46DE Creativity assignment year 1

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The Trade Fair and the competition

In your market, you are not the only player. You need to know who would want to stay at your hotel and you also need to know who your true competitors are – the ‘comp set’. So now it’s time to pay extra attention as to how your hotel positions in the market and the way you would promote, sell and distribute your hotel.
An online Trade Fair is coming up, and Ms. Jill Jandal has strongly suggested the Emerald Forest should participate. This is not only a good opportunity to the present your hotel to the press, industry and potential guests; it’s also the place where you can closely observe your competitors’ commercial efforts.
Trade fairs have a long history offline; examples of important events include ITB Berlin, WTM in London or the Dutch Tourism Expo. Quite recently, online experiments have started popping up. It shows that especially today, online contacts, and social media play a crucial role in our lives. In tourism and hospitality, the impact is huge. Social media has been a bit neglected by the Bergmans so far. The original hotel does have a social media profile. And Christina and Jill and other staff members are active on their 'private' accounts. However, there seems to be no coherence or logic.

Situation

This afternoon at 14.00 there will be a Trade Fair, in which your hotel will present itself. The Trade Fair has four goals:

1. Presenting your new hotel
Who are the visitors? At this fair, you will have to present your company to the press, to the general public, to your competitors and just anyone else visiting the fair.

2. Creativity
As there is a Creativity competition: your performance at the Trade Fair by presenting yourself in a consistent and creative way contributes to this creativity mark.

3. Competition analysis
The Fair is THE most important opportunity to have check out at all the other teams in your city: what are they up to, what can you learn from them, what are ideas you can use as well? So split up your team and take notice of all your competitors. You might need this information for adjusting your strategy! The Trade Fair gives you good impressions of what your direct competitors in your city are up to. So, have one of your team members walk around and make an overview or rather a competition analysis.

4. Adjusting your strategy
Important is to get a good impression on the plans of all other teams, so you can adjust your strategy to this.

The coaches and maybe others, will be visiting your booth and ask questions. Play your role: you are the new management. They will evaluate your performance and this will be of influence on your marks for the Game as well as your occupancy rate. Always keep your booth occupied, but have one (or two) checking out the competition and collecting information for your Competition Analysis!
For photos on Trade Fair check Flickr photos

Details on Trade Fair

• The language to be used during the Trade Fair is English, the setting is an international Trade Fair.
• The Trade Fair will open and close sharply scheduled
• Make clear arrangements on who is doing what (roles, answers, presenting, screensharing e.g.)
• Be creative

At least two members of your team should always be present and attending your booth. The coaches will evaluate both the creativity and consistency of your booth. Further Instructions and Recommendations:

• The Trade Fair will open and close sharply scheduled.
• Teams will be provided with one table each: organize all others materials yourselves.
• Each team has a predetermined spot: so use this spot with your team number on the table.
• Please do not damage walls, floors, and windows when installing your booth (no nails, etc.)
• Remember to appropriately respect the physical, audio and visual space of other teams (no loud music, etc.)
• Do not block emergency exits or use highly flammable materials.
• Use different forms of media (flipcharts, dress, screens, loudspeakers, objects) to attract potential customers, stir competitors, and impress anybody else passing by.
• Be prepared for questions, and realize visitors of a Trade Fair do not want to listen to a 5 minutes presentation.
• Try to get leads.

After the Trade Fair

• Pack up all your materials and equipment, as well as clean the space of your booth when the fair is over. Maybe you still need some of the materials during the Game?
• Check if your hotels' strategy is in need of a small change after what you have seen at the Trade Fair.

Year 01, part 1 in combination with the Trade Fair

But this time it is a crisis situation and all events are cancelled. You need to come up with innovative solution how to present your hotel's exposition over the web and on how to achieve the very same goals that you have for Trade Fair. During the Trade Fair we advise your teams to have one or two members checking out the competition. This is of use for your gameplay but also needed for this part.

Strategic analysis of the competition
This part should hold two major elements.

A - Reflection on your performance on the Trade Fair

• What were our goals on the Trade Fair?
• What went right and what went wrong?
• How does this effect your hotel?
• What would you do differently next time and why?

B - Competition analysis based on the Trade Fair

• Make a competition analysis for your hotel.
  
  

This should consist of three parts:
Theory on competition
In competition models, such as Porters Five Forces Model, competition can be seen on several levels. You are free to choose any structured way of doing a competition analysis but be sure there is a model behind your choice.

Our choice as a model to use to structure competition analysis, would be looking at three forms of competitions.

• 1- Generic competition on time and money.

How many people do travel, what is the average income? What do they spent their income on? What are the consumer's sentiments? Consumers can only spend their money once and their time as well. Use realistic figures from Estonia (!) and for instance Tallinn! The example is from another country and competition.

Example of general and some specific competition.

• 2- Specific competition on alternatives.

If they decide to spend their money on leisure they can choose for a stay in a hotel, camping ground, friends and relatives etc. In the business market the alternatives are less logical. Try to use some realistic figures from Estonia and for instance Tallinn!

• 3- Selective competition your direct competitors: so the consumers choice for a brand.

Do they choose for a hotel, the other competitor offering practically the same products are the most likely competitor, the competition is now mostly on brand and product specifications. Now look especially at your city Amstelburg. This is what you do at the Trade Fair, and only for your own city!

The example is from another country and competition.

Example of overview direct competitors.

Of course explanations on this table is needed.
It is handy to prepare some form to use at the Trade Fair. So while some team members are working in the booth, others should visit the competitors and immediately work on this assignment.

Goal

Your Team File year 0 Business assignment (strategy e.g.) have to be ready in plenty of time before you can make decisions on the Trade Fair. Beware that you also have to reflect on the Trade fair and observe your competitors, do a competitor analysis, as this is part of your decisions in this year as well. This assignment is not just about generating some mindless marketing and sales blurb! It might be a good idea to divide the tasks - all the while making sure your deliverables are going to be coherent! In the end your Trade fair presence contribute to better marketing communication and, in the end, it should also bring a measurable result. And, it should also give you insights into the plans of the competitors.

Task, deliverable

• Prepare a short max. 2 minutes presentation and act
• 'Organise' an online booth
• Make an overview of your competitors

Handing in your assignment

Hand in your competition analysis as a document. Upload it somewhere in the cloud.

• Be sure that your posts and video are made public
• Put only the link in your Team File tab Year 0, D32 Extra information
• Copy the same link/file also to your TEAM CHANNEL in Teams

• Be sure the file is freely accessible without logging in or anything, just the click on the link should open it!

Assessed elements

• Is the link to the strategy clear?
• Is the presentation clear?
• Are the question answered in a commercial way?
• Is the competition analysis logical and based on theory as well as experiences?

Additional information

• IP
• Hotel and marketing trends
• Competition
• Trade show tips
• Tips for virtual Trade Fairs
• More ips

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B2B Strategy

Acting in business markets, deciding over marketing: approaching business partners, creating value propositions.

Situation

This part takes into consideration your hotel’s strategy. You have selected the strategy for your hotel, which gives the input for your decisions regarding your unique value propositions, their marketing channels and distribution channels.

Goal

Your hotel must have a USP (Unique Selling Proposition) and you must be able to pitch it. The goal of the pitch is to introduce and explain the Value Proposition of your business model and the functioning of the whole model (other blocks). The Customer Segment is your choice. The pitch is aimed at the owners and/or potential investors. In any case you need to explain your VP thoroughly and the rest of the Business Model as well: how is the VP brought to life and delivered to the Customer Segment.

Task, deliverable

The product/service of a company is nowadays generally referred to as Value Proposition (VP). The more unique it is, the more likely you will acquire a substantial market share of your customer segment. For your unique product or service, you most probably need some sort of investment. You might need to build something, outsource some services or hire people with special skills. We advise Value Proposition Canvas to summarize your VP. Build your VP on the paper, visualize it and fit it in your business model (Business Model Canvas could be used).

Assessed elements

The Pitch. By the end of year 1 you will have to have made a video pitch of maximum 1 minute. The pitch must show your USP (aka VP), its ball-park budget numbers and its integration into the business model.

Further Instructions and Recommendations Use suitable literature or websites to analyse the background, set objectives, and plan the budget for bringing your value proposition to life. Give all sources. Write in a concrete and serious way, as to show knowledge on the subject.

Handing in

Upload your work anywhere in the cloud (Dropbox e.g.: do not e-mail).

• File has to be converted to pdf and named with your team number. Eg A01 Creativity assignment year 1
• Be sure that it is public
• Copy the link (only the link, not the document or content) and put it in your Team File before the deadline. Tab Year 1-2-3-4, D47: 'Extra information'. Furthermore, all other relevant information for your coach is welcome in this cell as well!
• Copy the same link/file also to your TEAM CHANNEL in Teams

• Be sure the file is freely accessible without logging in or anything, just the click on the link should open it!

Additional information

• Stakeholders
• Distribution
• “Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers” by A. Osterwalder & Y. Peigneur
• “Value Proposition Design: How to Create Products and Services Customers Want” by A. Osterwalder & Y. Peigneur

NB! This list is not an exhaustive list! Do find additional materials and concepts that add benefit to your approach!

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Emerald Forest Hotel offering an emerald hotel experience! | Run your own hotel in this management simulation.