Case study: Harvey World Travel
Introduction:
Harvey World Travel (HWT) is an international retail travel group that has a strong presence in Southern Africa, specifically Gauteng, South Africa. The group focuses primarily on leisure travel. Looking at the Pricing Objectives for Harvey World Travel
Profit-oriented objectives generally has to do with pricing product to achieve a specified percent return on sales and investments. With regards to Harvey one of their pricing objectives is to maximise shareholders returns and values. To maximize profit the travel franchise is very much dependent on the ability of each respective group’s management to secure profitable contractual agreements with suppliers such as airlines, tour operators, hotel chains and car rental groups.
Sales oriented goals deals with increasing sales volumes, maintaining or increasing market share. The environmental changes taking place in the travel industry have forced the spotlight onto travel consultants and their selling abilities. The era of ‘order-taker’ agent is over and therefore the consultants now need to be good salespeople who are able to close sales as opposed to giving out free quotes.
In order to increase sales volumes at Harvey consultants are being urged to follow up on every single quote in an attempt to convert the quotes into sales. The physical location also plays a major role in increasing sales as a result many travel agencies are located in shopping malls which generate ‘walk-in sales’.
Status Quo goals pertain to stabilizing prizes and meeting competition. There are a number of retail travel groups competing in this market. These groups create a cutthroat environment. To meet completion the Harvey group communicates internally with its franchisees via a number of ways, for example conferences, road shows, monthly meetings with management, training workshops, through intranet, headlines and emails and newsflashes. Also HWT prides itself on highly trained staff that are professional, experienced and well-travelled. The majority of their consultants have over ten years’ experience in the travel industry and can be classified as good listeners.
This is another way the HWT meet it competition. HWT marketing takes place on a national level and on local levels. HWT HO primarily uses national print media to advertise. There are plans for television adverting complain to further build the brand in South Africa. Locally the group supplies all franchisees with a Local Shop Marketing kit, referred to as an LSM kit.
How I would change or make the Prize better?
Introducing of quality discount to encourage large orders, also seasonal discount or promotional allowance. I would also make sure that when I advertise the product there is transparency with regards to price. I would also make the customers aware that there maybe fluctuations due to unexpected charges which therefore mean the prize is not 100% certain. The economy influences the price of goods or services and our free –enterprise system is based on prize.
