Marketing Plan for the Spectrum Leisure Centre Coursework

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to prepare a marketing plan for Spectrum Leisure Centre (SLC) in Guildford. SLC is one of the largest leisure centres in UK to provide wide range of facilities for local people and it is a wing of Guildford Borough Council. However, the local authority invests more to build new complex to offer conventional facilities and earn huge profits but for global financial crisis, these plans become ineffective to reach the destination.

As a result, this marketing plan will discuss about possible target customers, market segmentation, brand position, current market situation, and recessionary impact on this centre, environmental condition, objectives of the centre and the other correlated marketing issues to serve the target customers successfully. In addition, this marketing plan will be for next two years because the market environment is not in stable condition but it could change any time.

Background of Spectrum Leisure Centre

Guildford Borough Council has established Spectrum Leisure Centre to provide a wide range of facilities and to take leisure provision in the Guildford region. Spectrum Leisure Centre possesses resources as ice skating, swimming pool, teaching pool, food and drinks, theatre, library building, cinema hall, conference hall and licensed bar where a large number of services offered for the people with ultra modern services (Howard, 2009).

Situational analysis of Spectrum Leisure Centre

Competitive situation

Spectrum Leisure Centre provides diversified services, so, it has many competitors in different sectors in local market, such as, Spirit Health & Fitness Club, The Surrey County Cricket Centre. Moreover, it other competitors, for example, Virgin Active, Luminar Group, Roadtrips, Sportsoption, Merlin Entertainments Group, DIR international, Jonathon Markson Tennis, Odeon Cinemas, Play Africa, Sporting Traveler, The Rank Group, Shire, Sports Tours UK, Sweet Chariot, and Team Link, Tate Gallery (Spectrum, 2010).

Environmental situation

The Political situation always changes the business environment, for example, terrorist attack in railway and airlines travel system reduce the number of tourists, or the taxation policy, rules and regulations affect the operation of leisure centre. Mintel (2010) reported that the leisure industry of UK seems to be productive enough since it is contributing by 9.4% of total GDP of the country but for global financial crisis the purchasing power of the customer has changed so they try to meet the necessity rather than luxury. On the other hand, social- cultural factors like health awareness, arrangement of 2012 London Olympics, disposable income for enjoying such recreational mode increase the profits of this leisure centre.

Not only Guildford spectrum leisure centre, there are merely 3300 health clubs in UK, many swimming pools and other recreational centre have created unique business environment. Moreover, technological factors play vital role for the development of its operation, for instance, online booking facility, online payment system, electronic brochure collection, hotel reservation, ICT, Torex Leisure Management System, Windows packages, Leisure & Amenity Booking System and so on. Finally, SLC is concern about environmental and legal factors as it always follows data protection Act 1998, Civil Rights Act 1964, and Sex Discrimination Act 1975 to restrict discrimination in hiring or compensation.

STP strategy

• Target market: According to the Mintel report, recession has not made any difference to the spending habits of 54% people, but 38% people severely affected and rest of them not aware in this issue. This leisure centre will target those people who have enough capability to spend for recreational purpose, children, youth, adult, old, and people including high and mid- income group including young, middle and old- aged peers, individual sports fans, players or teams etc.
• Market positioning: In global financial crisis, SLC can position its services in a particular in the customers mind relation to the competitors by expressing the distinct benefits or giving more services for less value.
• Market segmentation: Before recession, the vast majority of its revenue generates from membership and joining fees but for the fiscal year 2011, SLC selects new segments to earn more profits, for example, food and beverages, personal training and health and beauty treatment etc.

Strategic analysis of SLC

• Service line: Guildford Local Committee (2003) stated that, it offers swimming training programme, cinema, health and fitness services, and practicing services, shopping, eatery, and cultural events etc.
• Price: Spectrum (2010) pointed out that it offers reasonable price somewhat below than competitors, for example, it earns minimal from competition fees, ₤10 for membership, lower price for swimming and ice skating etc.
• Service promotion: besides traditional such as telephone call, regular contact with members with newsletters, PC’s, e- mail or fax, and photocopiers, SLC uses a number of promotional tools including latest promotional software and this marketing plan suggests the centre to integrate SAP for promotion.
• Advertising: In order to get effective feedback from customers, SLC offers free classes, consulting services, standard diet suggestions, premium, discounts and gift for family membership, coupons for early membership, etc. However, it uses newspaper, radio, billboard, newsletters, and internet for advertising (Spectrum, 2010)
• Marketing research: to monitor competitor’s mode, improve knowledge of customer- decision-making process, increase customer services, development of new inventions, implement of new strategy and increase target markets and profits, the SLC will enlarge its budget by 10% for marketing research.

SWOT analysis of SLC

Strengths

Spectrum Leisure Centre has many positive options, for instance –

• It has skilled and well trained employees to serve the customer;
• Location of the centre helps to attract customers;
• It has capability to offer low price for few services;
• Social position due to community respect and
• It provides fitness facilities for the patients.

Weakness

It has also some weak points, for example –

• It has some internal problems like lack of trainers, and failure to minimise operating costs;
• Crèche resources are not enough for the children’
• It has no bar though the demand it too high;

Opportunities

This leisure centre has several scopes such as-

• It has enough scope to diversify its business to generate more profits;
• Attract more customers by increasing budget for promotion;

Threats

• Financial crisis in UK is the main challenge for 2011 -2012 fiscal years;
• It has some direct and indirect competitors.

Position of Spectrum Leisure Centre in BCG Matrix

The following figure shows the market growth of Spectrum Leisure Centre in the BCG matrix –

• Cash Cow: Pearce & Robinson (2006) argued that the market growth is low but market share is high for Cash Cow, which is different from the Spectrum;
• Dog: dog is in right hand side of BCG matrix and it requires large financial investment to improve the financial situation;
• Question marks: Spectrum Leisure Centre is not in the position of question mark as the relative market share not applicable for this centre;
• Star: the most important part of this figure is Star because Spectrum Leisure Centre occupies the position of star due to its high market share and market growth.

Branding

Kotler & Keller (2006) pointed out that a company can better positioned by associating its name with desirable benefits. In case of SLC, it provides unique facilities, which is also good for health of the customers, so the following figure shows that its brand attitudes are much better than average.

Recommendation

• It should develop long-term relation with the customers by providing service according to customer’s demand;
• It should arrange health awareness campaign and it can use communication tools for this programme;
• Training on motivation, leadership and teamwork of employees is necessary in order to widen new facilities and to eliminate possible troubles,
• In order to increase service range, it should consider customers’ demand first and pay attention in market segmentation;
• SLC should find out cost effective solutions to reduce operating costs;
• It should take immediate measure as the purchasing power of buyer is decreasing due to global financial crisis;
• It should invest more for market research and promotion;
• It should change market strategy considering market demand.

Conclusion

The entire marketing plan of Spectrum Leisure Centre has addressed the centre’s recent position in the target market, its major competitors, numerous strengths, and challenges along with opportunities, threats, financial crisis, specific strategies etc. This report also suggested some strategies to overcome all critical problems by implementing recommendation and satisfying target customers.

Reference List

Guildford Local Committee (2003) Development of the Guildford Park & Ride Strategy. Web.

Hitt, M. A., Ireland, R. D., & Hoskisson, R. E. (2001) Strategic Management. 4^th ed. South-Western Thomson Learning.

Howard, C. (2009) Planning for Success in a Tough Marketplace. Web.

Kotler, P. &.Armstrong, G. (2006) Principles of Marketing. 16^th ed. Prentice-Hall of India Private Limited.

Kotler, P. & Keller, K. L. (2006) Marketing management. 12^th ed. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Mintel (2010) Health and Fitness Clubs – UK – 2009. Web.

Pearce II, J.A. & Robinson, R.B. (2006) Strategic Management. 8^th ed. London: McGraw-Hill.

Spectrum (2010) Spectrum Specifics Information Pack – History. Web.

Spectrum (2010) Welcome to Guildford Spectrum: text only for information. Web.

Spectrum (2010) Welcome to Guildford Spectrum: The most exciting leisure complex in the UK. Web.