Glacier Bear Lodge

KATHMANDU UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT

Assignment On Case: Glacier Bear Lodge

Service Marketing

Submitted to:
Asst. Prof. Rojan Baniya

KUSOM

Submitted by:
Sabal Shrestha

Roll no: 16137

MBA 4th Term

Consider that you are the Marketing Manager for Glacier Bear Lodge and that you want to understand how your customers form expectations regarding your hotel.
How are your customers' expectations being influenced by word-of-mouth communication found on popular Internet sites, including Tripadvisor, Yelp, and Google reviews? Provide examples from these sites when you answer the question.

The customer’s expectations regarding Glacier Bear Lodge can be observed through the reviews of customers who have already visited the hotel. These reviews are very crucial to attract the new visitors as nowadays people visit the travel guide websites like Tripadvisor, Yelp and Google reviews before deciding which hotel to visit. They go through the ratings and comments in those travel websites. So, those ratings are very important to understand customer’s expectations better and also attract new customers.

In the popular travel guide sites like Tripadvisor, Yelp and Google reviews the customers who have already visited Glacier Bear Lodge are very happy with service and accommodation of the hotel. Most of the customers have provided good rating for the hotel. It has received a overall rating of 4.5 in Tripadvisor and 4.3 in Google review, which is a good rating. The comments in Tripadvisor suggest that the customers are very happy with the friendly behavior of the staffs. They also mentioned that they had great experience fishing and that it was the best Alaska experience. But some of the customers had complaint about the cleanliness of the rooms. They told that the rooms were filthy and everything was dirty like the floor and toilet. Some customer has complaint regarding the food of the restaurant. They complained that the food were disgrace to the sea foods. Although the number of complaints were less, but these complains will influence the new customers very much. So, as a Marketing Manager the manager of the hotel must be told to provide clean accommodation and quality food so that the word of mouth becomes positive.

Go to the lodge website; see http://www.glacierbearlodge.com/ Describe explicit promises that the Lodge is making to potential guests.

Some of the explicit promises that the Glacier Bear Lodge is making to potential guests are as follows;

• Great fishing and outdoor experience
• Best lodging and dining experience
• Provides different services like arrangement of rental cars, boats, expert guides, high speed internet, gears required for fishing
• Provides extra activities like hiking, beach combing, wildlife viewing, etc

How do photos on the lodge's website represent implicit service promises? Explain what the photos at the lodge's website are promising guests.

The photos on the website help denote that the customer will be able to experience the vacation as on the photos. Photos on the lodge’s website represent implicit service promise because the photos give the customers virtual description of the events and settings in the hotel without mentioning about them.

The photos on the lodge’s website are promising guests that they will have a great time fishing in the rivers of Alaska. They will be able to catch very large fishes in the rivers; fish even of the size larger than a human. So, the photos show that the lodge is a heaven for people who love fishing. The photos also promise the customers that they will be able to catch different types of fish.

Although great fishing experience is the main implied promise, they have also shown other implied promises like managed area to keep the fishing gears, recreational activities like pool, boat rental services and clean rooms. They have kept a photo of clean and cozy bedding which implies that the sleep after a exhausting fishing experience will be a comfortable one. The photos of grizzly bear, polar bear and bald eagle imply that the fishing experience will also include company from those wild creatures which adds up some adventure.

Use Google to determine Glacier Bear Lodge's competition in Yakutat, AK. After doing so, how do perceived service alternatives influence a potential guest's expectations of Glacier Bear Lodge?

The major competitors of Glacier Bear Lodge are Hubbard Glacier, Monti Bay Lodge, Icy Bay Lodge, Leonard’s Landing Lodge, Raven Hotel, Yakutat Lodge, etc. As there are many competitors of Glacier Bear Lodge that have better rating than themselves, it influences the potential guests very much. While searching for the lodges or hotels in Yakutat they will find many options with better review than of Glacier Bear Lodge’s. The toughest competition is Hubbard Glacier as it has 463 reviews with 92% people giving rating of 5. And also there are other hotels which have rating of 5 while Glacier Bear Lodge has rating of 4.5. So, Glacier Bear Lodge is not the first choice of people visiting Yakutat.