MARK 304 TOURISM MARKETING

Trimester 2, 2025

INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT Parts A and B Instructions

This document provides instructions and information for Assignment Parts A and B and should be read in conjunction with the Course Outline and Marking Rubrics. This assignment consists of two written reports: Part A (Tourism Market Analysis) worth 30% and Part B (Tourism Marketing Plan) worth 40%.

The Focus of the Assignment

This course requires a very realistic application of marketing concepts and theories in planning and implementing creative marketing strategies for the tourism and hospitality industry. The assignments develop your skills in developing and executing a research-informed marketing plan for marketing tourist destinations, packages, and services.

In this assignment, you will develop a comprehensive marketing plan to cover the next three years of a tourism product (i.e., a service, package, or destination) for an existing tourism enterprise/company. The plan focuses on identifying and exploiting a new tourism-related business opportunity to grow the business. Your solutions may involve an existing product, a completely new product, a line extension, a product modification, or a service addition. Your chosen tourism enterprise/company must be located anywhere within New Zealand. The assignments consist of two parts (Part A—Tourism Market Analysis and Part B—Tourism Marketing Plan). Both assignments must be on the same tourism product/service and company.

You should apply the concepts and theories learnt in the course. The discussions and analysis of this assignment should be based on secondary data and information, meaning that:

You cannot and MUST NOT approach the tourism enterprise/company directly

PART A: Tourism Market Analysis (30%)

This assignment involves you presenting a written report of around 2,000 ±  10% words (excluding cover page, table of contents, references, and relevant appendices (if any)). Your finished report will be uploaded into course assignment Turnitin submission link in Nuku. The deadline for Part A is Friday, 15 August 2025, 4pm, NZ Time. Students are responsible for uploading the correct assignment documents online. The document found online will be the document marked.

The Scope

•    To complete this assessment, you will select a New Zealand company in the tourism and hospitality industry. You may choose to develop a marketing plan for a tourist destination, tour package, or stand-alone product/service.

•    Part A of the Assignment (Market Analysis) focuses on identifying a new tourism-related business    opportunity    for     the     chosen    company     based     on     comprehensive environmental/situational and  STP  (Segmenting, Targeting, and Positioning) analyses. You will provide background of your chosen tourism product and company; utilise relevant recognised    analytical    techniques    (e.g.,    PEST/PESTLE    and    SWOT/TOWS    for macroenvironment   and   microenvironment   analyses,   and   Porter’s   five   forces    for competitive  environment  analysis)  to  enable  and  identify  logical  solutions;  identify competitive  and  macro  &  micro  environmental  factors;  conduct  an  in-depth  STP (segmentation,  targeting,  and  positioning)  analysis;  and  identify  potential  marketing opportunities and challenges for the product and company.

•    This assessment must be original work. You cannot submit work that you have previously completed for other courses. The university treats plagiarism very seriously, and so does the MARK 304 teaching team. If you copy the work of others, use websites designed to help students complete assignments, or in any way submit work that is not yours, you can expect a significant degradation in your ability to pass this paper.

•    Provided you reference correctly (APA 7th  edition) you can, and should, use relevant and reliable  sources  (e.g.,  scholarly  journals,  business  magazines,   government  reports, reputable  tourism-related  websites,  databases  (e.g.,  Statista,  Passport  -  Euromonitor), textbooks, and others). Academic journals include (this is not an exhaustive list): Tourism Management, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, Annals of Tourism Research, Current Issues in Tourism, Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research, Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing, Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, Journal of Business Research,   European  Journal   of   Marketing,   International  Journal   of   Hospitality Management,  and Journal  of Hospitality Marketing and Management. Non-academic sources can include business publications (such as NZ Marketing Magazine, Entrepreneur, Business Week, Fast Company, Forbes, Inc., Tourism Business Magazine, Go Travel New Zealand), newspapers (e.g., NZ Herald, The Dominion Post and their websites such as www.stuff.co.nz),    and    government    sources     (e.g.,   www.tourismnewzealand.com, https://www.unwto.org/,https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/, and others).

Assignment Structure

1.    Background Information

Provide background information on (a) your chosen company and its current business (products/services),    (b)   the   headquarters ’   location,    (c)    your    proposed    new product/service, and any other material that lets the reader understand the scope of the business and your report.

2.    Situational Analysis

        Provide     a      comprehensive     analysis      of     the     relevant      macroenvironment,

microenvironment, and competitive environment factors.

(a)     Conduct  a  comprehensive  PESTLE  analysis  on  the  macroenvironment  factors (political,        economic,         socio-cultural,         technological,         legal,        and environmental/sustainability forces). Focus on key changes/trends in the relevant factors and their likely impacts on your specific industry or product category.

(b)    Identify     relevant     microenvironment     factors     (main    suppliers,     marketing intermediaries, customers, and general publics) affecting your chosen company’s business. Conduct a comprehensive SWOT/TOWS analysis of the chosen company.

(c)     Examine the competitive environment by applying Porter’s five forces analysis. Discuss the main competitive issues affecting the industry or product category.

For your PEST/PESTLE analysis, SWOT/TOWS analysis, Porter’s five forces analysis, and other relevant analytical techniques, do NOT just provide a table or summary but ALSO say what the material means and how it led you to the conclusions you have drawn about the market today and for the next three years as well as the identification of your proposed new product/service.

NOTE:  The PESTLE and SWOT/TOWS tables  and Porter’s five forces  diagram  are excluded from the word counts.

3.    Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning (STP)

Provide insightful STP analysis:

(a)     Identify   and   justify    relevant    market   segment(s)    for    the   proposed    new product/service using relevant segmentation variables.

(b)    Identify and justify the chosen target market(s) based on an appropriate market targeting strategy (undifferentiated, differentiated, concentrated, or micromarketing strategy).

(c)     Develop a clear positioning statement for the proposed new product/service (based on    a     perceptual/positioning     map    or     a    value     curve).     [Note:    the perceptual/positioning map or the value curve is excluded from the word count].

4.    Marketing Opportunities and Challenges

Based  on  your  comprehensive  situational  analysis  and   STP  analysis,  identify  main marketing opportunities and challenges for your proposed product/service and company.

This forms the basis of Part B of the Assignment (Tourism Marketing Plan).

5.    References (excluded from the word count)

At the end of your report, provide your references using APA referencing styles (7th edition).

Layout: The format of your report should be Times New Roman, 12-point font, 1.5 spacing,

2.5 cm margins all sides (left, right, top, and bottom).

PART B: Tourism Marketing Plan (40%)

Based on your Part A of the assignment (Tourism Market Analysis), you will develop and present specific tourism marketing actions for your chosen new business opportunity for a tourist destination, tour package or stand-alone product/service to help the company grow over the next three years. You will: establish specific marketing objectives, propose a feasible business model using Business Model Canvas, and clearly describe a plan of actions for achieving your marketing objectives.

The Scope

•    Part B of the Assignment (Tourism Marketing Plan report) provides a detailed plan of actions to achieve your marketing objectives over the next three years. Ensure your plan of actions is in accordance with the information obtained from your analysis in Part A (Tourism  Market  Analysis),   especially  the   situational   analysis,  STP  (segmentation, targeting, and positioning), and marketing opportunities and challenges. However, in the light of the feedback or further development, you may revisit any or all of the Tourism Market Analysis.

•    The tourism product/service and company must be the same as the one you prepared for Part A (Tourism Market Analysis).

•    This assessment must be original work. You cannot submit work that you have previously completed for other courses. The university treats plagiarism very seriously, and so does the MARK 304 teaching team. If you copy the work of others, use websites designed to help students complete assignments, or in any way submit work that is not yours, you can expect a significant degradation in your ability to pass this paper.

•    You can and should use relevant and reliable references (e.g., scholarly journals, business magazines,  government  reports,  reputable  tourism-related  websites,   databases  (e.g., Statista, Passport - Euromonitor), textbooks, and others). See the list on page 2.

•    The report must be written to the standard expected by a professional business audience. It must be user-friendly and have a clear layout, logical progression, and coherent argument.

Suggested Report Structure

1.    Executive Summary (excluded from the word count - maximum 1 page)

This section will provide an overview of the tourism marketing plan. It is a summary of the key elements of the plan. Please note that an executive summary is not the same as a table of content or an abstract.

2.    Introduction

Set the scene. Explain the reason for the report, provide a brief background to the proposed product/service  and  company,  the  reasoning  behind  the  development  of  the  tourism marketing plan, and what the audience can expect to find in the report.

3.    Marketing Objectives

Detail the specific marketing objectives to be achieved over the next three years. Ensure the marketing objectives meet the criteria of SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound).

4.    Proposed Business Model

Briefly describe the proposed business model using the Business Model Canvas (BMC)— essentially, a one-page visual framework describing the high-level strategic details needed to get the business (or product/service) successfully to market including Value Proposition (what it does and promises); Customer Segments (who it’s for); Key Activities (the steps the organisation/company must complete to make it successful); Key Resources (what personnel, tools, and budget the organisation will have access to); Channels (how the organisation will market and sell it); Customer Relationships (how the organisation will support and work with its customer base); Key Partners (how third parties will fit into the plan); Cost Structure (what it costs to build the product/service as well as how to sell and support it); and Revenue Streams (how the product/service will make money). You must provide the diagram/figure/picture of the proposed Business Model Canvas (Note: the diagram/figure/picture  is  excluded from  the  word  count)  and  a  discussion  of  its  9 components.

5.    Marketing Strategies

Provide sufficient details of the marketing mix (i.e., Product, Price, Place, Promotion, Physical Evidence, Process, and People). You may provide any relevant materials (e.g., photographs and images of the product/service/destination and communication materials, price list, organisation structure, etc.) in the Appendix.

6.    Implementation, Evaluation and Control

Detail (perhaps in a basic Gantt chart) what is to be done by whom, the specific timeline, and how to evaluate and control the implementation.

7.    References (excluded from the word count)

Academic literature (books and journal articles) must be consulted for the assignment. Using APA referencing styles (7th  edition), list the sources.

8.    Appendices (excluded from the word count)

You may provide relevant appendices. However, you must refer to them in your discussion in the main report. Your appendices are designed to assist, and may not be read, so don’t include anything that really ought to be in the body of the report.

The format should be Times New Roman, 12-point font, 1.5 spacing, 2.5 cm margins all sides  (left,  right,  top,  and  bottom).  Your  finished  report  will  be  uploaded  into  course assignment Turnitin submission link in Nuku. The deadline for Part B is Friday, 3 October 2025, 4pm, NZ Time. Students are responsible for uploading the correct assignment documents online. The document found online will be the document marked.

Make sure your references follow the correct style (APA referencing style, 7th  edition). The word limit is 2,500 ± 10% words (the Executive Summary, references, appendices, and the diagram/figure/picture of the Business Model Canvas are not part of the word count).