Individual Assignment | | Name: Vu Thi Ngoc MinhID: FB00293Class: FB0606 | | | | | |

Table of Contents I. Executive summary 3 II. Introduction 3 1) A Short story of Warwick Castle 3 2) Warwick Castle today 4 III. An overall look at Warwick Castle 4 1) Audit 4 2) Core competences: 7 3) New special events: 8 IV. SOSTAC 8 1) Situation (S.W.O.T model) 8 2) Objective (S.M.A.R.T model) 9 3) Strategic 11 4) Tactics: 12 5) Control: 12 V. The Detailed Budget for “Family Togetherness” event 12 1) ‘Salute’ 12 2) ‘Discover castle’: Visit castle with guider. 13 3) ‘United night’: It is the evening that all members in the family have comfortable time in castle to talk, to share and enjoy royal banquet. 13 4) ‘Competition among families’: it is a gift from sponsorship Coca-Cola. 13 5) ‘Child menus in the restaurant’ (sponsorship with Coca-Cola) 14 VI. Marketing and operation 14 VII. Management risk 15 VIII. References 15

I. Executive summary
The purpose is to develop a new business strategy for Special Events in 2013 for 1 month. In this plan, we provide the background of Warwick Castle where happens the event. Moreover, we conduct some analysis about audit, core competences of Warwick Castle, and list 8 events happened at the same time in season. In addition, it is the plan to develop service, analysis of special event ‘Family togetherness (SOSTAC, marketing and operation, management risk).
II. Introduction
1) A Short story of Warwick Castle
Lord Brooke David Greville sold Warwick Castle in November 1978 after which it became a visitor attraction under the Tussauds group. Extensive restoration work has been carried out between then and 2010, which meant that more of the Castle has been opened to the public than before. For the first time in 1982, wax figures were introduced to the Castle and formed the Royal Weekend Party, bringing history to life in rooms such as the library and the music room. Soon after, the Victorian Rose Garden was restored to its original design and was given a royal opening in 1986 by HRH the Princess of Wales. There has always been a royal interest in Warwick Castle, and in 1996 HRH the Queen and HRH the Duke of Edinburgh were given a tour of the then two year old Kingmaker attraction. The Mill and Engine House opened to the public for the first time in 2002, following significant investment and only a few years later in 2007; ‘Dream of Battle’ began, an immersive multimedia experience capturing the essence of mediaeval battle. The Merlin Entertainments Group then took over and in 2009 the darker side of the Castle emerged with the opening of the Castle Dungeon. Bringing to life through live actors and special effects, horrific stories dating back to 1345 when Warwick was gripped by the plague. The fantasy side of the Castle was highlighted with the opening of the Princess Tower in the summer of 2009, which sees little knights and princesses immersed in fairy tales.
2) Warwick Castle today
The Castle is a Scheduled Ancient Monument and Grade 1 listed building, and is maintained on an ongoing basis as an outstanding centuries old monument for future generations to enjoy. Maintaining a national monument involves extensive costs and the Castle receives no grants or financial support from the government or any public body.
Funds for this work are raised solely from guests’ admission revenue. Today visitors from near and far are able to experience the Castle as never before. It has proved itself as a great day out for the family where visitors are continuously excited by a range of spectacular events from expert demonstrations of jousting and archery, to battle re-enactments, plus the daily firing of the mighty trebuchet and magnificent birds of prey displays. To this day, through restoration works and planned events and attractions, Warwick Castle continues to live and breathe history, its status remaining Britain’s Ultimate Castle.
III. An overall look at Warwick Castle
1) Audit
a) Internal audit
Human resource
The 2001 Census recorded 125,931 people living in Warwick district, of whom 62,943 which in employment. The statistic is also increase over every year. It is lager potential factor to develop labor market, job opportunity as well as staff in Warwick castle.
Financial
The main flow of money in Warwick castle is selling ticket for customer.
Operation
Warwick castle does many activities in year. We establish events in every season of the years. We provide for customer all necessary information in homepage website and take feedback from them. Besides, we do research to collect ideas from customer about quality in Warwick castle. We corporate with some company: BBC… to advertise for the castle.
Marketing
Brand Name: In every event of Warwick Castle, we always endeavor to create brand name and logo that is synonymous with the experience. For example, the Castle Dungeon and Princess Tower brand names and logos are not only used in all literature relating to the attractions, but have been extended to merchandised items.
b) External audit
MICRO ENVIRONMENT ANALYSIS * Supplier
Warwick Castle, also Warwick Shine is known with the hub of the transport network, with easy access to the motorways and good rail links. Especially, it has a modern manufacturing to supply the best resource to customer. For instance, the electricity for the castle was generated from river power in near the castle. * Customer
Young family, 16-24s, families with children, overseas guests… are targeted markets of Warwick Castle. They care more about these activities making targeted group attractive and familiar. * Rivals
Every rival brings for us a continuous effort to improve our performance. With Warwick, it shows in creative, extraordinary ideas. Jorvik is competitive company which has affects to our company in Warwickshire. And many other entertainment companies in the world are also challenges to Warwick Castle.
MACRO ENVIRONMENT ANALYSIS
* Political factor
- Government care the development of tourism (tourism contribute almost 10% UK GDP), and preserve historical ruins.
- Political safe and stable
* Economic factor
- The British Economy as with other developed economies entered 2009 in recession and on the brink of Depression, after unlimited bailouts, hitting the Quantitative Easing panic button and running a huge 15% of GDP budget deficit, the UK economy has managed to claw its way back out of recession when released during late January 2010.
* Socio-cultural factor
- The population of Warwickshire on May 31st 2011 is approximately 535,761. (Extrapolated from England populations of 50,760,000 on June 13th 2008, 23:11 and 51,446,000 on February 10th 2010, and a Warwickshire population of 535,000 on March 3rd 2011).
- People who live in Warwick have more highly living standard than any others. Hence, they care deeply about entertainment services. They usually spend time for holidays in famous tourist destination. With guarantee for safety, convenient and useful, Warwick Castle is the best choice in customer mind.
* Technological factor
- In term of technology, Warwick Castle uses innovative internet products, such as: books via the Internet, flight tickets, internet banking, directly customer’s consultant … It saves time and money for both of Warwick and their customer. Moreover, it allows for products and services to a better standard of quality. Applying technology is also competitive advantage to Warwick Castle to make them more active and creative in their work.
c) Customer audit
* Who is customer?
We target a large of segmentations: young family, families with children aged 10+ or 4-11, 16-24 years old, oversea guests. * What are customer looking for?
The developing too fast of social makes the distances between parent and children. They have a little time spending together. Coming to Warwick Castle the family will see and feel a fresh air, spectacular landscape, interesting secret, perfect parties, and especially enjoy living same as royal family in mediaeval castle. Moreover, some activities like competition with other family, or children’s discovering… will attract the attention of customer. * Where can they find information?
Warwick-castle.com is the website address where customer can find the necessary information. Besides, BBC channel, advertising, press… are also devices that Warwick Castle use to transmit news. * When they usually come to?
A large of people comes to Warwick Castle in every year, every season. They want to add knowledge of history. Others enjoy royal family, visiting, taking part in parties, playing character in history… * Why it attract?
Warwick Castle attracts customer because of reputation in services with potential beauty of castle has a thousand of history years.
2) Core competences: * Attractions:
With beautiful landscape, convenience traffic, interesting secret inside castle and friendly staff, Warwick Castle is attractive destination to customer from all over the world. * Comparative analysis
In this case, I especially pay attentions to Jorvik. Jorvik is one of the most popular visitor attractions outside London, and promises visitors ‘an authentic Viking encounter’. Since 1984 Jorvik has welcomed over 16 million visitors and is both an educational charity and part of York Archaeological Trust with a mission to ‘investigate the past for the benefit of present communities and future generations. Both Jorvik and Warwick Castle have the potential to attract the traditional cultural tourism visitors, as both are cited in historic tourism centers with rich and diverse cultural heritage offerings. Both attract considerable numbers of international tourists.
Jorvik provides an authentic archaeological offering, but goes on to successfully differentiate itself from similar heritage attractions through experiential marketing. Not only is the product itself an experiential visitor offering, but it uses experiential marketing appeals to engage a wide of range of visitors beyond the archaeology enthusiast. This is important for a charity that needs to develop audiences in order to secure its future.
Warwick Castle targets the heritage tourist through experiential marketing appeals but whereas Jorvik uses experiential marketing to broaden its educational appeal Warwick Castle uses it to create a series of unforgettable leisure experiences that are fundamentally about entertainment.
Jorvik has chosen to provide an education and entertainment experience that brings the visitor back to the core values of conservation and presentation intrinsic to its mission, whereas Warwick Castle pushes the visitor to more and more fun and entertainment and less about education. With comparative analysis above, we see that to doing good business, Warwick Castle need to maintain the fun, impression, creating more original events.
3) New special events: | Events | Time | 1 | Dungeon After Dark | September 28th 2013 – October 3th 2013 | 2 | Kingmaker’s Mediaeval Banquet | September 28th 2013 – October 3th 2013 | 3 | Summer Camp Adventure | October 10th 2013 – October 15th 2013 | 4 | Birds of Prey | October 16th 2013 – October 18th 2013 | 5 | The Great British summer proms summer concert | October 19th 2013 – October 22nd 2013 | 6 | Ghost tour – located in the central courtyard with a show time of 12 pm | October 24th 2013 – October 28th 2013 | 7 | Soul Sunday summer concert | October 28th 2013 – October 30th 2013 | 8 | Family togetherness | October 30th 2013 – November 2nd 2013 |

IV. SOSTAC
1) Situation (S.W.O.T model)
a. Strengths
- Brand value and equity
- Experience with a lot of events
- Value history and tourist destination (conservation of historical elements and modernizing the tourist)
- Warwick Castle: the finest medieval castles in England
- Children off school
- Family wants to spend time together
- Castel decorated
b. Weaknesses
- Bureaucratic strategic management
- Free attraction in shopping centers
- Busy
c. Opportunity
- Market expansion
d. Threats
- Preserve historic ruins
- Compete with other entertainment companies: the rise of various alternative historical tourist sports…
- Cost of generating new attraction
- Bad weather
- Safety foods
2) Objective (S.M.A.R.T model)
a. Specific
- We intend to build a visiting for the family to the whole of castle. Besides, we plan to set up a royal party, competitive between the families who join in this event.
- This event is very important because it creates the extraordinariness compared with others. Moreover, it also brings profit for us.
- The participants attend in this event: all of member in event group, and department related to.
- We want this event happened during the Halloween period from October 30th 2013 – November 2nd 2013.
- We hope to attract a lot of customers. We expect the volume about 45 family units (90 adults and 90 children)
b. Measurable
- In the last part, we set up a detailed time line for this event.
- Estimate revenue: £15 (include VAT) (adult +12), £12 (Child (4-11 years)
- We anticipate the revenue: (90*£15) + (90*£12) = £2430 (if each part of event happens in one time (one day))
c. Achievable
- The event will start at October 30th 2013, so that we need to prepare for it from September 30th 2013. We have to complete this event follow step by step. Therefore, delegation before beginning the event is so important. It ensures level of successful.
- We will receive supporting from Warwick Castle. Estimate cost: £1210 for foods, decoration, devices, wages… (if each part of event happens in one time (one day) )
d. Realistic
- This event is feasible. We have enough skills, money, equipment…which support from sponsor and our company.
- We also have substitute plan to guarantee our work done.
e. Time bond
- We finish the event at November 2nd 2013.
3) Strategic
STP method
- Segmentation by groups:

We see in above graph, family with children have highest percentage in the survey. Follow it is Young family.
- Targeting:
Because the purpose of event is to create the closeness among members in family so that family is the main segmentation. We focus on the group of people who want to experience, entertain, and keep the memory with a lot of activities, challenges… Hence, target markets: young families, families with children aged (4-11).
- Positioning:
We have highly valuable castle. Keeping in customer mind we are professional in serving and caring them.
4) Tactics:
4Ps model:
- Product: It covers both goods and services. Goods are items that are available in the shops, such as souvenirs and gifts and services are the features and attractions customer experience when here.
- Price: Warwick Castle offers customers a service which is value for money and making profit for its. At Warwick Castle, we defined four levels of visitor price variation: off peak, peak, combination tickets, and Annual Pass rates.
- Place: Customer can receive the goods or services offered includes both onsite and online.
- Promotion: The marketing toolkit we use:
- Advertising: television, radio, BBC channel, prints media...
- Direct marketing: Warwick Castle also sends regular e-newsletters to subscribers.
- PR (public relations): sending press releases to journalists.
- Sales promotion: (drive additional sales within its restaurant and shops) and online.
The motto: Family Togetherness
5) Control:
In this plan, the manager of Warwick Castle is control directly in every step. In addition, every unit in this plan has authority and responsibility to complete our role. We only reach our goal in the best effort.
V. The Detailed Budget for “Family Togetherness” event
1) ‘Salute’
It is first part of this event. We salute all participants by giving them costume same as with a team same with an actual royal family.
- Total number of costumes prepared: 90 for adults - £3/each, 90 for children -£2/each
- Charge fee: £2/adult/1hour, £1/children/1hour
- Cost for the special activity (one time): = 90*3 +90*2 = £450
- Estimated overall revenue per day: 90*2 +90*1 = £270
- Estimated overall revenue for the event: £270*7 = £ 1890
- Estimated profit: £1890-£ 450 = £1440
2) ‘Discover castle’: Visit castle with guider.
- Total visitors: 90 adults, and 90 children
- Charge fee: £3/per adult and £1/per child.
- Cost for the special activity (one time): 90*3 + 90*1 = £360
- Estimated overall revenue: 10* £360 = £3600
- Estimated profit: £3600 - £360 = 3240
3) ‘United night’: It is the evening that all members in the family have comfortable time in castle to talk, to share and enjoy royal banquet.
- Price: £10/per adult and £7/per children
- Number of visitors (according to the questionnaire): 90
- Estimated cost for event: £4000
- Maximum estimated revenue for the event: 90*10*7 = £ 6300
- Maximum estimated profit for the event: £ 6300-£4000 = £2300
4) ‘Competition among families’: it is a gift from sponsorship Coca-Cola.
- Cost: 0
- Revenue: Nonprofit benefit
- Profit/benefit: promoting the image of the castle and smartly cooperating with Coca-cola as a mutual benefit to branding activities.
5) ‘Child menus in the restaurant’ (sponsorship with Coca-Cola)
- Cost: 0
- Revenue: Nonfinancial benefit
- Profit/ Benefit: attract more children and their parent, especially for future customer. Keeping in mind customer, Castle is friendly and attractive.
VI. Marketing and operation * Effective marketing involves getting the right product to the right people at the right time. We do market research in any ways: postal or online surveys, telephone surveys, personal surveys, observation (including focus groups)… Because the benefits of it, Warwick Castle will use the ‘Touch Screen’ questionnaire for The Family Togetherness’s plan. In addition, the target marketing is divided by social group and we intend to choose Family with children (4-11) aged is Warwick Castle target market. * Besides, about operation, we believe that the consistency among department bring a fluent and successful event. We will summarize it in below table: Marketing- Doing market research- Target market- Marketing mix (4Ps)- Promotion tools- S.w.o.t analysis=> We do all of this to generate our idea. We combine with corporation company (PR, advertising…), or Finance (budget), … | Human Resource- Training staff for other department- Delegate suitably among staff in every step of plan. * Provide enough effective staff for events. | Corporation- Design the idea- Find the sponsor , partnership=> We use training staff in human resource to develop our service, use finance to pay to account the idea. | Finance- Planning detailed budget to make clear about desired revenue and costs.=> Ensuring value for money for customer and profit of the company |

VII. Management risk
In term of management risk, it can happen when we can’t reach the desired volume as we expect.
Moreover, if we don’t have substitute plan, we are easy to be defeated. In Family Togetherness‘s event, perhaps we need to prepare in carefully for all possible situation. To success, between management and staff should have a belief. We can cope with several problems.
Before we decide to launch the service, we should care more about the first period when we publish information. It is so important. It is factor decided the attractive of the plan.
VIII. References 1. Information about Warwick Castle http://www.warwick-castle.com/ 2. Information about model S.O.S.T.A.C, PEST, SWOT, SMART. http://www.marketingteacher.com/lesson-store/lesson-pest.html 3. Information about population in Warwick Castle: http://www.evi.com/q/how_many_people_live_in_warwickshire%20guest.feedback@warwick-castle.com 4. Information about resource of Warwick Castle: http://www.travelaroundeurope.co.uk/warwick/warwick-castle-mill-engine-house.htm 5. File Pdf. Warwick Castle leisure tourism resource pack.