Birmingham Barge Trips - Draft Coursework

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Course: 303 MKT – Corporate Marketing Strategy

Lecturer: Mr Mike Willoughby

Student Name: ADRIEN DUCHÂTEAU

Student ID: 7342738

BIRMINGHAM BARGE TRIPS

Business Purpose

Birmingham Barge Trips (BBT) operates in and around the city of Birmingham along the ancient waterways of the Midland Canal Network. They organise barge trips, as well as diversified boat trips including catering and entertainment.

EXTERNAL Analysis

PESTLE

Political

Birmingham City Council encourages the development of barge trips, which is beneficial for BBT on the long term. On the other hand, the Brexit decision brings an unstable situation to tourism in the UK. It could lead to more tourism -both from UK- as non-UK people-, as the pound massively dropped, which is positive for BBT.

Economical

Birmingham has become an increasingly popular destination for tourism and could therefore be helpful for BBT. Moreover, the pound has suffered depreciation due to Brexit, which might increase tourism to the UK. Lastly, moorings are expensive for the boats. This impacts BBT’s costs per boat.

Social

Individually styled venues are trendy and might be considered by BBT as an opportunity. In addition, people want to be entertained. Nevertheless, night entertainment often brings along noise, which might threaten the neighbourhood and therefore has to be taken into account for BBT’s activities.

Technological

People are increasingly proficient on technological level, which affects the process of building boats. However, boats can’t be built too big, so BBT has to take into consideration that some small canals have strict restrictions and think about this for possible further boat investments.

Legal

Lots of licenses are needed, such as: liquor, catering, skipper and staff. Also, there is a legal drinking age to respect, as well as a maximum amount of people on the boat. BBT cannot risk to be legally penalised and has to respect these instructions carefully in order to avoid legal troubles.

Environmental

CO2 emissions are becoming important and should be controlled by BBT to prevent any fines that might be applied in the future.

PORTER’S 5 FORCES

Threat of New Entrants

It is expensive to enter the market (£150.000 for a boat). Also, the different licenses to obtain form a hurdle to entry. However, it is an attractive and growing market

Buyer Power

There is a rather small customer base (130.000) in comparison to London for example. Furthermore, the price sensitivity is rather high, which grants the buyer to have significant power.