The case “The London 2012 Olympic Games” basically discusses the situation where in 2009, Paul Williamson the Head of Ticketing needs to actually finalize the ticket prices for the 2012 Olympic London Games. Before finalizing the price, Williamson needs to consider quite a few things. The first and the foremost element are to understand the importance of the ticketing to the Games bottom line where he actuallyhas quite a strong incentive to maximize the revenues.
In addition to this, Williamson is also concerned about the fact that he needs to maximize the attendance for all the events including the opening ceremony and the swimming finals also. He is more concerned about the attendance in games such as table tennis and handball which do not attract a large audience.
Thirdly, he also wants to fill seats with the right people who are knowledgeable about the games, passionate and are energetic to lighten up the environment. Finally, he is also aware of the fact that the tickets need to be easily accessible to not only the elite class but he also wants to make tickets accessible to the average Londoners.
DiscussionAs the case confirms, the major issue is to set a price that not only attracts the right audience, but it should also ensure that the seats at the stadiums for all events are filled up and the audience coming over to view the Olympic Games are well aware and passionate about the different games that shall be on display.
Therefore, the management under the leadership of Head of Ticketing, Paul Williamson needs to make the strategic move in order to ensure a reasonable price with maximum value addition to the games. In addition to this, the historical data confirms that while making decisions and forecasting, the data on the exact pricing of tickets for the previous Olympic Games of Beijing and Athens need to be assessed for a better accurate result.
Different factors make the overall process of setting the ticket policies unique for all the cities hosting games. However, in the current situation, as the case confirms, cultural differences, preferences, atmosphere, taste basically differ the audience trends accordingly.
London being more accessible to quite a large audience and cosmopolitan area, it shall reflect upon the outcome and success of the games. The price strategy therefore has to attract large audience, passionate viewers, exciting games and a more complete successful plan for the games.
Williamson, therefore, has to actually ensure that a price strategy is devised in order to better reflect upon the decision making propensity. The outcome needs to be discussed the overall strategy that can bring about a result that will increase sales, revenue and profit for the audience.
RecommendationsBased on the issue presented in the case, a decent pricing strategy has to have several characteristics. Firstly, it needs to be attractive to eventually sell tickets at large scale and with large numbers. The pricing needs to be affordable to the viewers of the sports. If the ticket is priced at a higher price, the fans will more likely stay home and would prefer watching the games on the television.
Therefore, the prices of the tickets need to be reasonable. Moreover, the pricing strategy needs to be such where the popular games can be a bit expensive. If the prices are low for all events than obviously the management of London Olympics will not be able to attain the desirable results of achieving maximum revenue generation, therefore, the strategy needs to be tactical.
A good pricing strategy needs to balance quite a few components of the game. The strategy needs to balance the popularity, interest, ability, fan base, etc. Williamson therefore has to consider the factors as they will help in determining the strategy for the games. While using the pricing strategy it needs to gatherable and relatable.
About 7.9 million tickets need to be made available and sold where the sales need to team up with the pricing strategy which shall offer sever events at reasonable prices. Another strategic move to attain sales for the games which can be done by the management is to offer bundle ticketing which will obviously reduce the overall price of tickets but it will ensure that maximum tickets are sold and the management can earn reasonable profits through bulk selling.
Finally, the sales team should use the optional product pricing strategy which will be able to accumulate revenues per ticket accordingly. This needs to be directly proportional to the sales and profits also.
Therefore, based on the above analysis and discussion, the recommended pricing strategy for the games should be to sell tickets in bulk. This will increase the customer base. It shall help the management attain profits and more importantly it will allow the management to fill in stadiums for those games also where the audience is not attracted such as table tennis, etc.
Moreover, the plan needs to be directed towards the pessimistic outcome of achieving maximum sales. The management also needs to adopt the auction pricing strategy and sell 15 to 20 percent tickets through auction also. Finally, setting affordable prices to sustain the sales and forecast 85% sales via normal selling and remaining 15% tickets need to be sold via bundle ticketing.
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