Promotional Strategy for the New Water Based Theme Park in Darling Harbor

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Introduction and description of the enterprise

Darling harbour is one of the recreational sites in Sydney, Australia. There are numerous entertainment and recreations sites at the centre. The main attractions of the harbour are Chinese’s Friendship Garden, Cockle Bay Wharf, IMAX Theatre, aquariums, exhibition centre, shopping centres and museum. The Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority (SHFA) has established an ultra modern water based theme park.

The park will offer entertainment for adults, teenagers and children. The main attraction for the theme parks will be water rides, travelling shows, great sceneries, food services, roll coasters; train rides fireworks, acrobatics, casinos and other forms of amusements.

The theme park is about to open and there is need to carry out a successful promotional campaign so as to attract tourists in Austria as well as from other parts of the world. This paper outlines the promotional strategies for the theme park.

Theme park mission statement

The mission statement for this theme park is “to provide high quality amusement, fun and entertainment to all our esteemed customers in Australia and the world in general”

Theme park core values

The main core values of the water world theme park are;

Customer focus: all products and services will focus on customers and satisfy their need. The theme park will provide High quality services and products.
Good corporate culture: the theme park promotes teamwork among all stakeholders and employees satisfaction.
Safety and enthusiasm: the employees will ensure that the rides and other activities are safe. The ground will also be secured to ensure that there are no loss of property.
Compassion and honesty.

Theme park objectives

To provide high quality services and amusement to the local and international tourists.
To be a major tourist attraction in Australia.
To earn profits and gain at least 20% of the target market.

The promotional campaigns will promote the values, objectives and mission of the theme park (Aaker, 1998). All the promotional messages will be formulated so as to transmit the core values and mission of the park.

Target market analysis and segmentation

The main customers for the theme park will be from the local and the international community. In order to identify the target market, the main customers were identified and segmented appropriately (Cateora, Gilly & Graham, 2010). The main segmentation was based on:

Nationality.
Age.
Income.

Age

This is the most important classification. Based on age, the market can be subdivided into, children, teenagers, adults and elderly. The promotional messages will be formulated so as to target the different groups.

For the children, the promotion messages will be formulated so as to enlighten the parent as they are the decision makers and also the financiers. The theme park will be marketed as the best destination for kids to have fun and as well as their parents.

Nationality

Based on this segmentation, there are two main types of customers; the local tourists who come from Australia and the international tourists who arrive from other countries. The two target markets have different cultures, language, norms, values and other characteristics and the promotion messages must be formulated so as to target them differently.

Income

The theme park market will also be segmented based on income. The accommodation, rides, shops will be arranged so as to target different customers. For example, the hotel suites will be marketed such that there are luxurious suits for high income earners and the middle class suites for low income earners. Both international and local customers can be segmented as high, medium and low income earners.

Competitor analysis

The water based theme park has many competitors located in Australia and internationally. A competitor’s analysis was carried out and it involved competitor identification, laying out the main objectives of the competitors, determining their competitive advantages and outlining their promotional strategies (Tellis, 1998).

Competitor identification

There are other theme parks in the same area as well as other businesses operating in the same region which offer similar services. These include: DreamWorld, Luna Park, Adventure World, White Water World, Sea World Gold Coast, Wanner Bro Movie World and Mack Water Coaster Track. These parks offer services that are closely related to the water based theme park be opened.

Competitor objectives

Sydney Australia is one of the most competitive markets. The many competitors in the tourism business and their main objectives are: to maximize on their profits, increases their share in the market, to attract more customers and to develop new innovative amusement for the whole family.

Promotional methods

Most of the competitors in this market use print media, televisions, and advertisements in their websites as the primary promotional methods.

A Strength Weakness, Opportunities and Threat analysis was carried out so as to evaluate the competitive advantages of the competitors. These were compared with the water based theme park being marketed (Pickton & Broderick, 2005). The resulting SWOT analysis matrix is shown in the table 1 below

COMPANY	STRENGTHS	WEAKNESSES	OPPORTUNITIES	THREATS
Luna park	Has amusements for the whole family Well established Has been in the business for a long period Has been used severally to film movies Very many rides such as tango train, wild mouse, flying saucer, spider among others (Luna Park 2013).	The park has been closing and reopening very many times due to accidents (ghost train fire which killed 7 people ) , The park has also been closed by government due to safety issues There are pollution complains Mostly marketed as a kids destination	Large Australian market Growing need for whole family amusement Possibility of another movie be filmed there	Competition from other theme parks Government regulations Safety issues Environmental pollution concerns
Water park Gold coast	Over 15 years experience Good marketing strategies Good location(next to waner bros) Attracts both kids and grown ups Very many amusements and services such as surf rider, mammoth falls, Black hole, kamikaze among others (Water Park Gold Coast, 2013)	Not many tourist attractions other than rides. tourist queue waiting for amusements Dirty facilities	large Australian market Large foreign market	Other competitors Safety issues
New water based theme park	Adequate facilities Safety and security are guaranteed The park will attract all age groups Quality services at affordable costs Other entertainment such as casinos, food, guest rooms and exhibition centre The marketing and promotional strategy will be unique.	Lack of experience The park is new and not widely known	There is a large local market The new services and equipment will attract many fans There is a large international market	The already existing theme parks pose significant challenge to the new firm. Threat of other new theme parks be developed

Identification of the competitive advantages

From the SWOT analysis carried out, the main competitive advantages of the new water based theme park being established are:

Safety and security: In the past, theme parks have bee faced with issues of security and lack of safety. The new theme park will position itself as having very safe and secure amusement services.

Quality: The qualities of the equipments at all the current theme park are old and dirty. The new theme park on the other hand has new equipments which are in line with modern theme parks.

Wholesome entertainment: Most of the theme packs either target children or adults. The current water based theme park will target tourists from the entire divide. In addition, the theme park will have guest’s room, shops, food, casinos so as to attract more tourists.

Market leader in pricing: In the short run, the park will offer services at a discounted rate so as to attract customers. The park will also strive to be a market leader in pricing and will charge lowest for their quality services (Ries & Trout, 2000).

Selections and Description of the Promotional Strategy

There are different promotional strategies that can be used to market the new theme. The promotional strategy selected was based on the following factors (Kotler, 2003):

Ability to reach the target market.
Visibility of the message.
Cost of the promotional strategy.
The target audience.

The main methods that will be used to promote the park are:

Advertising: Advertisement creates awareness among local and foreign companies. Various advertisement messages will be prepared and sent through the different channels of communication.
Sales promotions: Various sales promotions strategies will be used to market the new theme park (Kotler et al., 1998). These include:
Free services: In order to penetrate the market, the park will offer free rides for everyone who has booked the tickets. All children who have booked tickets will be entitled to extra rides and this will motivate their parents to pay for them. This will be done for the first four months.
Discounts: Frequent customers will be given a 20% discount so as to motivate them to keep coming. Any customer who comes to the park more than two times will be awarded this discount (Bowen & Chen, 2001).
Offering gifts: The visitors of the theme park will participate in a lottery so that they can win various prices such as free shirts, free rides, free accommodation for the family and other amusements.

Public relations activities

Public relation is one of the most important methods of linking the park with the community. In the recent past, most theme parks have been criticised as being dirty and causing pollution (Kotler & Nancy, 2005). In line with this, the new theme park will participate in community clean up activities; carry out campaigns on pollution prevention and environmental protection (Stammerjohan et al., 2005).

Communication Mix

For this promotion, integrated marketing communication will be used. Traditional methods of marketing have been criticized as not be able to measure the impacts that the promotion strategies have (Kaser, 2012).

Due to the large promotional information reaching the customers, it is necessary to use the right channels and also measure the impacts of the communication strategy (Pickton & Broderick 2005). The main communication channels for all sales promotions and advertising strategies are outlined below:

Use of magazines: Magazines promoting tourism will be used to market the new theme parks. These magazines are usually read by many tourists where they get the information about the new theme park (Belch & Belch, 2011).
Use of mass media: The new theme park will be marketed on the national television and this has the ability to reach million of viewers. The problem with this method is that it is hard to determine whether the message have impacts on customers.
Use of social media: Social media sites such as face book and twitter will be used to advertise the new theme park. Most of the teenagers and middle aged people mostly use the social media sites and this is an appropriate media to target this group. The use of this media will also allow the park to get feedback information about their services.

Evaluation method

For the marketing strategies to be effective, it is imperative that they are evaluated to ensure that they reach the target market and also achieve the marketing objectives of the park (Peter & Olson, 1998). The main evaluation strategies used are tabulated below:

PROMOTIONAL STRATEGY	EVALUATION METHODS
Use of magazines	The magazine will have a hotline telephone number where customers will be promoted to call so as to receive more information. This number will be specific to the magazine users. Based on the number of calls, the effectiveness of the promotional channel can be evaluated. The number of customers attending the park An increase in the number of tickets be sold
Use of the television	The performance of this promotional channel will be based on the number of calls to a specific telephone number and number of tickets being sold. Most of the sales promotion offers will be done through television and social media. Customers visiting the park will also be asked to indicate where they got information about the theme park from. Based on their response, the most popular communication channel will be identified The increase in the number of tickets sold
Social media	The social media sites customers will be asked to give a feedback by pressing the button “Like” on face book or twitter. The number of clicks will be used to evaluate the success of this communication method.

References

Aaker, D. 1998, Developing Business Strategies, 5^th edition, Wiley, New York.

Bowen. J. & Chen. S. L 2001, “The relationship between customer loyalty and customer satisfaction”, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, vol.13 no.5, pp. 213-217.

Belch, G. & Belch, M. 2011, Advertising and Promotion: An Integrated Marketing Communications Perspective, McGraw-Hill/Irwin. New York.

Cateora, P., Gilly, M., & Graham, J. 2010, International Marketing, McGraw- Hill/Irwin, New York.

Kaser, K. 2012, Advertising and Sales Promotion, South-Western College Publishing. Australia.

Kotler, P. & Nancy, L. 2005, corporate social responsibility: doing the most good for your company and your cause, John Wiley and Sons, Washington.

Kotler, P. 2003, Marketing Insights from A to Z: 80 Concepts Every Manager Needs to Know, Wiley, New York.

Kotler, P., Bowen, J., & Makens, J. 1998, Marketing for hospitality and tourism , Prentice Hall, London, UK.

Luna Park 2013, Luna park website. Web.

Peter, J. P. & Olson, J. C. 1998, Consumer Behavior and Marketing Strategy, McGraw- Hill, Boston.

Pickton, D. & Broderick, A. 2005, Integrated Marketing Communications, Prentice Hall, London, UK.

Ries, A. & Trout, J. 2000, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind: How to Be Seen and Heard in the Overcrowded Marketplace, McGraw hill, New York.

Stammerjohan, C., Wood, C., Chang, Y., & Thorson, E. 2005, an empirical investigation of the interaction between publicity, advertising, and previous brand attitudes and knowledge. Journal of Advertising, 34 (4), 55–6.

Tellis, J. 1998, Advertising and Sales Promotion Strategy, Addison- Wesley, Sydney, Australia.

Water Park Gold Coast 2013, Water Park Gold Coast Website. Web.

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