Conclusion: The Jesmond Dene House is a very pleasant hotel. It has got an excellent qualification, spacious rooms, a superb restaurant and nice events. The service is outstanding, in every aspect you can notice, that the first priority, is the customer. The staff is very concerned with the costumers needs. The restaurant is exceptionally good, and is also praised by other hotels. A couple of characteristics of the hotel are: passion for the customer, and exclusive food. And both of them have come forward excellent in the time of our stay. The costs and with that the exclusivity of the hotel are very well known by the employees of the tourist information, and by the journalist of the NGI. The price is an accepted fact, and doesn’t bring any negative feelings with it at all.
We would agree with the above however there is uncertainty about the comment about the ‘doesn’t bring any negative feelings with it at all’. Could you perhaps clarify?
The Jesmond Dene House has stated that the occupation degree (occupancy level) of the rooms isn’t increasing. The occupation degree of the restaurant and the events though are very positive and increasing. The managers are interested in expanding internationally, which means that they want to attract more international guest to the Jesmond Dene House. When we were visiting the Jesmond Dene House, we noticed that the three activities (the hotel, the restaurant and the events) have no distinctive strategy. We have been looking, by doing field research, at what the Jesmond Dene House can do to increase their international occupation degree. Our recommendations are printed below, and we hope that they can positively, contribute to increasing the international occupation degree of the Jesmond Dene House.
What is very important to remember:
· The passion for the customer.
· The exclusivity of the price. What do you mean by ‘exclusivity?’ The price stands for the quality you get.
· The keep the distinguishing factor of the exclusive food, and expand on this factor.
· The marketing, like the new website.
· The possibility to book right away.
· The creativity to, with little resources, create fine marketing.
· Enthusiastic personnel/employees.
Recommendations
Strategy
· It was unclear to us whether there was a strategy for the hotel. Could you please elaborate and inform us as to what you were expecting? We have a price strategy based on achieving a certain average room rate, client profile, mix of leisure/corporate business, profiling the hotel through PR, producing high end food, organising special events all in order to achieve budget and occupancy levels.
· We advice to develop a strategy for each activity, including an international strategy (a strategic marketing plan, thenceforth an activity plan). In our marketing plan, we will include an international strategy. Could you explain what you mean by ‘strategy for each activity?
· Developing a SWOT analysis in which per activity the international aspect is shown. We have a SWOT analysis for the hotel and were wondering if you had seen this? How do you envisage developing a SWOT analysis per activity? What do you refer to as an activity?
· Target group analysis; make a clear choice in what the target group is. It is our belief that the target group profile is clear for leisure (A, B and C1 consumers) and corporate (negotiated contracts). This is obviously not achieved all the time, as our price strategy demands that we are flexible.
· Sufficient/good international marketing asks for an increase in the marketing budget. We totally agree.
· International management must become more important in the management (strategic and operational). We presume you mean that resources need to be made available to be able to make an impact on the international market?
PR
· Create more publicity for the exclusivity of the restaurant and the qualification in foreign countries. This is a very good idea and we need to find out how we are going to achieve this.
· Do this, by using magazines like: in Nederland, seasons, buitenleven, wine & cooking. Good suggestions although we are not familiar with these magazines. Would you be able to provide any further contact details?
· Quality of life through trips and good food is a must in the stress of today’s society. Jesmond Dene House offers a way out of this stress. This known fact can be used for the purposes of PR and should be enlarged to draw attention to it. We will endeavour to make use of our connections in the media to cover this. In the past we have highlighted this and it will form part of our marketing discussions for 2010.
· The European mainland loves the British country life. In the Netherlands, there are many British live, and cooking shows on the television. This might be the case for many other European countries as well. This being the case, are you suggesting that we should consider getting exposure through this medium?
· Use DFDS, NGI and Newcastle to offer, in for instance music magazines, exclusive bookings. For instance, a stay in the hotel and a concert in the Music Hall. We work very closely with NGI and One North East already and will use the opportunities made available to us. As for DFDS we have made contact with their marketing department and will explore the possibilities to join forces.
· Develop the possibilities for combination bookings with DFDS. See above.
· Make sure there is a link to the Jesmond Dene House website on the DFDS website. See above.
· Contact a number of lifestyle magazines in the Netherlands. This might be a good angle to increase exposure in The Netherlands. Would you have any suggestion as to how we can find out about which would be the appropriate lifestyle magazines for us to contact?
· The ANWB is a magazine that has a huge run and is read all over the Netherlands. As far as travel it concerned, it is possibly the biggest magazine in the Netherlands. From our interviews on the DFDS ship, we found out, that many people had booked their journey and accommodation via the ANWB. I have worked with ANWB before when working in Curacao. I think this is an excellent suggestion.
· Try to figure out where there are direct air traffic possibilities. In these areas from which there is a direct flight to Newcastle, it will be beneficial to produce and develop new marketing ideas for that particular area. This suggestion will be part of our marketing discussions and has definitely potential. We have for example a visit this Friday for 8 journalists from the Isle of Man and 2 people from Manx airlines who are visiting the city for the day as the airline is developing it’s route to Newcastle.
· Fine a connection with other websites (think about the link with our website). Finding more websites to connect with will get you more publicity. The links with websites we have currently has already proven to have a positive impact on our search results. Expanding this to the international arena, such as The Netherlands, should be beneficial.
Marketing
· Increase the numbers of hours spend of marketing, especially international marketing. We would agree.
· Use interns to support the Marketing Managers. Very positive suggestion. We will include this in our marketing review.
· Use foreign interns. For instance the Hoge School Rotterdam Communication department has an obligatory foreign internship for her students in the third year, this is the same with the study journalism and other media and communication studies. This excellent suggestion and will be explored as part of the discussions.
· Visit prominent conventions to promote the Jesmond Dene House. Think about Barcelona, Frankfurt and Utrecht. We have considered this in the past but feel that this would be an expensive option for an independent hotel. Any money spend on this, could achieve better results in different ways in our view.
· Use Eric’s network in the Netherlands. Again, a very good suggestion, which we will pursue.
· Look at other hotels that have a successful international marketing department, and try to take certain aspects of this marketing to fit with the vision of the Jesmond Dene House. We will focus on hotels in the North East and see if there are like-minded operations that attract significant international travellers to the UK.
· Try to develop marketing, which is pointed on what the individual customer wants. The customer wants to decide by itself which of the ‘special’ services he wants to use. Specific customer needs is arguably one of our strengths. Could you elaborate on how you would see this working for us by giving a couple of examples?
· Taken in consideration what the stereotypical image of Britain is under many Europeans (grey and a little boring perhaps) it might be a good idea to, in cooperation with NGI, change this image. Perhaps by uploading new pictures on the Internet to show the beautiful surroundings of the area. For us to be involved in this way, and make changes as suggested, we would (and the NGI too!) have to have evidence of your suggested stereotypical image of Britain. We think that the perception here is that British people are quite colour full and not boring. We feel that the perception is perhaps one of being reserved? Anyway, it would be a big project and one that would be for the mid term.
Cooperation/HRM
· Make us of the chances that the university of Newcastle has to offer the Jesmond Dene House. Think about foreign students, their parent and foreign professors whom travel around the globe on a regular basis. We have connections with the University but we also recognise that there are many more opportunities available to us. Typically, we get parents staying at JDH when visiting their children but not or very rarely in the case of foreign students. This will be a great opportunity as well as the connection with professors and lectures that have visitors coming to the North East.
· Having a twin-city is often very beneficial and profiting. Find out whether there is a twin-city with Newcastle, if this isn’t the case, organise a twin-city in cooperation with NGI. Newcastle’s twin cities are Bergen, Groningen, Gelsenkirchen and Nancy in Europe and as such the more relevant at this stage. We need to invest in research in order to establish the possibilities (Eric has a network and a contact in Groningen for instance) with these twin cities however the suggestion is excellent.
What we can do for the Jesmond Dene House
· We can promote the hotel by our website, which is visited by our managements, colleagues, professors and teachers of the Business School Nederland (Business School the Netherlands) and our colleagues in general. That would be an important step for JDH in the Dutch market.
· We are going to write an article about our project and the Jesmond Dene House in the magazine for students, graduated students and the people interested in the Business School Nederland. A further step in the right direction as far as the Dutch market is concerned.
· We can promote the Jesmond Dene House in our own network. This is the sort of promotion we encourage and nurture as we rely heavily on this type of promotion; word of mouth.
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