Foundation Year Project Assignment Sample

Introduction of Foundation Year Project Assignment

Business plan is a detailed information representing operations of the business, it includes business, objectives, marketing plan, structure, milestone and ways of sourcing finance. The plan aids in understand how business will succeed. The present study will cover business plan of a tour operating company namely Adventures Awaits that is specializing in furnishing customized tour packages by effectively use big data and predictive analysis.

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Tourism sector of the United Kingdom evoke under the British Travel and Holidays Association. It is biggest travel association, contains travel agents and tour operators that annually sells £ 32 billion of holiday. Tour operating companies plays important role in enhancing the tourism sector of the UK. The companies provide different kind of tourism holiday packages to different destination in UK leads to attract wide range of tourist in a country.

Adventures Awaits offers various services to its target customers such as different tour packages, destination recommendation using big data and predictive technologies, travel assistance, travel management such as booking hotels, accommodation, flights. Currently within tourism industry, during year 2022 expenditure on technology reach to 200 million pounds that currently going to react 642 billion pounds (Expenditure on IT in the travel and tourism industry in the United Kingdom, 2024). Use of big data aids tour operating company to anticipate trends, optimize pricing and customize offers, better destination recommendation to improve experience of customers. The Adventure Awaits operates from UK the city of London, furnishes its travel services within entire United Nation.

 The present study will outline objectives of the business, target customer market and competitor analysis to identify target customer, market and competition. It will also cover personal SWOT analysis to evaluate strengths and weakness for succession of business idea. Further, it will also cover marketing plan, business operations, finance and back-up plan to manage repayment of loan.

Objectives

Business objective means particular and measurable outcome that business hope to maintain as their organization grows. Following are the business objectives of the Adventure Awaits:

• Short-term
• To grab the attention of a wide range of tourists and travelers by providing personalized services and recommendations using big data and predictive analysis.
• Organizing a large number of tours to increase revenue by 10% in 1 year by offering different holiday packages.
• Middle-term
• To increase traffic on the companys website within 2 years by using digital marketing platforms such as SEO and social media marketing.
• To increase profitability by 20% in the upcoming 2 years by enhancing tourist experience via personalized destination recommendations and better holiday packages while aligning with hotels.
• Long-term
• To expand the business to international markets in the next 5 years to increase market share by 20%.
• To double the profitability of the business by investing in emerging technologies to reduce operational costs and gain competitive advantage.
• Thus, the company will focus on accomplishing these business objectives as indicators of its success.

Personal Swot Analysis

SWOT analysis refers to the evaluation as well as identification of the own strengths and weakness so that able to undertake required action to accomplish set target. My SWOT analysis is as under:

Strength:

• Referring to my previous work experience, I identified that I have good financial skill. It is one of my strength that aids me to effectively use finance in the business as well as aids in repayment of loan on time (Hasan, Le and Hoque, 2021).
• Good technical knowledge is strength of mine enable me to use emerging technology in business to gain competitive advantage within industry.
• Communication assist me to clearly convey information to different employees, leads to help in attain organizational goals.

Weaknesses:

• One of mine weakness is lack of problem-solving ability, it unable me to identify problem and get immediate solution cause delay in taking corrective actions on time (Güner and Erbay, 2021).
• Lack of legal knowledge makes difficult for me to compliance with the law of tourism sector.
• During working in group, identified that I have lack of team working skill. These weakness of mine enable me to collaborate with other efficiently.

Opportunity:

• Effective financial skill provides me opportunity to efficiently manage finance, prepare budget. This skill is quite important for the business.
• Technical knowledge grant me opportunity to use different emerging technologies in business like big data, predicative analysis to improve tourist experience.
• Ability of effective communication aids me to attract wide range of investor and customers towards the business.

Threat:

• Lack of problem-solving ability creates threat for me to solve different barrier while operating business.
• Non-compliance with laws of industry build threat regarding legal obligations.
• Absence of team working skill make difficult to collaborate with others internally and externally.

Target Customers and Market

Customers plays crucial role in the success of the business. Therefore, it is important for the Adventure Awaits to target its potential customers and market. For this, company will use STP analysis, to clearly define to whom to market product and how.

Segmentation: It refers to segmentation of the audience according to different aspects. Adventure Awaits to identify and segment its target customers and market focus on demographic, psychological and behavioural aspect.

According to the segmentation, Adventure Awaits target customer includes all age people including male and females featured as adventure seekers, leisure travelers, business travelers, luxury travelers, family travelers and so more. In addition, target market consist travelers, passion for wildlife, fun of sporting activities and so more.

Targeting: It refers to targeting the most attractive customer segment. Adventure Awaits main target customer include customer age between 25 to 54 as they preferred to purchase tour packages. To target customer, company will use differentiate price policy means charging prices according to packages.

Positioning: To position the products in mind of target audience as compare to its competitors, Adventure Awaits will use social media and influence marketing to effectively communicate services and product of the company (Dwivedi et al, 2021). The marketing tool aids the company in engage with large audience correspondingly aids in attracts potential customers towards the company.

Presently, the UK tourism market needs to greater use of technology to perform tourism operations in smooth manner as well as providing better services to enhance satisfaction and experience of travelers. The tour operating companies have to use artificial intelligence, automation and other technologies to identify customer demand and accordingly offer services.

To effectively support the business idea of Adventure Awaits, business should use reviews and word of mouth marketing it is a great and effective strategy to grab attention of wide range of customers. For this purpose, business will take online reviews on company website from the customers after providing services. The positive reviews aids in create good image of company in mind of potential customers. Also, company will offers referral discount to individual who aids in increase customer base of company by recommending it other, the word of mouth is best technique to promote and support business product and services (Cao et al, 2021).

Adventure Awaits successfully able to cover the needs and demands of the local market of UK regarding more use of technology for providing better experience to customers. For this, company will use big data and predictive analysis. The use of the technology enables the company to gain insight into tourists trends and behavior regarding preferred services, experiences, packages. According to the collected data, Adventure Awaits customized different kinds of packages as per need of tourist correspondingly they can choose the best option accordingly (Liao and Chuang, 2020). When the customer gets services as per their wants, it leads to enhance their tourist experience as a result aids in make business a successful one. Further, the use of big data and predictive analysis aids in adjust pricing as well as marketing strategies of the company. For instance, use of technology assist in making better destination recommendation to the tourist at best prices leads to make easy for the travelers to satisfied their needs and wants.

Competition

In the tourism industry of the UK, there is huge competition exist. To evaluate the competition, Adventure Awaits will conduct competitive analysis, it aids in recognize competitors as well as their marketing strategies. The main competitors of the company include Cox & Kings and G Adventures. These both are UK`s small level tour operating company provides various kind of tour packages to satisfied needs of the different kind of customer.

The competitors analysis of industry is as under:

Adventure Awaits is different from its competitors as it specializing in using big data and predictive analysis to provide services of customized packages. Company`s services according to the demands and needs of the customers makes it different from its competitors. For instance, company evaluate customer preference by taking their reviews and after research prepare a customized packages which make it different from other.

Marketing Plan

Adventure Awaits use digital technologies to build an effective marketing plan. Artificial Intelligence use for the purpose of collecting data and information about the recent trends, customer preference regarding visiting different tourism places. According to the collected data, company make its marketing plan, leads to help in attract wide range of customers. In addition, recently social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram also aids in effective marketing of business via posting information about packages, posting videos and images.

Adventure Awaits will use different promotional activities to accomplish its business objectives. These are as under:

• Social media marketing: Currently, social media is trending platform among the people of all generation. Correspondingly, for promotion of business Adventure Await will use social media platforms to market its product and services. Company will make short videos and images showing experience of tourist to grab attention of more customer results in accomplishment of goal of increasing revenue by 10%.
• Discount and allowances: To promote the business in the competitive industry, Adventure Awaits will use promotional activities of discount and allowances. For instance, the company will offer discounts on family tour packages including free tickets for children below age 4. Also, providing coupons and rewards when someone take services of business on recommendation of previous customers. It will help in attain objective of increasing profitability of company.
• Paid advertising: Adventure Awaits will use paid advertising to grab attention of wide range of potential customers. Company paid for the advertisement that often appears in search results, when clicked by the user (Bayer et al, 2020). It leads to help in increase website traffic as well as aware more people about the company.

Thus, the promotional activities of the business plays crucial role in attracting more people towards business, Hence, aids in accomplish long-term business objective of expanding business in upcoming year.

Operations

Stakeholders

For commencement of the business, stakeholders plays important role in developing strategies and implements business projects. According to the stakeholders analysis, Adventure Awaits stakeholders is as under:

Customers have high power to influence the decision of company but less interest in financial position. Manage closely covered stakeholders top management, government and investors as they have high interest in company profitability and power to take decision. Further, Keep informed includes employees as has interest in company revenue but less power to influence decision. For Adventure Awaits two essential stakeholders are investors and customers. Investors are important to increase capital of the company for successful operation of business (Karpoff, 2021). On the other hand, customer is crucial for business growth and success as without customer not even image business development.

Organizational Structure

Adventure Awaits for running of the business employ staff as under:

In the next 12 months, Adventure Awaits will change its employees number as with the increase in company operation, there is requirement of greater human resource. Employees of the company plays crucial role in growth of the business. Therefore, the company will increase number of employees such as customer-service representative as well as manager. Increase in company operation means wide range of customer as a result there is a need of more customer service representative to address queries and complaints. Also, employ 1 more manager to manage company activities.

Adventure Awaits will follow Hierarchal organizational structure includes chain of command, flows information from top to bottom. Company has clarity in role and responsibility of all employees and each know to whom they need to report and to whom they are accountable (Joseph and Gaba, 2020).

Laws and Regulations

Compliance with law and regulation is important for the commencement of tour operating business. In United Kingdom, Adventure Awaits has to compliance with the regulation of Package Travel, Package Holidays as well as Package Regulations 1992. These regulations set for the tour operating company towards responsibility of the customers (Package Travel Regulations 1992, 2024). For instance, the company has to follow rules regarding to broacher, according to its business have to provide particular services, if company not offer accordingly then customer can sue the company.

Adventure Awaits needs to insured its business against some uncertainties in the future. The business has to insured in terms of commercial property insurance. These aid the company to protect its physical assets against risk of fire, thefts and natural disasters. Another insurance is Transportation insurance, tour operating company use vehicles for travel purpose, in case some accident occurs the insurance aids in cover related expenses.

Finance

For commencement of the business, I use loan of £ 20000 for the purpose of making important expenses of the business. I used the amount for the expenses of rates of business premises, utilities, paying insurance amount, bills of telephone and internet, equipment purchases and so more. The activities aids in successful as well as smooth functions of the business.

Among the amount of 20000 pound the two largest expenses included professional fees as well as payment of the insurance. The company insured its business assets with the help of commercial insurance and transportation insurance as a result to make timely payment of the premium the company spend 3500 pound. Further, another big expense of business includes professional fees that are 2800 pound. For the establishment of the business, it is important to fulfill legal terms and for this important to take advice of professional experts such as lawyer, accountants and consultant. Adventure Awaits use loan amount to make payment of the professional fees.

Back-Up Plan

For the purpose of the start-up of business, Adventure Awaits takes loan of £ 20000. There is the opportunity towards the owner to make payment of loan on time as the business plan is sound one. In case of uncertain events, if I am unable to pay the loan then in that case I will use my personal savings to paid interest amount on the regular basis. But if my personal savings are not sufficient for repayment of the loan, then I will sell my personal assets to make payment of the loan such as personal property, vehicles etc (Vogel, 2021). These plan of mine helps me to get good amount of money as a result makes me able to make payment of the loan. In addition, another plan for repayment of loan includes taking another loan to make repayment of the previous one. It leads to provide me time to make sufficient money to make payment of loan on time. Thus, the two option aids me to manage repayment in case of an unexpected event. I feel that the plan is realistic one as my personal assets value is more than the amount of the loan, thus it is easy for me to repay loan with this plan.

CONCLUSION

As expressed, business plan plays an important role in successful establishment and operation of the business. The business plan is based on Adventure Awaits, a tour operating company of UK. The report covered objectives of the business such as increasing profitability and expansion of the business. It also included SWOT analysis to identify my strengths of financial, communication skill and weakness like lack of problem-solving skill. Further, the report outlined target customers such as all age people and position business via using social media platforms. Competitors of the business are G Adventures and Cox & Kings, but the company different from other as it specializing in using big data and predictive analysis. Moreover, back-up plan for repayment include paying from personal savings and selling personal assets.

REFERENCES

Books and Journals

• Bayer, E., Srinivasan, S., Riedl, E.J. and Skiera, B., 2020. The impact of online display advertising and paid search advertising relative to offline advertising on firm performance and firm value. International journal of research in marketing, 37(4), pp.789-804.
• Cao, Z., Chu, J., Hui, K.L. and Xu, H., 2021. The relationship between online referral marketing and price promotion: Evidence from a large e-commerce platform. Journal of Management Information Systems, 38(3), pp.855-888.
• Chawla, Y. and Chodak, G., 2021. Social media marketing for businesses: Organic promotions of web-links on Facebook. Journal of Business Research, 135, pp.49-65.
• Dwivedi, Y.K., Ismagilova, E., Hughes, D.L., Carlson, J., Filieri, R., Jacobson, J., Jain, V., Karjaluoto, H., Kefi, H., Krishen, A.S. and Kumar, V., 2021. Setting the future of digital and social media marketing research: Perspectives and research propositions. International journal of information management, 59, p.102168.
• Güner, P. and Erbay, H.N., 2021. Metacognitive Skills and Problem-Solving. International Journal of Research in Education and Science, 7(3), pp.715-734.
• Hasan, M., Le, T. and Hoque, A., 2021. How does financial literacy impact on inclusive finance?. Financial innovation, 7(1), p.40.
• Joseph, J. and Gaba, V., 2020. Organizational structure, information processing, and decision-making: A retrospective and road map for research. Academy of Management Annals, 14(1), pp.267-302.
• Karpoff, J.M., 2021. On a stakeholder model of corporate governance. Financial Management, 50(2), pp.321-343.
• Liao, C.S. and Chuang, H.K., 2020. Tourist preferences for package tour attributes in tourism destination design and development. Journal of Vacation Marketing, 26(2), pp.230-246.
• Vogel, R.C., 2021. Savings mobilization: the forgotten half of rural finance. In Undermining rural development with cheap credit (pp. 248-265). Routledge.