Hotel Strategy The first strategy is to promote the spa at the Watermark Hotel. The spa is a key strength and competitive advantage of the hotel. Many new hotels have spas in them, but few hotels have exceptional spas, something the Watermark has. A great spa can help attract both business travellers looking for a break after a hard day at work, and recreational travellers looking to relax (Minnini, 2007).

Spas, like hotels, are differentiated by their branding. Customers identify with the branding of a spa and will seek out this branding when they travel (Borgman, 2011). This means there are two options for the spa at the Watermark. The company can continue with its current branding, which is linked to the hotel, or it can find a spa branding partner, which has an international name in the industry. Such a deal would allow the Watermark to license the spa premises, have a better spa brand, and leave its management to focus on running the hotel and catering side of the establishment. It is recommended that the company focus on building the strength of its own spa brand, so that it becomes known throughout Australia.

The objective of this strategy is to increase domestic visitors by 15% in the next year, and by 30% in two years. There are several reasons for the focus on domestic visitors. The first is that there are more tourists flying through the Gold Coast Airport and increasing flights (NW...

There are no currency exchange problems with Australian customers, but flight connections to Surfers are good. The strategy aims to increase brand awareness among Australians for the Watermark Hotel and Spa in this time period. In addition, the strategy aims to increase consumer desire to visit the spa as well, something that is part of the consumer buying cycle (no author, 2012).
The strategy will be focused on the region between Byron Bay to the south, Sunshine Beach in the north and Toowoomba in the west. This area has over 3 million people. There will also be secondary promotions in major cities with good air connections to Gold Coast, such as Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne.

The marketing strategy for the spa will feature two main components. The first will be an Internet strategy that seeks to gain exposure. This will be conducted mainly within the Gold Coast-Brisbane area. The strategy will utilize a number of different social media features like Twitter and Facebook to promote specials to people who have signed up for alerts. These specials will help to bring in traffic on slower days, and to get people from the area to take a spa weekend at the hotel.

The second part of the strategy will focus on a promotional and advertising strategy. The promotions will be for things like long weekends and will focus on tie-ins with other businesses, like the hotel restaurants,…