Common Mistakes in Marketing Research
A locals’ oriented casino-hotel located in a resort community recently completed a major expansion to better serve tourists visiting the city. After extensive market research, the casino’s parent company had made the determination that the property was highly desired by tourists and that an expansion of its hotel and entertainment offerings was critical if it was to grow its revenue. After investing over $50 million, the new resort expansion opened. While locals were impressed with the new property and liked its richly appointed amenities, tourists did not show up in any great numbers. Revenues remained essentially flat and EBITDA plunged as operating expenses associated with these new amenities increased.
In the post-opening period a team of executives tried to understand what went wrong. They began a marketing forensics exercise in which they reviewed all the data that was used to bring the company to the decision to expand into the tourism segment. This is what they uncovered.
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