Travelling Market Flight Centre example essay topic

Flight Centre Flight Centre is in the market of retail travel and tourism. It is a travel agency at which people wishing to go on holiday whether domestic or International, come into one of there many stores and speak to a travel consultant about where they want to go and how much that will cost them. The Consultants then is able to book the holiday for the customer / client whether that is a hotel or an International flight to Paris. The market for people wanting to travel in this modern era is of gigantic proportions with people particularly in Western Cultures wanting to escape the busy and chaotic modern life of today's world. Travel has become more adventurous before what was seen, as a peaceful place to go for a holiday has now become a tourist nightmare. Persons wishing to get away from it all have to venture out further.

This has opened up the door for more remote destinations for the young; holiday places such Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam places that traditionally were not accessible. Also in many cases the lack of time of many in the Western World causes people to consider time limits. Often there is not enough time to go from Australia to Europe. As there point of the Holiday is not to be on a plane for a substantial part of their holiday, also the cost of trips to closer locations is more than likely to be half of a trip to Europe. Young people generally do have a lot higher budget than older travellers. The market for travel is big with every person particularly in the younger generation seeing travel as a must.

Just by looking at the amount of youth hostels opening up in recent years gives you an idea of how big the market for travel is. The world even after the horrific events of September 11 2001 still wants to travel and broaden their mind. As the Western Countries become more and more overcrowded. The market for travel will increase.

Every person will need to get away from the hustle and bustle of modern western life. As the third world countries inhabitants begin to gather money together I believe the market will be global and the chance for Flight Centre to become one of the worlds biggest companies extremely high. The mission / purpose of Flight Centre fit in strongly with this concept. Mission is "To open up the world for those who want to see". Flight Centre must set an objective to increase it's market share of the Young travel market. Young persons like something different or away from mainstream, Flight Centre do have the staff being young enthusiastic but do not have the store layout, the store are set up as a more formal like occasion with package.

Key Competitor Analysis The key competitors against Flight Centre are five key companies with Jetset and Travel world now joined together that combination could prove to be lethal for Flight Centre. Three of these competitors try to tackle Flight Centre head on with Web jet running an extensive Television campaign mentioning Flight Centre claims of being the cheapest airfares and attempting to convert Flight Centre customers away from Flight Centre web and on to there web site. In an Article in the Sydney Morning Herald dated Thursday November 26th it addresses the competitors of Flight Centres wish to challenge Flight Centre. It talks about the joining of Travel world and Jetset and also the company buying the once Ansett owned company Travel and which is now not in existence but owned by Jetset. Mr sparks chief executive of Jetset stated " Flight Centre has a very strong positioning in the marketplace in terms of price and air business, What I am after is the value proposition and providing a solution for the customer who wants to come in and be apart of the process". Recent profits for Jetset were in fact down because of September 11 yet Flight Centre profits reached record highs how competitive this new team will be I don't know.

Webjet has taken a lot of business from the Flight Centre web market. Flight Centre does not have big market share in terms of web based booking with more and more people using the web nowadays its something which Flight Centre needs to address in the near future before company's such as Webjet do take over the web based booking industry. Thomas Cook travel is the biggest competitor in overseas market it has been established overseas for many decades now and particularly in the United Kingdom Thomas Cook has the same amount of Market share as Flight Centre does in Australia. Flight Centre is really keen to expand it's overseas market but with big established names like Thomas Cook, Flight Centre may find it rather difficult.

Harvey world travel is a large competitor to flight Centre consultancy business as it has a range of stores which do offer package deals and exceptional service and also is well renowned and trusted brand in the marketplace. A web based American based company called Expedia could prove to be a threat with 1/4 of the Staff of Flight Centre it's profit is more than 5 times that of Flight Centre due to the low overheads involved in web based booking. Expedia was started up by Compaq so it users the most up to date technology. Swot Analysis Strengths Weakness Opportunities Threats Staff morale high Staff Retention Expansion of web based booking Highly competitive web based industry Staff incentives high Fraud by Staff members Expand business overseas Competitors already established in overseas market. Loyal staff to company More training in how to deal with complaints Expand business in Australia Terrorism Internal promotions High overheads Deal with airline offering cheap rates Competitor deal with airline Consistency of Organisational and processes Web based booking Buying out smaller companies A Good communication between consultants and management Staff offered better deals from competitors Buying hotel chains Loss of customers High liquidity Expensive rewards scheme Buying Car hire company's Harvey world Travel Youthful enthusiasm To Gun Hoe Expand Student Flights Expedia Target Market Analysis Market include: . Family's.

Students. Retires. Business people. Singles. Couples In a recent survey done by Flight Centre it shows that their Customers are what their occupation is age etc. Age % Of Customer 15-24 12% 25-34 21% 35-44 22% 45-54 21% 55-64 16% 65+ 8% Occupation % Unemployed 1% Retired 13% Student 6% Home maker 6% Manual worker 3% Trades 4% Sales / Services 12% Semi professional 14% Business Managers professional 41% As you can see from these results the age of customers at Flight Centre do vary enormously but their occupation is in more than half the time going to be either semi professional or professional in 54% of cases surveyed that was the case.

There is 64% chance that the Flight Centre customers are aged between 25 and 54 years. Surprisingly only 6% of Flight Centre customers were students and only 12% were aged between 15 and 24. Today students are travelling more than another age bracket, this suggest that Flight Centre has not hit the Student Market yet and that students are not using Flight Centre. It is from this that I believe Flight Centre needs to change slightly and Target a more student base client between the agers of 15-24.

For a company, which has 30% market, share to only have 6% of its clients between the ages of 15-24 is wrong, particularly when persons in that age bracket make up in Australia 27% of all travel. Promotion (retail Marketing Mix) The promotion mix for Flight Centre will consist of many channels. The first channel used will be the television. The main focus for the promotion budget will be directed towards television. The Ads will contain information on seasonal deals and feature the company logo and slogan, as well as drive to web. The ads will be aimed at all areas of the market with a main emphasis on family programs.

Flight Centre will also involve itself with trade shows. Setting up information stands at all the major tourism shows and ads in trade publications and in-flight magazines. Flight Centre wants to get its product out into the travelling market Flight Centre will also be sending out brochures to its previous customers. These brochures will be similar to the television ads, explaining up and coming deals.

The difference between this and the television ads is that the brochures will be more in depth. There will be similar brochures handed to universities, TAFE, Colleges and backpackers. These brochures will focus mainly on student deals and deals to places where students visit frequently. Conclusion This is a focused plan, aimed at gaining more of a market and stimulate the previous market to become active again. The idea behind the promotions is to push the deals. We want to get the idea across to the market that Flight Centre is the cheapest and best way to travel the world.

We have aimed at gaining more of a family and student market share. We feel that this is a boom area, as they gain more money.