Lamport Hall. A historic attraction and its strategies in visitor acquisition

Term Paper , 2003 , 9 Pages , Grade: B+

Communications - Public Relations, Advertising, Marketing, Social Media

This market analysis is based on the historic attraction of Lamport Hall. This 17th century Hall, home of the Isham family for over four centuries is managed since the seventies by Lamport Hall Trust a charitable organisation. In this site the visitor will find a wealth of outstanding furniture, large tranquil gardens, an agricultural museum as well as refreshment room and sometimes during the year are organised thematic weekends. Additionally, this
site is proposed for conferences, dinners and receptions. As a result, 31’500 customers benefited of these kinds of activities in 1999 and this analysis will see more precisely the current situation of Lamport Hall.

Table of Contents

1. Executive Summary

2. Sector of activity.

3. Analysis of the current market and potential market of Lamport Hall.

4. Analysis of main competition, both web and non-web.

5.Conclusion

References

1. Executive Summary

This market analysis is based on the historic attraction of Lamport Hall. This 17th century Hall, home of the Isham family for over four centuries is managed since the seventies by Lamport Hall Trust a charitable organisation. In this site the visitor will find a wealth of outstanding furniture, large tranquil gardens, an agricultural museum as well as refreshment room and sometimes during the year are organised thematic weekends. Additionally, this site is proposed for conferences, dinners and receptions.

As a result, 31’500 customers benefited of these kinds of activities in 1999 and this analysis will see more precisely the current situation of Lamport Hall.

2. Sector of activity.

In 2001, Key Note Ltd estimated that approximately 6215 tourist attractions exist in the UK of which around 2’300 generate more than 10’000 visits per year. In other words the tourism market has welcomed around 409.4 million visits in United Kingdom during 2000. According to Key Note Ltd, the tourist attraction is divided in two distinct parts: The first on the “Heritage” attractions comprising historic properties, museums and art galleries, and many different styles of gardens, monuments and churches. The second groups include all other kind of attractions. At the level of Lamport Hall, we can include this attraction in the sector of historic buildings, whereof approximately 1’500 are open to everyone in the UK (July 2001, Mintel).

These H eritage attractions are in the center of a large market mostly managed by important group such as Milburns Restaurants, Digby Trout, Sodexho Prestige, Tussauds Ltd, and also by the Government and Local Authorities. However the size of the enterprises is varying from the biggest, such as Shakespeare’s House in Stratford-upon-Avon, which had 1’017’113 visitors in 1999 to the smallest being Lamport Hall with 31’500 in 1999 (www.hetb.co.uk/non-member/).

Here can be introduced the concept of day-trips. Indeed, the indicative number of domestic day-trips is about 163.1 millions within the UK spending more than 26 billions pounds. This kind of excursion has known a sharp increase in the past five years and passed from 114.05 millions day-trips in 1995 to 140 millions in 2000, according to www.staruk.org.uk. A last detail is that 73% of visitors travel by car. (www.nlr.org.uk/places/LineMap.htm).

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Hence the Lamport Hall’s attraction market is essentially regional. Indeed the customers of this Heritage attraction do not come from Europe or from England but are located in the region itself. Instead of using a Gravity Model (which implies interviews of Lamport’s visitors), it is relevant to know that the target consumer, which will be defined later, is inclined (at 72% of people in Midland / Anglia) to travel more than half an hour to reach leisure sites (September 1999, Mintel). Translating this time for travelling in miles, this gives a radius between 40-60 miles around Lamport Hall (counties of Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Leicestershire, Milton Keynes, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire and Warwickshire, see Figure 1). This fact calls for another key element: The concept of the day trips.

Finally the sector of Heritage attractions for Lamport Hall is essentially visited by local people. However, Lamport Hall has, as mentioned before, others activities, as it said before the recreation and organisation of weddings, and thematic weekends. These other functions appear to be complementary activities, which are used as a competitive advantage in a strategy of diversification, according to Igor Ansoff Matrix. In this case, the analysis will be detailed in the Competitive analysis.

3. Analysis of the current market and potential market of Lamport Hall.

As indicated before, Lamport Hall has an activity being essentially based on regional target market. According to the Mintel (2000), historic buildings are most popular among older customers segments, specifically those between 35 and 64 years old, reflecting their more sedate leisure pursuits. With a socio-economic approach, consumers from: A, B and C1 will most likely visit this kind of historical site, most probably due to a higher level of cultural education. Similar to this approach, historic buildings hold most appeal for empty nesters with no family (ABC1 classes, aged between 35 and 65 years, who are working with no children aged under 16 living at home. They are, therefore, the classic no family / empty nesters with probably a high income that can be spent on themselves rather than on family) and working managers (working AB classes). Finally, it can be observed that married men at a lifestage defined as empty nesters / non-family (people aged between 35 and 64 with no children aged under 16) or post-family (visitors aged over 55) are slightly more inclined to visit historic buildings than women being at pre-family and family lifestage. Two lifestyle clusters are identified in this target market:

- Thriving: people who are wealthy achievers from suburban areas, affluent greys from rural communities and prosperous pensioners living in retirement areas.
- Expanding cluster is identified as affluent executives and well-off workers, both coming from family areas.

According to Mintel (2001), these different kind of visitors, called “drive-ins” will come to Lamport Hall, but will also be the type of visitors for museums, art-galleries and gardens. Thus the sector of the historic buildings is able to attract new visitors by using promotion tools in the other Heritage attractions. However, according to Mintel (2001), 45% of persons visiting historic attractions have visited them only once during the last 12 months. This information gives no precision on the frequency of the visits, and the visits at Lamport Hall are apparently not repeated acts.

SWOT analysis of Lamport Hall.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Lamport Hall is situated on the A508, between two large cities, Northampton and Market Harborough, and 10 miles from the M1. This geographical situation makes Lamport Hall easy to find and, moreover, the road indications are very clear for finding it. At the arrival the visitor finds a parking, catering with refreshments and a gift shop. This historic site offers the customer a break out of a city, where he can distract himself in a resting educational place. The visits to Lamport can also have social benefits, if the client come in-group or with the family. At a different level, the strategic management shows a policy of diversification with the activities of reception, meeting and thematic weekend.

Even though, Lamport is an interesting site, it has neither reputation, nor promotion to win additional visitors, and no bus nor rail way station is near. Hence a strategy of market penetration would be very expensive without guaranteed results. For that reason Lamport should diversify and underline the educational trips for schools and families with children.

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• College: University of Northampton (Business School)
• Grade: B+
• Author: Alexandre Georjon (Author)
• Publication Year: 2003
• Pages: 9
• Catalog Number: V21799
• ISBN (eBook): 9783638253260
• Language: English
• Tags: Lamport, Hall