Getaway Island Tours operates a vacation planning and travel booking agency in the downtown area of a large northeastern city. They organize package tours and promote them in the local media. The winter is their busiest season, as people seek a week or two of sun and sand as a respite from the chilly winds and icy streets. A recent marketing survey indicates that the firm does not have very widespread brand name recognition and is regarded as a supplier of cheap tours with a wide dispersion of quality across tours. Potential buyers fell into two categories: those who buy largely on the basis of lowest price for air fare, hotel, and transfers and those who choose on the basis of convenient times of departure and return, known high-quality hotels, and safe, interesting, and exciting locations. Special-interest groups, such as golfers, sailers, scuba divers, and surfers, could also be identified within the latter group more readily than within the former group.

Getaway has hired your consulting firm for advice on the choice of a competitive strategy. They are currently only marginally profitable and operate from day to day, taking whatever comes along. After years in the business, however, their personnel have been to virtually every hotel on every island in the Caribbean and they have had some experience with Europe as well. They have organized tours of virtually every type for any clientele, but they have tended to dissipate their efforts over too wide a front. The big discounts at the hotels are also not available to occasional users.

(a) Discuss the various strategies that are open to Getaway Island Tours.

(b) What strategy do you suggest they follow?

(c) What product, price, and promotion decisions do you suggest they implement as part of their competitive strategy?