Sweetest Dreams

Sweetest Dreams Inn case analysis

Sweetest Dreams Inn is a 60-room motel located at the edge of a small town and it is 10 miles from the tourist area, where have several resort motels. Mai Phan bought the motel two years ago but now he is losing money and needs to take action.

Phan travelled a lot and stayed in many motels and hotels, so he has an idea about what would travelers want and prefer in their trip. He offers free cable TV, comfortable beds and good bath facilities, but he thought that a swimming pool and a restaurant was not necessary. After customers complained about, Mai decided to serve a free continental breakfast.

There was many rumors that mores motels were being planned for the area. After doing an environmental scanning, Phan was seriously considering to join a national chain motel hoping to appeal to new customers and protect from new competitors. After a long research, he was torn between Days Inn and Holiday Inn motel chains.

 In my opinion, Days Inn is the best option for Sweetest Dreams Inn, because it would not require major capital investment (unlike Holiday Inn, which would probably require between $300,000 and $500,000 to upgrade the motel facilities) and their method of propaganda would possibly be better for Phan’s motel.

Days Inn develop partnerships with some companies, emphasizing sales promotion for a free night at one of their motels, which can establish and maintaining relationship with costumers. This strategy can bring new clients that never heard about Sweetest Dreams, if the person already knew the city but used to staying at competitor it is a great opportunity to change their attitude toward the motel.

Other marketing strategy that can be beneficial is selecting a particular target that are interested in lower-priced motels, like senior citizens, militaries, school sport teams, educator and business travelers. If Phan’s motel attract these groups to be his clients, they can influence other people from the same group to go and stay at Sweetest Dreams Inn.

On the other hand, if Mai prefers something more sophisticated he should probably go with Holiday Inn. Of course he would spend much more money for adding a swimming pool and doing several upgrades, but he would be able to charge $75 dollars per day, and when people drive into his parking lot, they would probably get in to register. In addition to that, his motel could attract people that belongs to a social group, which could influence other members of the same social group to travel and stay at the motel as an unspoken norm.

Regardless of the chain, what Phan choose is sure to be an improvement to his situation. Both are major national motels chains where customers can make their reservations online (which facilitates the client's life, and give wider access to people from other regions of the country).

Textbook terms:

Cultural influences, page 173.

Reference groups, page 178.

Attitudes, page 186.

Environmental scanning and management, page 63.

Developing partnerships and strategic alliances, page 22.

Formulating, implementing, and monitoring a marketing strategy, page 41.

Relationship marketing, page 11.