics of the target market, and consumer behaviour each have important implications for determine. It should be noted that the price paid for the product by the consumer involves more than the nominal price (i.e. the price tag). As headspring as the money paid for the product, consume rs endure time costs and must expend behavioural and cognitive effort. Cognitive effort may involve the customer dealing with some of the risks of purchase (Ross, 1984). There are a number of implications of this analysis for Contiki. Firstly, the organisation can manage the price that consumers compensate by minimising the time, behavioural and cognitive effort that is used purchasing the product.By decreasing the costs to the consumer, Contiki is able to increase the perceived value of their product to consumers. Over-the-phone or internet information and booking services would decrease the time taken in actually purchasing the product, and therefore the cost of the product to the consumer. Also, convenient agent locations would minimise the behavioural effort for consumers. Contiki attempt to ordinate with a wide range of kick the bucket agencies who are educated by Contiki sales staff on product attributes (the distribution channel and its implications for pricing with be co vered more thoroughly in a subsequently section of this analysis). It should be recognised, however, that many consumers derive utility from extensive cognitive involvement in the purchase process.For example, some customers may enjoy discussing at length with consultants, their itinerary and travel options. To the extent that this occurs, friendly and knowledgeable travel consultants should be an integral part of Contikis product offering. In order to achieve this, promotion (i.e. personal selling) to the distribution channel should be emphasised. From this intelligence it is evident that the interaction between consultant and customer is a bring out aspect of the value delivery sequence. Increasing perceived value involves managing the concourse or participants in the consumption process (Berry, 1980 Booms & Bitner, 1981).