With reference to Utopia, describe the importance of two external stakeholders (line 12).

With reference to Utopia, explain the role of promotion (line 6).

External stakeholders could be:
• Suppliers – the local business in particular and coffee suppliers. The business relies on the quality of these products
• Local craftsmen – can be considered different from suppliers
• Customers – this is in the service industry and customers are critical. Word-of-mouth is so important in this industry and these will tend to be influential people
• Banks, etc – unlikely to be important as the business does not use external finance
• The government – very important for regulations such as H&S. Also collects taxes so has an impact on profits.
• Local community – Utopia provides work, has focus on local suppliers
• Pressure groups/media – no obvious importance although bad publicity to be avoided
• Competitors are allowed as external stakeholders

N.b.: shareholders are not external. Do not reward comments about stakeholders in general – there has to be references to specific stakeholders

Mark as 2+2.

Award [1] for each correct stakeholder identified and [1] for a description of how that stakeholder relates to Utopia. Award a maximum of [2] per stakeholder.

Promotion will have to be very focused to be effective.

Two aspects of promotion:
• Providing information: This is an upmarket business offering quite a different kind of tourist service. Potential customers will want to know a great deal about the specialities, such as locally produced goods and services, local cuisine, local culture, luxurious facilities and services
• Persuasion: Probably important early in the life of the business but less so as word-of-mouth promotion will now be a critical way to get new customers (C2C). How many customers are return visitors? Advertising through public relations may well be important, as tourist destinations often appear in travel pages of newspapers.

Creating, maintaining, reinforcing the ‘upmarket’ brand and image is important. Promotion may not be quite as important as for other tourist destinations because its focus is going to be on a niche market.

Accept any other relevant application.

Marks should be allocated according to the Paper 1 markbands for May 2016 forward, section A.

Award a maximum of [3] for a theoretical answer.

Award a maximum of [5] if the explanation of promotion is mainly descriptive but in context.

For full marks the explanation needs to be developed and in context.

Most candidates answered this well with customers and suppliers often chosen as the stakeholders. Some candidates confused ‘stakeholders’ with ‘shareholders’ who were not allowed as shareholders are not external stakeholders. Some candidates confused internal and external stakeholders. A few candidates were unable to contextualise their answers.

A lot of candidates attempted to answer a slightly different question, which was to analyse Utopia’s promotion strategy. The question set was about the ‘role’ of promotion. The best answers developed the ideas of informing and persuading within the context of Utopia’s reliance on word-of-mouth and viral marketing.