Marketing Strategy Plan for the brand)

Individual Coursework (50%)
25 March 2020 1pm
You are a destination management consultant working on a destination, cultural or heritage brand of your choice. You are required to develop a Destination Marketing Strategy Plan for the brand.
You should start with planning; think about what destination, cultural or heritage brand you would like to work on for your assignment. Each week (starting from week 1) there will be seminar time devoted specifically to your work where you will have the opportunity to conduct research, put together the sections of the report and ask questions.
You can start by thinking of the following;
• Where the brand is now /how is the brand doing currently?
• Where would you like the brand to be?
• How do you plan to get there?
You will need to conduct a situation analysis using environmental scanning and SWOT analysis to understand how the brand is currently doing. Depending on where you would like to take the brand, you will need to form 3 to 4 marketing objectives. Considering these, you need to identify a market applying segmentation, targeting and positioning. According to your target market(s) you will apply marketing mix to your destination, cultural or heritage brand.
Please note that this assessment requires you to conduct research and the necessary analysis in order to develop knowledge about your choice of destination, cultural or heritage brand. The depth of your analysis will be enhanced by the quality of your research and integration of module material to your discussion.
This is an individual written report up to 2000 words (±10%), excluding executive summary and references. This assessment must be submitted on Wednesday, 25 March 2020. The marking criteria that will be used to evaluate your work is provided below.
Marking Criteria
Sections Percentage
Environmental Scanning 20%
SWOT Analysis 15%
Objectives 15%
Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning 20%
Marketing Mix Application 20%
Style and Format 10%

• You have 2000 words, you should have a reference list (excluded from the word count) to demonstrate your research on your destination.
• As this is written as a professional report make sure you have an Executive Summary no more than a page (excluded from word count) and Table of contents before the main text. Also, as for an academic assignment pay extra attention to your writing style (spelling & grammar), appropriate academic citation and referencing (in-text & reference list) and to cover all sections in the assignment brief.
• Below is a guideline, highlighting the content mostly with some additional points to help you. If you have been regularly engaging with the module content you would know that we covered many concepts each week that can be applied to your destination within your discussion to demonstrate your knowledge.

1. Environmental Scanning (on the destination)
Tourism Sector
Tourism Market
Competition
Pestle analysis
(these were covered in week 2 with examples of what could be discussed in each section)
2. SWOT analysis
(Remember to focus on internal factors for Strengths and Weaknesses, external factors that you highlighted in pestle analysis for Opportunities and Threats, covered in week 4)
3. Marketing Objectives
3 to 4 marketing objectives
(these should be formed according to the SMART criteria, please don’t propose fewer than 3 or more than 4 as these will impact the quality of your strategies)
4. STP
Discuss your target market with details (you should apply a variety of segmentation methods for a quality discussion- covered in week 3 with examples)
Discuss your positioning and present positioning map (minimum 1 map, with other than Quality & Price attributes, covered in both week 4 & 8)
5. Marketing Mix
This is the discussion of how you will be applying the 4 Ps- covered over many weeks, tips in seminar slide packs
Product: ‘Experience of what visitors get’ (Destination product with Physical product, program, people, packages)
Price: Cost of the ‘experience’ (This can be linked to Branding, image, positioning)
Place: Remember this is not place, it is distribution (Information search and decision making of your target would help here)
Promotion: Marketing Communications (Message, media, communication mix decisions according to target market)