Strategic marketing plan to Brand Mysore

Strategic marketing plan to Brand Mysore

(created as a part of course work during b-school training)

Mysore has been graded as the royal heritage city of India. Has been a hot spot tourist destination for millions of tourists across the globe. The famous Dasara festival, numerous palaces, unique dishes, premium products like sandal wood and silk puts it in a unique spot on the map.
Over the years with ongoing tourist experiences and destination it’s important to address a few key issues to pop the image of the city.

1.       Purpose & Goals

a.       To make Mysore as the favorite tourist destination

b.      To grow retail and service business sectors via tourism

c.       To increase visibility and appeal to visitors

With the ongoing competition there are numerous options available to the tourists, and at the same time their preferences have been very selective and need for customization. Therefore, on the verge it is extremely important to have multiple packages keeping tourist interest, passion and preference in mind.

New services or packages:

      

    a. Learning based packages:  Mysore which houses great institutions/structures of learning important to leverage their existence. This would include visit to places like Sandalwood factory, Silk weaving factory, Agarbhatti factory, Visit to Palace and brindavan gardens with a engineering marvel perspective

b.      Activity based packages:  In order to cater to tourists passionate about adventure sports and nature exploration. A trekking on the Chamundi hills, exploration in Bandipur forest and gopalswamy hills, water sports in KRS.

c.       Family bound packages: A soothing comfortable stay for the families with an experience of a lifetime with real taste of Mysore and best shopping experience. This should include visit to the prominent tourist attractions and get to experience the taste of the city.

d.      Bird Watching Tours : Exclusively dedicated to Ornithologists to experience the migratory birds visiting Karanji lake, Kurkkarahalli lake, lingambudi lake and Ranganthittu bird sanctuary.

As ensuring the packages as needed by the tourists it is extremely important for the state to understand their changing taste and preferences. A complete tracking mechanism is required to know the tourist better. This could be done in multiple ways.

a.       Dedicated card: all international tourists would be assigned a travel card (prepaid card) which could be used to make to visits to various spots. Also use them in shopping purchases, tourist hotel transactions. In the end analysis of this information would help us understand what exactly does the consumer require. If this could be used in Taxi’s and other transportation mediums would be phenomenal.

b.      Swipe in swipe out mechanism using magnetic cards or wrist bands could be easily used.

Seasonal Schedule

Dasara ‘naada habba’ of the city keeps the city buzzing between the months September and December. Majority of business for the retailers, hotels and transport service providers making maximum profit in this time period. During the rest of the months it is essential to increase the footfall of the tourists.

a.       Monsoon months (June – September): Unique monsoon experience packages in Coorg could be capitalized as Mysore is the route to coorg for passengers from Bengaluru.  Short or quick visit packages of Mysore attractions would be most appropriate. Monsoon treks to mandalpatti or Kotti betta would be an added experience.

b.      Summer Months ( March – May ) : Leverage on the opportunity of existence of Ooty and Coorg and promote hill station experience amongst residents of hot climatic regions.

c.       Months January – March should be dedicated to hold festivals like yoga fest, harvest festival (in sync with sankranti) to give foreigners local cultural experiences.  

 How to Market ?

a.       With the advent of digital technologies with smart phones on every ones hands, people prefer navigation applications to commute as well as to explore nearby places like restaurants, shopping areas etc. This makes evident for small business to be registered on Google maps to be able to be prospective options for travellers.

b.      Though Print and other display mediums are conventional sources of advertising, the rising trend is the peer review on online travel portals. Foremost, it’s essential to be active on social medium, have a website with all details including booking, facebook, twitter accounts as well be active on travel portals to reach prospective tourists. All visitors should be requested to write reviews and comments and take feedback from them and should be displayed on the social media. Who could be better ambassadors than the tourists themselves?

Other Aspects :

a.       Important business to understand the need for basic necessities of tourists to improve their businesses. A numerous amount of business is lost in Devaraja Urs road just due to lack of parking spaces. Immediate construction of Multi level car parking is need of the hour.