Hospitality Management
Thanksgiving Day Parade
The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade dates back to the 1920’s, more specifically in 1924. Many participants in the first Thanksgiving Day Parade were Macy’s employees which mainly consisted of first-generation immigrants. The main purpose of the first parade was just a way for the immigrant workers to express how proud they were of their new heritage while also keeping to their family roots. Many of their families enjoyed watching other Thanksgiving Day parades, so why not have their own? The parade consisted of exotic animals borrowed from the Central Park Zoo, seasonally decorated floats, bands, and Jolly Saint Nick better known as Santa. The march was from 145th Street in Harlem all the way down to Macy’s on 34th Street. The parade was such a success, Macy’s decided that it would become an annual event and it still is to this day.
The event is three hours long and has many spectacles to be seen such as the giant balloons, the massive floats, the dancers, the mascots, the bands, and many other which in effect can cause quite a big crowd. On average, more than 44 million people watch the parade on TV every year, now imagine how many people go to see the event live. This highly affects tourism because some travelers may wish to stay in New York before and/or after the parade, bringing business. While not everyone has family or friends who live in New York, hotels aren’t hard to come by and are very welcoming to any potential customer.
No matter where they are, people will always participate in daily tasks such as working, eating, playing, etc. But how frequently are you going to go out to a fancy restaurant or go ice skating with the family? The answer is that you will more frequently participate in those special occasions when you go and travel. You’ll want to go to this restaurant that you’ve never heard of before, or maybe you’ll finally get someone to take a picture of you next to the Christmas tree with Santa and you will want to do all of these things that cost money that you won’t normally do when you are within your
day-to-day environment because it is different. That is the main reason the community of New York City will get more money towards anything and everything because the people traveling there are not used to the environment.
Travel and Restaurants and managed services seem to be the most beneficial during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Travel would include the New York subway and metro system, plane trips to New York, Rail, Coach, even including tourists from different countries who travel by cruise are all affected because of this event. Restaurants and managed services seem to be the second most effective way of affecting the New York community. This is because everyone eats and some eat a little more. Any reputation that a restaurant has built, for example, with its old fashioned New York Style pizza is going to have good business when the tourists now become customers potentially coming back later that week before, during, or after the parade. Joints, stands, corner stores, grocery stores, and official restaurants are all being affected because people must eat in order to survive, but because of the parade more of your customers will most defiantly consist of tourists looking for a different type of taste from what they are used to at home.
I had picked three different hotels to look at and research their rate one week prior, the week of, and one week after the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. (fig. #1) The names of the three hotels are Westhouse New York Hotel, The Quin Hotel, and the Hilton New York Hotel. The type of stay that I made was one room for one adult scheduled for November 21st to November 22nd, November 28th (day of event) to November 29th, and for December 5th to December 6th. I am glad to have found that the three different hotels that I had chosen had three different pricing strategies for before, during, and after the parade.
For the Westhouse New York Hotel, the prices only slightly altered from what the average costs were. In the week before the event, the room I had ordered was a cost of $525 which dropped when the parade was scheduled. The price dropped from $525 to $450 in one week which is a difference of $75. I thought that this type of strategy was normal because I can see the
compromise between client and customer. If the company were to expect a higher number of customers during a certain time, then why not lower the price to attract more customers without having to worry about losing profit because there is a prediction of more customers. The week after the parade the Westhouse raised the price for the room to $595 which is a raise in cost of $145 from the past week.
The Quin Hotel had a different, and in my opinion, and confusing approach to plan for the parade. The Quin Hotel had a price of $579 for the room before the day of the event, and then raised the price to a staggering $699 during the event. They did however lower the price of the room the week after to $599 for any extended staying guests. For their hotel, it is probably more beneficial to raise the price for rooms during the week of an event, rather than lowering the price. The reasoning may be because of an expected demand for rooms and if the same amount of customers that they are expecting will pay for a higher price just to get the room, then they will raise the price for a room to make more potential profit. Then, rather than having to raise the price of the rooms back up, The Quin Hotel can lower the price back down a tad making guest more pressured to stay longer because of the price drop.
Last, but certainly not least, is the Hilton New York Hotel having the pricing that is the easiest to handle. The Hilton made sure that there was no confusion at all when ordering a room because they kept the prices the same. No need to worry about price changes or having some rooms sell on one day more than the other, because the cost is never changing. The cost for the same room before, during, and after was simply $529. The reason for this may be because the Hilton is so successful during the seasons, that they don’t need a different pricing scheme. If the customers are still coming and staying happy, why change?
The success of a company is due to the fact of having a good type of reputation that will keep the customers you have while gaining new ones along the way. The timing of pricing is critical and isn’t always going to be the same depending on the type of situation the hotel and/or the company is in. Even though, hospitality isn’t all about the cost and how much money
you gain and lose, it is the main reason why you still work. A successful, working company should know what is working and what time of the day, month, or year it is working at its best.
