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Strategic Business Proposal 1 of 35
Strategic Business Proposal
for
Education First: Ultimate Break
For: Education First: Ultimate Break
https://www.efultimatebreak.com
Prepared On: May 19, 2019
Prepared By: Alisson Bisono, Rita Santos, Hayley Cohen
Instructor Name: Annie Quaile
StrategicBusinessProposal Page 2 of 35
Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................................. 3
Executive Summary .................................................................................................................................. 3
1. Organizational Challenges & Proposed Solution......................................................................................... 4
Organizational Challenges......................................................................................................................... 4
Proposed Solution .................................................................................................................................... 4
2. Environmental Scanning............................................................................................................................ 5
Internal Analysis.................................................................................................................................... 5-7
External Analysis....................................................................................................................................... 8
3. Strategy Formulation............................................................................................................................8-12
Operations..............................................................................................................................................12
Sales, Marketing, & Distribution..........................................................................................................13-14
Legal ......................................................................................................................................................15
4. Proposal Budget & Projections.................................................................................................................16
Sales Projections......................................................................................................................................16
Project Budget.........................................................................................................................................17
5. Strategy Implementation.........................................................................................................................17
Timeline and Key Milestones...............................................................................................................17-21
6. Future Plans............................................................................................................................................21
Long-Term Opportunity and Development Plans .......................................................................................21
7. Appendices and References.....................................................................................................................23
References.........................................................................................................................................23-28
Appendices .............................................................................................................................................29
Appendix 1:Competitive Analysis.........................................................................................................29
Appendix 2: Marketing Examples.........................................................................................................30
Appendix 3: Competitive Pricing..........................................................................................................31
Appendix 4: Sales Projections.........................................................................................................32-35
StrategicBusinessProposal Page 3 of 35
Introduction
Executive Summary
To the Education First Board of Directors:
In 2018 alone, 66% of Millennials in America attend music festivals ofevery genre. Moreover, these same
millennials attend at least 4-5 festivals and spend an average of $500 on tickets alone. In Education First,
our target market is consisted of these individuals and are heavily invested in the tourism industry while
also admiring the music side. Within our company, we are focused on creating a memorable experience
for any young adult looking for a break from the real world. This is why we are proposing the
implementation of music festival packages within our summer European trip options. Surveys have
shown that roughly 40% of Americans would be willing to travel outside the country in order to attend
a music festival. This is why it will be beneficial for both the company and the consumer to combine this
aspect into the trips we offer. European trips are what we offer the most of and festivals that take place
in Europe fall into the two most popular genres for festivals, Electronic and Indie Rock. Combining these
two ideas will change the way people view Education First: Ultimate Break.
We introduce you to Education First: ALL ACCESS. Education First: ALL ACCESS will consist of European
travel packages that contain exclusive one-day passes to Europe’s hottest music festivals. By creating an
potential partnership with Live Nation, one of the most popular event companies in the world, we will
establish brand loyalty with the introduction of new clients. These specific music festival travel packages
will include the same experiences and excursions as our existing packages, however, will also include
one-day passes to popular festivals like Tomorrowland in Croatia and NOS Primavera Sound in Spain.
With unique marketing tactics and promotion from popular influencers, we hope to reach more
audiences and bring exposure to the Education First brand. If these ALL ACCESS packages are successful,
we plan on branching out to other continents like Asia and South America so our consumers can
experience more countries than ever before. Our goal is for Education First to become a world-known
name in today’s fastest growing industries, the music festival industry.
AlissonBisono HayleyCohen Rita Santos
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1: Challenges & Solutions
Organizational Challenges
Education First (EF) has a branch of their company called Ultimate Break. This branch focuses on
creating stress-free travel packages for adventurous students and young adults to discover new and
exciting travel destinations (EF, 2019). They offer packages to explore cities like Paris, Milan, London,
and more. EF’s main target is students who are interested in taking a break from school life to go on a
cultural journey and expand their knowledge in a foreign environment. We have noticed the lack of
opportunity to monetize one of the biggest spending ventures for EF’s target market: live
entertainment. This includes concerts, festivals, and other live events. Elite Daily, an online magazine
focused on travel and millennial trends, mentioned in an article that there are two things every
Millennial in their early 20s should do: travel to a foreign country and attend a music festival (Riotta,
2015). According to studies, 64% of all music-related spending for millennials is on live events, like
concerts and festivals (MC, 2015).
Traveling to a foreign destination is nothing new for Millennials. Twenty-five percent of Americans said
they would travel to a different country to watch their favorite artist perform. This fact ties into a study
about how fundamental culture is to the development of stories and journeys (Stefan, 2019).
Combining EF’s passion for travel and Millennials’ love for music is an innovative way for a brand-new
experience. Through research, we have noticed that many travel agencies don’t implement the music
industry into their travel packages. The purpose of this proposal is to deliver a new and innovative
experience for Millenials to enjoy in a foreign country by combining culture and music.
ProposedSolution
The solution we propose to EF: Ultimate Break is for the company to start exploring a new source of
income in a market they have not monetized, the live event and festival market. By incorporating travel
packages that include cultural experiences and festival tickets in several European countries, the
company will be able to target young adults who desire to visit a new country and enjoy the local music
festival scene. According to Billboard magazine, at least 32 million people attend music festivals every
year (Lynch, 2015). So, why not tie local music with culture?
These packages will be assorted by genre and choice of countries. For example, if a customer is a big fan
of Indie-Rock, their package will include countries like England, Italy, and France. If they like hardcore
music, the package will take them to Germany, Belgium, and Sweden since these are popular
destinations for the genre. We believe this proposal is the perfect fit for EF: Ultimate Break because it
targets exactly the same audience EF targets, young adults between the ages of 18 to 29 years old
(CISION, 2017).
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2: Environmental Scanning
Internal Analysis
Company Overview
EF: Ultimate Break, a subsidiary of Education First, is a travel company that creates all-inclusive trips at
an affordable cost. Founded in 1965, EF and their subsidiaries have focused on the education of our
youth and their ability to grow and learn in many aspects. Their vision is “Opening the world through
education,” by bringing culture, education, and language together in order for young adults to expand
their knowledge and experiences (EF, 2019). This has included scholarships, learning new languages,
and eventually their travel branches of the company. Their trips attract a younger following of those
who want to gain new experiences and not break the bank. Trips can be planned to just one country,
or to multiple countries across one continent. This allows a younger generation to create new
experiences and immerse themselves in different cultures at the same time. On these adventures, the
travelers not only get to make their own memories but also get to make them with those in their group
and build new relationships.
EF: Ultimate Break works with well-known companies in order to build a reputable, safe, and organized
vacation. Thus, taking all the guesswork out of traveling for the millennials who are focused on the
experiences without all the fuss. EF does all the work for the consumer and bundles every aspect of a
trip so the price they give will have no surprise add-ons unless someone chooses to add an excursion.
This cuts the stress of flights, hotels, transportation, and more so the trip is easy and carefree from the
start. As Millennials begin to go into the workforce and earn an income that they can spend on wants
and not just needs, they can begin to invest in new experiences (Eventbrite, 2014). With 18-29-year-
olds as their target, they look to focus on creating a user-friendly site to navigate through in order to
optimize the experience of the user before and during their adventure. Elite Daily ranked EF: Ultimate
Break as one of the top 6 travel companies for young adults, stating that the best part of EF is “All you
have to do is choose a trip, show up at the airport, and get ready to have the time of your life,”
(Johnson, 2018). As they continue to add new experiences and research new places to discover, EF:
Ultimate Break can continue to capture the attention of those that are hungry for knowledge and
adventure.
Financial Standings
Founded in 1965 by Bertil Hult, Education First’s (EF) financial standings have been rapidly growing since
the start of their business. Hult was a young college student eager to start a business that’s focused on
experiential learning (EF, 2019). At first, the funds were non-existent since it was a start-up, however,
the business started to incline once EF made a name for themselves in other countries like France and
Sweden. According to Owler, their annual estimated revenue in2019 is around $50 million (Owler, 2019).
Currently, Education First has 52,000 employees in 114 countries. On their website, they have 1,000
open positions in their company which means that they are in good financial standing and are investing
in the expansion of the company. The market is growing as well. The United Nations estimated that
young adults are the biggest chunk of international travelers and generate more than $180 billion in
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tourism revenue (Machado, 2014). Since this market travels for music festivals as well, Education First
needs to implement music festival travel packages.
Since Education First is a private for-profit company, many of their financial records are difficult to find.
Due to this finding, we decided to compare Education First’s financial information to other travel
companies. Brightspark Travel Inc. is a company that has similar services and morals as Education First.
They generate annual revenue of 4.6 million and currently employs around 200 employees (Crunchbase,
2019). Since both companies have similar ideals, their records can correlate. The Vice President of
Business Operations for Brightspark Travel Inc. stated that their sales spiked by 15% from 2014 to 2015
due to customer satisfaction (LinkedIn, 2019). The travel industry has continued to grow and its revenue
has increased because of the need from their target market.
Education First is one of the strongest competitors in the travel business catered to students. During
2018, the company had reported having a revenue of $50 million USD (Owler, 2019). Their competitor,
Brightspark Travel Inc., only made $4.6 million USD (Crunchbase, 2019). When comparing both
companies side by side, we can assume that Education First is dominating the market. The reality of
Education First’s situation is that they rely on their profits from their traveling department to support
their educational programs. This weakness can be easily fixed by EF investing more of their revenue into
their travel branch, Ultimate Break. If they invest in the live event market they can generate enough
money to invest in other business ventures.
Organizational Strengths
EF: Ultimate Break has many strengths that can put themselves ahead of some of the competition.
Their packages not only include all the expenses at each destination, but they also include the flights
and travel insurance. It seems that most, if not all of the major competitors do not offer either of those
which adds an additional cost and hassle to their consumers. Another would be the ability to set up a
payment plan for a vacation, or even a “travel now, pay later” account (EF, 2019). This makes the cost
of the trip easier on the consumer’s wallet and allows them to take more opportunities than those who
would have to pay in one lump sum. Another strength they have that truly pulls the millennial market
in is ease of access. Their website lays out all of the information before the trip is booked or any
information is given. Other websites require information before the trip can be tailored to the
traveler’s liking when it comes to add-ons. This transparency allows the adventurer to not question or
worry about what they are getting out of their trip.
Organizational Weaknesses
The main weakness we easily identified with Education First is their lack of events and excursions
catered to young people who enjoy live events as much as they enjoy traveling. While looking at their
website, we observed mainly cultural excursions and landscape observation (EF, 2019). According to
research, 70% of travelers prefer trips where they have new experiences than trips where they get to
discover only new sights (ST, 2018). Since consumers are more focused on creating memories and
having new experiences, we consider the lack of adventure and music-related trips provided by
Education First is one of its main weaknesses. If EF changes this pattern, they will gain an advantage
over their competitors and be ahead of them which can potentially lead to a larger customer pool.
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Customers
All year round, there are hundreds of festivals that take place across Europe. This number has been
increasing exponentially due to the high demand for live music events in these countries (UIF, 2010).
Overall, the festival market has kept an exponential growth worldwide which shows that people are
attending music-related events now more than ever. The music events segment has reported an
estimated $34.41M in revenue, a 13.3% growth compared to the previous year. In 2023, the expected
revenue from this market is estimated to reach $50M (Statista, 2019).
The customer for EF: Ultimate Break is a music aficionado who attends two to three festivals each year
and spend around $91 per festival (EB, 2016). These fans love to purchase band merch at the shows they
attend in order to represent and support the musicians they love. During 2016, the licensing industry
merchandisers’ association profited $3.1 billion USD in merchandise sales for artists and bands. This
number shows a10% increaserate compared to the year before and this number hasn’t stopped growing
(Ruvo, 2018). Other research done on live events and festivals shows that 54.7% of individuals who
attend festivals in Europe are males. The same studies found that these individuals are 29.2% between
the ages of 21 and 25 and 38.3% are single (FI, 2017). Our customer is considered to be a “festie.” The
definition of a “festie” is a person who is extremely passionate about attending music festivals. In order
to understand the ideal consumer for our new venture with EF: Ultimate Break, we created a customer
persona: Jonah. Jonah is a single 23-year-old, American citizen from New York. We decided to choose
New York because itis one of the states with the highestnumber of international flightdepartures (Surry,
2017). Jonah is interested in attending live events and being outdoors in his free time. He used trips to
Europe in order to escape from his normal life and loves to visit different countries in Europe such as
Spain, France, and Italy. One day Jonah hopes he can say he traveled to all continents. When Jonah
attends shows, he enjoys drinking craft beer and taking Polaroid pictures. Jonah has a broad music taste;
however, he enjoys Electronic and Alternative music the most. He spends most of his revenue on these
genres through ancillary items like concert tickets, streaming, and even fan clubs.
Collaborators
Even though Education First is a privately-owned company, they have teamed up with multiple
organizations to celebrate the meaning of unity. This can fallinto multiple categories; however, EF wants
to make sure that each collaborator is focused on the purpose of uniting people and celebrating the mix
of cultures.
In 2018, the CEO of Education First’s North American division, Edward Hult, announced the partnership
with Slipstream Sports. Hult noticed the #SaveArgyle campaign created by Slipstream Sports and was
astounded by the amount of support it came with it. The purpose was to keep the United States cycling
team alive throughout 2018 and more years to come. Education First was moved by the idea of diverse
backgrounds coming together to achieve athletic feats, “It aligns perfectly with EF’s mission of opening
the world through education and our commitment to bringing different cultures together,” (EFPro,
2019). Both organizations are committed to breaking down cultural barriers and constantly teaching
people how to effectively communicate.
Since our proposal is focused on uniting people and cultures with music festivals, Education First has
implemented music into their collaborations. Spark Marketing Entertainment, an independent and
international music consultant, teamed up with Education First to provide a once in a lifetime experience
StrategicBusinessProposal Page 8 of 35
to meet Taylor Swift and attend her concert in Paris, France. Exclusive to students registered with EF, all
they had to do was take a quiz on Taylor Swift and Parisian culture. The contest ran through 43 countries
via social media and select mailing lists. On Valentine’s day, three lucky students met Taylor Swift and
got to enjoy the show (Spark, 2011). By combining their passionfor travel and consumers’ love for music,
Education First and Spark Marketing Entertainment’s cross-promotion international campaign was an
absolute success.
External Analysis
Competitors
Contiki, G Adventures, Topdeck, and Intrepid are direct competitors of EF: Ultimate Break because they
offer the sameproduct and target those in the millennial agegroup. Allof these companies offer a variety
of trips to countries all over the world for different periods of time. Whether someone wants to travel
to Ireland for a week or travel to multiple countries in Europe for a month, these companies offer
packages that appeal to a millennial that is dying for adventure and an escape (Johnson, 2018). All of the
companies bundle their packages to include everything in the country or countries that the traveler will
visit and allow payment plans to afford the adventure. However, the only company that bundles every
aspect of the trip from beginning to end, including the international flights to and from the countries
where you start and end your journey, is Education First: Ultimate Break. The competitors have some
packages that seem cheaper upfront but as far as the cost after the airfare is added, EF: Ultimate Break
comes out on top of the competitors. Refer to Appendix A for an in-depth chart of Education First’s direct
competitors.
As for the live event section of the business venture Education First is delving into, we believe that Live
Nation is the biggest indirect competitor for EF. Live Nation and AEG currently dominate the live event
market in Europe, making an astonishing $12 billion collectively (Murphy, 2016). We believe that Live
Nation is our biggestcompetitor becauseof their new festivalpassport. During 2017, Live Nation created
the festival passport that allows their clients to attend festivals all around the world held by the live
event company. The price of these “passports” range from $1,000 to $5,000 and include only the
admission for the festivalitself,excluding lodging and transportation. (O’Brien, 2018). Since our proposal
will include the “passport” concept and the correct lodging and transportation, this package will stand
out against competitors because it includes cultural excursions, providing travelers with the best of
European local entertainment.
Business Climate
Political & Regulatory
Education First currently focuses on the travel and tourism sector. This industry is regulated by the U.S
Travel and Tourism Advisory Board in the U.S, and the World Trade and Tourism Council Internationally.
As a new business venture, EF could invest in the live event market. Live events are not federally
regulated but the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice have laws in place to keep the
ticket sales for these events fairand ethical. As far as the music and artists themselves, music is censored
and banned based on each country’s laws.
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Political issues that currently affect these industries are censorship and music that take a protest
against a topic in politics has affected artists and their ability to travel to certain venues and countries.
Examples of this in the U.S and Europe would be The Dixie Chicks were banned on the radio in some
counties due to them insulting the president. Another would be Snoop Dogg being banned from
Europe and Amy Winehouse being banned from the U.S due to their lifestyle getting them in trouble
and the effects people believe it would have on their country and/or youth. A major issue in Europe is
Brexit and its effects on artists in both the U.K and the rest of the E.U. This would mean that artists in
the U.K cannot work in the E.U and vice versa. Unfortunately, that includes touring (Daly, 2018); with
this information, we learned that the U.K could lose roughly 1 billion pounds or 1.3 billion U.S dollars.
As far as censorship, streaming has taken some of the power from those who try to censor artists’
music. Groups such as the FCC, BBC, and Clear Channel have pushed to only broadcast edited versions
of songs, but consumers’ ability to search for and stream the explicit versions elsewhere allows the
artists to be able to express their art as they intended. Child Media expert Christopher Bell also
discusses in an interview on how we need to stop censoring everything around kids and realize that
they are smarter than we make them out to be. He uses Kidz Bop as the prime example of the fact that
you can edit and censor a song, but the meaning and interpretation is still there. If more people start
to speak out about this, it could really change how artists’ music is viewed. British lawmakers and
citizens are pushing to preferably kill Brexit, or postpone it for as long as they can (Mueller, 2019).
Additional research would need to be done as far as who is allowed in these countries and what keeps
people from performing there. With Brexit, we would have to focus our idea away from the U.K and
focus more on the rest of Europe. This way if it is voted in, then artists aren’t negatively impacted at
the festivals we decide to work with.
Economic
Since Education First (EF) has multiple travel packages around Europe, this is the region we want to
focus on. Currently, Travel and Tourism in Europe is nearly 70% the size of Europe’s retail sector which
means that this specific sector generates high revenue for the country. The World Travel and Tourism
Council predicts that employment in the Travel and Tourism sector will grow 2.4% over the next
decade (WTTC, 2016). The live event industry, specifically pertaining to festivals, has been very
influential in Europe's economy. Live Nation and AEG are one of many companies to produce popular
European Festivals like Lollapalooza Paris and the British Summer Time Festival. Collectively, both
companies are bringing in around $12 billion for the live event industry (Murphy, 2016). Since both
companies own multiple entities in Europe, they would bring in at least a quarter of those earnings to
the European economy. Even though the production company who held the festival is earning profit,
so is the local economy. For example, Live Nation is earning thousands from Lollapalooza Paris, but the
city council in Paris is earning a profit for the city as well.
So passionate that they will do anything to see the perfect lineup or environment. Organizers and
promoters take into consideration of what they think and want in any festival around the world.
Twenty percent of festival goers attend 5-6 festivals per year, spending an average of $91 per event
compared to the average customer (TicketStripe, 2019). Our target customer is willing to spend a lot of
StrategicBusinessProposal Page 10 of 35
money for the experience. Rather than purchasing a movie ticket or buying a new shirt at the mall, this
customer’s spending habits are focused on music festivals. Our target customer is loyal and research
shows that the average “festie” will attend their favorite festival at least three times. That gives
organizers a reason to upsell new and existing customers.
There are two changes that we expect may happen that will decrease the attendance of European
festivals. First, the lack of high-profile headline artists will lead to less attendance at any festival. A
study done by the European Festival Census states that almost 30% of regular concert goers would be
put off from purchasing festival passes due to the lack of high-profile headliners. This can be caused by
the lack of artists willing to travel to another country or the pay is not up to their expectations. Second,
is the rise of pass prices. If the price of passes were to incline, it would most likely lead to a decrease in
attendance. At least 60% of active “festies” say that the current price for festivals is just “ok.” If
organizers increased the price, they would lose loyal customers.
Social & Cultural
There are many trends that can be observed in the travel industry. One of the most dominant trends in
this industry is cultural travel. Studies done on the matter have shown that 70% of travelers show a
desire to go on trips that provide an experience rather than trips that only provide them with new and
beautiful landscapes. These experiences include activities like trying local food, music, adrenaline,
traditional crafts, and local guided trips (ST, 2019). Another dominant trend is traveling to European
destinations. Studies conducted by the COSME program of the European Union show that Europe
makes up 40% of international tourist arrivals worldwide (UNWTO, 2016).
In Europe, we can see an increase in small independent music festivals. While Live Nation is still one of
the biggest concert venue and festival owners in Europe, many independent companies have been
gaining traction for the past couple of years. This noticeable increase is due to the fact that traveling
and festival attendance is growing exponentially for festivals hosted in Europe. Most countries have
seen an increase of at least 12% in their attendance rates for festivals, therefore each year more and
more festivals are emerging in the marketplace (Petersen, 2017). Around 823,000 people from around
the world traveled to the UK alone during 2016 to watch a live performance (O’Connor, 2017).
A prevalent trend that we observed among our target audience is that young American adults are more
and more willing to travel outside of the United States just to attend music-related events. During
2018, eDreams conducted research about American millennial travel habits. The company surveyed
13,000 young adults across the country to discover that 25% are likely to travel outside of the United
States to watch their favorite musical acts perform. Also, 40% of Americans who took the survey
expressed they are interested in attending music festivals outside of their own country, compared to
the 36% global rate (TAC, 2018).
A social issue that has been impacting festivals and other live events in Europe, especially from the
years 2015 to 2017, is the increase in terrorist attacks. Although these social problems are not directly
related to the travel and live event industries, they play a big part in the decision process of choosing
to travel to a certain country or not. For example, after the 2015 bombing in Paris and the 2017
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bombing in the Manchester Arena, which occurred in concert venues, many people around Europe
were afraid to attend live events. This fear was also installed in the travel industry after the bombings
of the Brussels airport. Fortunately, this trend has had a major decrease. During 2017, Europe only
experienced two bombings and the last attack was during August 2017. Studies show that terrorist
attacks have decreased between 20% to 24% worldwide (Taylor, 2018).
Technological
There are multiple technological trends that are currently booming in the travel industry. One of them
is Augmented Reality (AR). Less advanced than Virtual Reality (VR), AR is cheaper and is more
accessible to the everyday customer. AR involves augmenting a person’s real surroundings to create
more of an experience. For example, if a tourist was standing in front of a historical building and
looking for more information on the landmark, they are able to find more information about the
building by swiftly moving their phone in front of it (Revfine, 2019). One technological trend across the
music festival industry is the implementation of RFID bands. RFID is an acronym for Radio Frequency
Identification Device. Using an RFID band has become more convenient for the average festival goer. It
unlocks cashless payments for easy purchasing on merchandise, food, and drinks. It also allows
locational tracking for event organizers to gather data on the movement, choices, and preferences of
customers (Breaker, 2018).
Millennials are one of the leading generations when it comes to technology. In a PEW Research study,
92% of millennials own a smartphone and they are the leaders in those who use social media platforms
(Jiang, 2018). Millennials are also leaders in knowing what technology is the best and the worst. From
2016 to 2017, we have seen exponential growth in the use of mobile apps. The time spent on mobile
devices grew from 40% to 49% (Enge, 2018). Also, during 2017 a total of 178 billion apps were
downloaded and this number is expected to grow to 258 billion by 2022. This research shows how
quickly mobile is taking over many industries (Statista, 2017). With this information, we will implement
this as a convenience for our customer. Instead of going on a computer to purchase travel packages,
we want our customers to easily book major festival packages from the comfort of their own home.
Industry Trends
Business Opportunities
There have been many instances where consumers are willing to travel to see their favorite artist or
performer. Especially when they are on tour. Following an artist on tour has been a common trend in
the United States for many decades. Research shows that international music fans are more willing to
travel to see their favorite artist compared to locally domestic fans. Just inside the United States,
people are willing to travel at least 900 miles to a music festival (Lynch, 2015). More research shows
that Americans are most inclined to travel to a destination because of its local music scene. Twenty-
five percent of Americans said they would travel to a different country to watch their favorite artist
perform. With this information, Education First will notice this trend and implement our proposal into
StrategicBusinessProposal Page 12 of 35
their business. The number of people willing to spend thousands on a travel package will generate
revenue for Education First if they wanted to create festival curated travel packages.
Business Threats
Miscommunication can be a business threat within Education First and festival organizers. For
example, if there was an instance where the festival was to be canceled, the organizer could
completely forget about their partnership with EF and not inform them about these changes. There
could be many reasons for festival cancellation like not pertaining to the correct permits or poor ticket
sales (Smith, 2018). A threat could also be a replication of our product. If Education First: ALL ACCESS
starts to become successful, our competitors could mimic our travel packages and potentially steal our
loyal customers. This is why we should constantly update the features within the package to ensure
customer satisfaction.
3: Strategy Formulation
Operations
Organizational Impact
Implementing music festivaltravelpackages for Education First: Ultimate Break in addition to the already
offered packages is a very organic choice for the company. The service we are suggesting the company
starts selling appeals to their target audience, therefore, not many changes related to operations need
to be implemented. When it comes to the promotion and marketing of the product, we can take some
efforts to expand the already existing marketing teams in several countries with a special focus in the
United States in order to push this new product to our target audience. EF will not be overwhelmed with
their new addition of the new packages because the company already has most of the logistics needed
in their other travel packages such as lodging facilities and traveling partnerships.
In order to effectively execute the music festival travel packages correctly and create a memorable
experience for the consumer, we need to hire an industry professional who has a broad knowledge of
music festivals inEurope and can act as a tour director for these events. At Education First, they hire tour
directors who are insightful and culturally connected with the area they are traveling (EFtours, 2019).
Hiring an individual who is heavily invested in the music festival industry while also having knowledge
about the city around them will be an ideal candidate. Also, hiring someone who is completely fluent in
the native tongue is a plus. We would need two tour directors for each experience: the Indie and
Electronic package. Currently, every tour consultant earns a salary of $40,618 a year (Glassdoor, 2019).
Since we only need to hire two tour consultants, this will lead to not overspending and won’t lead to
major changes in our budget.
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Sales, Marketing, &Distribution
Marketing Mix
Price
The price for the travel packages is variable, depending on what city in the United States of America the
traveler is flying from and also if he/she decides to purchase additional optional tours and excursions.
For the Indie-Rock travel package, we suggest EF: Ultimate Break charges $5,500 and $6,000 USD for the
EDM version. The base price for the Indie-Rock package includes airfare from the United States (that
starts at $500 from New York City) to Barcelona and a flight from Barcelona to Billund, Denmark, from
Aarhus to London and from London to Hilvarenbeek, which cost around $100 each. (Google Flights,
2019). The package also includes transportation around the cities, lodging and tour guides for all the
activities done. One day tickets for Nos Primavera Sound is 80€, the equivalent of $90USD. NorthSide
passes for one day cost 1095 DKK, around $164USD. As for Isle of Wight, the ticket for the designated
day is 60£, an equivalent to $78USD. Finally, tickets for Best Kept Secret in the Netherlands is 85€,
$95USD. Taking all of these expenses into consideration we believe that $6,000 USD for the trip is a fair
price for the package, allowing the company to make a reasonable profit. As for the EDM package, it
includes the $80USD ticket for Ultra; the $120USD ticket for Tomorrowland and the $80USD ticket for
Dominator. A flight from NYC to Brussels, Belgiumcosts around $800USD. To travel from Belgium to the
Netherlands, the travelers will be taking a 2h train panoramic ride that costs only $45USD. As to travel
from Amsterdam to Split in Croatia itwill cost around $150USD for a plane ticket. We valued this package
at $5,500 USD, $500 USD less than the Indie-Rock package, considering the package includes fewer
flights, local tours, festival tickets and days in the countries. The festival travel package is unique in the
market, the most similar packages that we can find are the ones including traveling and cultural
excursions like the ones provided by EF: Ultimate Break.
Product
The product we are developing for EF: Ultimate Break is a new addition of several traveling packages
that include lodging, traveling expenses, cultural excursions, and festival passes. These travel packages
allow EF’s consumers to travel to unknown countries and get to learn and experience anew culture while
also experiencing local entertainment. For the first year, we are suggesting that EF: Ultimate Break
creates two new travel packages. The first travel package is a 14-day trip for fans of Indie-Rock music.
The package includes 1-day passes for Nos Primavera Sound in Barcelona, Spain; NorthSide in Aarhus,
Denmark; Isle of Wight in the Island of Wight, United Kingdom and Best Kept Secret in Hilvarenbeek,
Netherlands. The second package is a 10-day trip for lovers of EDMand Hard bass. This package includes
tickets for Ultra in Boom, Belgium; Dominator in Eersel, Netherlands; and Tomorrowland in Split,
Croatia.
StrategicBusinessProposal Page 14 of 35
Distribution
The packages are distributed through the EF: Ultimate Break website already. So, we plan on adding
these packages and options to the site that is already created in order to distribute the product.
Promotion
We will use direct marketing by visiting colleges all over the country and talk to students about our new
package options. We will have brochures and flyers made to hand out to the students that includes the
pricing and what the trip consists of. This tactic will allow us the opportunity to market to a large group
of people and see firsthand who in our market show a true interest in the new music added to our
existing trips. It will also give us a chance to add a personal touch to build our relationship with our
consumers because we will be able to talk to them and explain our product firsthand. Our employees
that visit the colleges will also have sign-up sheets where we can collect information in order to send out
texts and emails to those who are interested.
Another way we'll market our new festival trips will be through social media and online ads. We will pay
to push our ads on social media websites such as Facebook and Instagram to those in our market. So
those who like and affiliate pages such as colleges, event companies, travel, etc. to their profiles will be
the ones we push the ad to. Other websites we can post ads on would be retail sites that our market
shop from such as Urban Outfitters, Amazon, Vans, and Target. We are also going to have one of the
travel ambassadors that we hire to find new experiences to take one of these trips. Then we will have
them create a review on it and upload it to YouTube with photos and video from the trip itself. For
popular influencers, it will cost around $3,000 to promote and share our packages to their viewers
(Henderson, 2017). This will show our market what our travelers actually do and how much they enjoy
their trips. All of these tactics work together to incorporate popular places our consumers are both in
person and online. This way we get to show them what our new trips are all about and tell them in
person as well. Millennials look for an escapeor experience, so reaching to them through the places they
need an escape from can push them towards buying our product.
Lastly, we will focus on guerrilla marketing. One idea is to place stickers and photos of well-known
attractions on mirrors around a college campus and in local retailers. Each mirror will represent one of
the European countries in our travel packages and have “Imagine Yourself Here” written on the top and
“#EFUltimateBreak” written on the bottom of each mirror. These can be restroom mirrors or reflective
surfaces such as windows where people can see themselves. Another guerrilla tactic would be to create
coffee sleeves and coasters that say, “Wish you were here” and look like a postcard with designs
matching the different countries in our trips. This could be the Eiffel Tower for France, Big Ben for the
U.K, etc., and will include the same hashtag as the mirrors we post on. We will place these in local coffee
shops and bars in a college town for our consumers to see and find.
Sales Strategy
Through promotion on major social media platforms, we will market the new music festival travel
packages on outlets like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. The consumer then will go on the EF:
Ultimate Break website and have the option of choosing either an Indie or Electronic music travel
StrategicBusinessProposal Page 15 of 35
package through the ALL ACCESS option. We will use the same sales teamwho executes the original EF:
Ultimate Break campaigns.
Legal
Legal Factors
The legal factors we will consider has to deal with contracts and insurance for employment and our
consumers. We have to draft new contracts and create a trademark for our new subsidiary.
Regulations
EF Ultimate Break has offices in the countries that they book their trips to and abide by and are
knowledgeable of the laws in each country. As far as the travelers themselves, it is stated in our
guidelines for every trip that they are responsible for attaining any legal documents needed for each
country beforehand. If there were an instance where one of our customers were to lose their legal
documents while being abroad, they have to go out of their way and locate the nearest U.S embassy in
order to retrieve a last-minute document (Schmalbruch, 2015). When purchasing the packages with
the festivals included, the traveler is also agreeing to abide by the regulations put in place by the
festival itself as well as our rules we provide regarding safety, culture, and laws of each location.
Contracts
There are multiple contracts we need to execute in order to effectively sell these music festival travel
packages. First, we need to draft new employment contracts for the tour consultants. Drafting an
employment contract spells out the rights and obligations of each party, protects the job security of
the employee and protects the employer from certain risks like the release of confidential information
(Carnes, 2017). Since these individuals have more knowledge of music festivals compared to other
consultants, we would need to establish a new contract for them. Another contract to consider is
creating a partnership contract with Live Nation. Since they host a majority of the music festivals in
Europe, we want an exclusive partnership with Live Nation for joint promotion and a discount of
passes. This will decrease spending in our budget and will give us a special discount that our consumers
can’t get anywhere else.
Insurance
At the moment, EF: Ultimate Break provides travel insurance through Specialty Insurance Solutions for
each person that purchases a travel package. This includes up to $50,000 of medical insurance for any
injury big or small. As well as any non-emergency needs, delays, and other travel issues (EF, 2019). This
will take care of our travelers that choose to purchase it, which we always strongly recommend to
them. As far as the festivals, they are all individually insured, so, we do not need to add any additional
insurance to our package. Our travelers are insured by the festival through their own insurance, even
though they will be covered by us on their trip with the purchase of the package. This can also be
interpreted as general liability insurance.
StrategicBusinessProposal Page 16 of 35
Intellectual Property
Since we are adding a new subsidiary to Education First, we have to trademark the new name, so it
does not cause consumer confusion. The process of owning a trademark is very simple and it starts
with getting the approval from the Board of Directors. As long as there is approval from management,
a company will be able to create a trademark for the subsidiary (Masters, 2016). After this, we have to
submit an application to the U.S. Patent and Trademark office so Education First: ALL ACCESS can
become its own LLC.
4: Proposal Budget & Projections
Sales Projections
During the first three years Education First: All Access is going to focus on implementing two festival
travel packages focused on the musical genres EDM and Indie Rock. We chose these two genres due to
the high attendance these genres draw to live events with attendance rates as high as 74% (Nielsen,
2018). Also, the target audience for this type of events exhibits high discretionary expense power and
spends a high portion of their income on leisure (LaPonsie, 2018). In addition to the festival travel
packages we are going to implement Education First: Ultimate Break and Education First: All Access
merchandise, that travelers can purchase as a souvenir. In the first year we will be providing only the
two tours during summer with 30 people capacity each. Since it is the first year this type of service will
be available we predict we will sell at least 15 of these travel packages. EF: All Access is selling the EDM
packages for $5,500 USD and the Indie-Rock packages for $6,000. These prices are based on research
conducted prices for lodging, tour guides, travel costs, concert tickets and excursions. The Indie-Rock
package includes flights from New York to Barcelona, valued at $500 USD and the European flights to all
cities included in the package, which costs around $300 USD, festival passes for four included festivals
valued at $417 USD, lodging for 12 night in the value of $75 per night and tour guides to accompany the
travelers to all events and excursions scheduled during the trip, who are paid $350 during this trip.
Education First has partnerships with airlines, concert ticket providers and local hotels, which lowers the
cost of the trip to $1,520 USD, instead of the original cost price of $2117 USD. Bringing an overall profit
of $4,480 USD for this product. As for the EDM package, it includes the $800 USD ticket from NY to
Amsterdam, train tickets to access Belgiumand a flight to Croatia that costs $195 USD, 8 nights at local
hotels valued at $600 USD, tour guides for the entire trip, who are payed $250, and passes for 3 festivals
in the value of $280 USD. By selling this item for $5,500 we are profiting $4,116 USD per package sold.
During the first year of operations we do not predict we will be making any profit, in fact we predict a
$114,518 USD loss. Starting the new travel packages means that the company needs to hire new staff,
invest on marketing, and purchase new equipment, bringing a high initial cost for year one. This new
business venture of offering clients travel packages including festival passes is only possible due to the
fact that Education First: Ultimate break is the mother company for Education First: All Access and is
investing in this project. Since the company has an annual revenue of $50 million USD and are investing
in several branches of the company, they have the money to invest in the project, without running out
of funds (Crunchbase, 2019). During year two we are expecting to sell out of both travel packages,
StrategicBusinessProposal Page 17 of 35
introduce merchandise, and have fewer expenses, bringing the Net Profit from -$114,518 USD to a
positive $209,498 USD. Finally, during year three, we are implementing these same tours in several
continents, boosting our number of attendees to 170 in total, we also predict that we will sell at least
$7,000 pieces of merch, including t-shirts, shirts and stickers. Our predicted net profit for year three is
$726,863 USD.
Education First is one of the strongest competitors in the travel business catered to students. During
2018, the company had reported having a revenue of $50 million USD (Owler, 2019). Their competitor,
Brightspark Travel Inc., only made $4.6 million USD (Crunchbase, 2019). When comparing both
companies side by side, we can assume that Education First is dominating the market. The reality of
Education First’s situation is that they rely on their profits from their traveling department to support
their educational programs. This weakness can be easily fixed by EF investing more of their revenue into
their travel branch, Ultimate Break. If they invest in the live event market they can generate enough
money to invest in other business ventures. Refer to Appendix 4 for an in-depth overview of our sales
projections.
Project Budget
Our budget includes investments in marketing strategies, employment of new team members and
distribution of the product. Education First already has a sales teamso we would assign certain sales
representatives to be in charge of the Education First: ALL ACCESS branch. In order to execute the ALL
ACCESS package, we would spend around $59,945 in Year 1 on marketing materials that will include
brochures, window clings, coasters, coffee sleeves, and social media marketing. With direct marketing,
we will be spending $1,500 on email and text blasts for constant reminders to our dedicated
consumers (Aland, 2017). In Year 2 & 3, we would gradually increase this cost to ensure more
exposure. For operations, we will be hiring two tour coordinators for each package: the Electronic and
Indie music festival packages. This will cost us $80,000 every year since each consultant earns around
$40,000 a year in revenue (Glassdoor, 2019). We will also be hiring a street team through a company
called Nationalstreetteams.com that one of our potential partners, Live Nation, hires as well. They
have used this company in the past for certain shows and special events. This will cost us around
$30,000 a year to employ. For the distribution of the product, we will employ a web designer to
constantly update and apply changes to the website to match the ALL ACCESS aesthetic. The web
designer will cost us $1,000 every year and we will secure a domain for the ALL ACCESS brand (WBE,
2019). Education First will purchase the domain and it will be a fee of $750.
StrategicBusinessProposal Page 18 of 35
5: Strategy Implementation
Timeline & Key Milestones
Pre-Launch
In order to put these new packages together, we will start by researching popular festivals both in the
U.S and in Europe. This research will begin once the summer is over and the data from their current
summer run are available, along with years past. Then we will compare them and find their similarities
in order to decide which festivals are best for the trips, as well as appeal to our market. As we research
and compare, we will be looking for popular genres, ticket costs, revenue, market share, and who within
our target market attends them. Once we see which festivals in Europe compare to popular festivals in
the U.S, then we will narrow down to a select few that fall into the Alternative and Electronic genres to
create our travel plans for the package.
Once we have our packages scheduled out to where the festivals fall into the dates of our summer trips,
we will begin to reach out to the companies and promoters that put on these European festivals. We will
work to create a connection with them and create an actual partnership or negotiate ticket prices with
them. This will allow us to purchase the tickets at a lower cost than the retail price in order for us to
make a profit off of them, and potentially benefit a company or promoter with a higher attendance
count. Due to the travel packages we provide being limited, we will only need to purchase a specific
amount from the promoter for the trip. In order to lower the risk of overbuying, we will start by
purchasing a lower number, and purchasing more later if they are still available.
Once the tickets are in place, we will begin our marketing strategy. Our market within college age and
young adults, therefore we will work our way around college towns in order to reach them. We will hire
a street team to go around to a select amount of campuses and hand out brochures and answer any
questions from the consumer. The street team will also put up our window clings and distribute the
coasters for the guerilla marketing tactic ahead of walking around the campus. Our social media team
will be focused on getting our ad out there with our new travel packages as the focus of the visual. We
will be pushing these ads on Facebook, Instagram, and retail sites for 3-5 months depending on how fast
packages sell, or how close we get to the trip before we are unable to let people sign up if it is too close
to the trip. We expect to begin all of this marketing in January, once students return from their holiday
break. This will be the time that they can start to saveup for atrip, usegifted money as a down payment,
plan their summer, etc. so we will have people working around campus up until 60 days before the trip.
Year 1
The goals we have set in place for year one is to distribute at least 3,000 flyers to students on college
campuses and gain at least 500 followers from this direct marketing tactic. We also set a goal to sell at
least half of the packages that we offer for each trip, which would be around 15 each. The milestone
related to these goals will be to have our full street team hired and in place to send out to the campuses
to speak to students about our product. The benchmarks in the timeline to achieve these goals will be
to secure the funding for the new street team and marketing tools, research the best companies to hire
the street team through and establish relationships with these companies. This part of the plan will go
StrategicBusinessProposal Page 19 of 35
into action in August when allof the 2019 summer festivals have ended, and we can seethe current data
for each one. Then we will begin to reach out to these companies the following months, in hopes to have
the festivals picked by September. This will give us time to take the last few months of the year to hire
the needed teammembers and begin to designand print marketing materials (Glassdoor,2019). Starting
in January, we willsend our teams out to the colleges to begin to pass out brochures to begin connecting
with our consumers on a personal level. We will also send out or coasters and coffee sleeves to the local
coffee shops and bars to useand getour new product out there right after the holidays. Between January
and April, we will be marketing our new travel package up until the final sign-up date. The trips will then
take place in June and July.
Year 2
The goals we will work on in year two are to expand our genre options for our festival packages and
extend our trips out to more countries. We also plan to double our sales from the previous year, which
would be selling out or almost selling out each trip. The way that we plan to reach these new goals will
begin with continuing the partnership we hope to start in year one and already having the festivals
StrategicBusinessProposal Page 20 of 35
lined up again. We hire people to take trips in order to give us feedback, so we will work to put
together review videos and post them around September of 2020 to start marketing again for the next
summer’s trips. Along with these reviews, we plan to gain a larger social media following in the process
of posting about the first year’s adventures. We will focus on the schools in the areas we saw the most
interest from for the next year to build a loyal following. In January we plan to use the same marketing
tactics as the year before because they will still reach our target market. The following months will be
the same as the year before.
Year 3
Our year three goals will include expanding the festival packages to different continents such as Asia
and South America. Along with the expansion, we plan to release a merchandise line that is a
collaboration between EF and the festivals the consumers are attending. In order to reach this, we will
start by researching the festivals within the new markets as we did in year one and decide which
festivals will fit the new packages. Then, we can establish connections with companies and promoters.
StrategicBusinessProposal Page 21 of 35
Once we get the new festivals in place, we will begin to design the merchandise, and research who we
will have produce the product. Once we have the production going, we will set up the online store with
the final merchandise lineup for travelers to purchase for their trip. This will begin in August once the
year two trips have ended, and we can begin on the next year’s packages. Again, we plan to keep a
similar marketing plan as it fits with our target market and their habits. Any adjustments made will
possibly be minor to change with what our market finds interesting. This will still take place six months
before the trips take place.
6: Future Plans
Long-term Opportunity & Development Plans
Education First: ALL ACCESS has plenty of opportunities for long-term development. With the success
of our packages, we want to implement the music festival travel packages in multiple continents other
StrategicBusinessProposal Page 22 of 35
than Europe and Asia. Research shows that there has been an explosive growth in the international
music scene within the past decade (Lewis, 2019). This statistic proves that there is an opportunity for
music festival packages to develop in continents like South America and Australia. Festivals like
Lollapalooza in Brazil and Beyond the Valley in Victoria, Australia can be strong additions to potential
music festival packages and consumers can experience excursions like an animal hunt or exploring the
beautiful jungles. Another long-term opportunity that can blossom from these music festival packages
has to do with the promotion of the product. At the moment, we are planning on promoting the
packages to college students who attend universities across the United States. For more engagement
and interaction during the college visits, we thought of implementing VR technology to enhance the
student’s experience. For example, if we were to market a music festival travel package that is
available in Australia, students will be able to put the headset on and see sights from Australia that
includes kangaroos and Savannahs. The price of VR technology has significantly decreased due to
consumer interest (Alton, 2018). This means we will be able to easily purchase some headsets, like an
Oculus Rift, without stressing about overspending on promotion.
StrategicBusinessProposal Page 23 of 35
7: Appendices and References
References
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usa#section-overview
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Aland, M. (2019, February 04). SMS Marketing – Costs, Strategies, and More. Retrieved from
https://fitsmallbusiness.com/how-sms-marketing-works/
Alton, L. (2018, May 15). Cheaper VR is coming: will it be enough to kick-start consumer interest?
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g&oq=big+ben+png&gs_l=img.3..0l2j0i5i30j0i8i30l7.194297.204939..205624...6.0..0.88.1422.18.....
.2....1..gws-wiz-img.....0..35i39j0i67j0i10.-QNXBfvMIs0#imgrc=8q8E20ZvnQQsHM:
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EF Education First becomes new naming partner. (2019, January 11). Retrieved May 10, 2019, from
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Festival Insights. (2017, September 22). The European Festival Market Report 2017. Retrieved May 10,
2019, from https://www.festivalinsights.com/2017/08/european-festival-market-report-2017/
Festicket. (2018, October 3). TOP 10: Music Festivals in Australia 2019 - Festicket Magazine. Retrieved
May 17, 2019, from Festicket website: https://www.festicket.com/magazine/discover/top-10-music-
festivals-australia-2015/
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https://www.gadventures.com/press-releases/2011/Jan/07/New_Online_Marketing_Manager/
StrategicBusinessProposal Page 25 of 35
Glassdoor. (2019). EF Education First Salaries. Retrieved May 19, 2019, from
https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/EF-Education-First-Salaries-E335551.htm
Henderson, G. (n.d.). How Much Does Influencer Marketing Cost? Retrieved from
https://www.digitalmarketing.org/blog/how-much-does-influencer-marketing-cost
Hopper. (n.d.). Which States Are Most Likely to Travel Abroad This Year? Retrieved May 10, 2019,
from https://media.hopper.com/research/which-states-are-most-likely-to-travel-abroad-this-year
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https://www.marketingcharts.com/industries/media-and-entertainment-59371
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company-21015.html
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2019, from https://www.allbusiness.com/is-doing-too-many-things-at-once-bad-for-business-
14283444-1.html/2
Johnson, C. (2019, May 08). The 6 Best Tour Groups For Young Professionals Who Need An Escape
From Work, Like Now. Retrieved May 10, 2019, from https://www.elitedaily.com/p/6-best-tour-
groups-for-young-professionals-who-want-to-make-new-memories-12975059
LaPonsie, M. (2018). Do Millennials Have Their Spending Priorities All Wrong? Retrieved May 16,
2019, from US News & World Report website: https://money.usnews.com/money/personal-
finance/spending/articles/2018-08-30/do-millennials-have-their-spending-priorities-all-wrong
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Live Nation To Sell 2018 "Festival Passport" That Gives You Access 100 Major Festivals Worldwide.
(2018, April 09). Retrieved May 10, 2019, from https://liveforlivemusic.com/news/live-nation-
festival-passport-2018/
Lynch, J. (2015, April 22). Check Out These Surprising Stats About U.S. Music Festivals. Retrieved
May 10, 2019, from https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/music-festivals/6539009/music-
festival-statistics-graphic
Machado, A. (2018, July 24). How Millennials Are Changing Travel. Retrieved May 10, 2019, from
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international-travel/373007/
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May 10, 2019, from https://www.eventbrite.com/blog/music-festival-demographics-ds00/
Olenski, S. (2017, June 27). Travel Brands Shift Their Attention To The Millennial Market. Forbes.
Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveolenski/2017/06/27/travel-brands-shift-their-
attention-to-the-millennial-market/#7561deef63d7
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Life. Retrieved May 10, 2019, from https://www.elitedaily.com/life/music-festival-make-you-
happier-more-open-minded/999777
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Schmalbruch, S. (2015, October 7). What to do if you lose your passport while traveling abroad.
Retrieved May 17, 2019, from Business Insider website: https://www.businessinsider.com/what-to-
do-if-you-lose-your-passport-abroad-2015-10
Stefan. (2019, May 06). A new culture in travel? Retrieved May 10, 2019, from
https://www.itij.com/story/115541/new-culture-travel
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XLIVE - Las Vegas. Retrieved from
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http://www.spark-me.com/portfolio_page/taylor-swift-teams-up-with-education-first-for-promotion/
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https://suite.endole.co.uk/insight/company/04905253-top-deck-tours-limited
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https://www.eftours.com/tour-directors
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inc.biz/efultimatebreak/
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Why Is It Important to Have Employment Contracts? (2017). Retrieved May 17, 2019, from Bizfluent
website: https://bizfluent.com/about-5426487-important-employment-contracts.html
StrategicBusinessProposal Page 29 of 35
Appendices
Appendix1:Competitive Analysis
StrategicBusinessProposal Page 30 of 35
Appendix2:MarketingExamples
Coaster and Coffee Sleeve design:
Mirror and Window design:
StrategicBusinessProposal Page 31 of 35
Appendix3:CompetitivePricing
StrategicBusinessProposal Page 32 of 35
Appendix4:SalesProjections
StrategicBusinessProposal Page 33 of 35
StrategicBusinessProposal Page 34 of 35
StrategicBusinessProposal Page 35 of 35

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FINAL PROPOSAL

  • 1. Strategic Business Proposal 1 of 35 Strategic Business Proposal for Education First: Ultimate Break For: Education First: Ultimate Break https://www.efultimatebreak.com Prepared On: May 19, 2019 Prepared By: Alisson Bisono, Rita Santos, Hayley Cohen Instructor Name: Annie Quaile
  • 2. StrategicBusinessProposal Page 2 of 35 Contents Introduction................................................................................................................................................. 3 Executive Summary .................................................................................................................................. 3 1. Organizational Challenges & Proposed Solution......................................................................................... 4 Organizational Challenges......................................................................................................................... 4 Proposed Solution .................................................................................................................................... 4 2. Environmental Scanning............................................................................................................................ 5 Internal Analysis.................................................................................................................................... 5-7 External Analysis....................................................................................................................................... 8 3. Strategy Formulation............................................................................................................................8-12 Operations..............................................................................................................................................12 Sales, Marketing, & Distribution..........................................................................................................13-14 Legal ......................................................................................................................................................15 4. Proposal Budget & Projections.................................................................................................................16 Sales Projections......................................................................................................................................16 Project Budget.........................................................................................................................................17 5. Strategy Implementation.........................................................................................................................17 Timeline and Key Milestones...............................................................................................................17-21 6. Future Plans............................................................................................................................................21 Long-Term Opportunity and Development Plans .......................................................................................21 7. Appendices and References.....................................................................................................................23 References.........................................................................................................................................23-28 Appendices .............................................................................................................................................29 Appendix 1:Competitive Analysis.........................................................................................................29 Appendix 2: Marketing Examples.........................................................................................................30 Appendix 3: Competitive Pricing..........................................................................................................31 Appendix 4: Sales Projections.........................................................................................................32-35
  • 3. StrategicBusinessProposal Page 3 of 35 Introduction Executive Summary To the Education First Board of Directors: In 2018 alone, 66% of Millennials in America attend music festivals ofevery genre. Moreover, these same millennials attend at least 4-5 festivals and spend an average of $500 on tickets alone. In Education First, our target market is consisted of these individuals and are heavily invested in the tourism industry while also admiring the music side. Within our company, we are focused on creating a memorable experience for any young adult looking for a break from the real world. This is why we are proposing the implementation of music festival packages within our summer European trip options. Surveys have shown that roughly 40% of Americans would be willing to travel outside the country in order to attend a music festival. This is why it will be beneficial for both the company and the consumer to combine this aspect into the trips we offer. European trips are what we offer the most of and festivals that take place in Europe fall into the two most popular genres for festivals, Electronic and Indie Rock. Combining these two ideas will change the way people view Education First: Ultimate Break. We introduce you to Education First: ALL ACCESS. Education First: ALL ACCESS will consist of European travel packages that contain exclusive one-day passes to Europe’s hottest music festivals. By creating an potential partnership with Live Nation, one of the most popular event companies in the world, we will establish brand loyalty with the introduction of new clients. These specific music festival travel packages will include the same experiences and excursions as our existing packages, however, will also include one-day passes to popular festivals like Tomorrowland in Croatia and NOS Primavera Sound in Spain. With unique marketing tactics and promotion from popular influencers, we hope to reach more audiences and bring exposure to the Education First brand. If these ALL ACCESS packages are successful, we plan on branching out to other continents like Asia and South America so our consumers can experience more countries than ever before. Our goal is for Education First to become a world-known name in today’s fastest growing industries, the music festival industry. AlissonBisono HayleyCohen Rita Santos
  • 4. StrategicBusinessProposal Page 4 of 35 1: Challenges & Solutions Organizational Challenges Education First (EF) has a branch of their company called Ultimate Break. This branch focuses on creating stress-free travel packages for adventurous students and young adults to discover new and exciting travel destinations (EF, 2019). They offer packages to explore cities like Paris, Milan, London, and more. EF’s main target is students who are interested in taking a break from school life to go on a cultural journey and expand their knowledge in a foreign environment. We have noticed the lack of opportunity to monetize one of the biggest spending ventures for EF’s target market: live entertainment. This includes concerts, festivals, and other live events. Elite Daily, an online magazine focused on travel and millennial trends, mentioned in an article that there are two things every Millennial in their early 20s should do: travel to a foreign country and attend a music festival (Riotta, 2015). According to studies, 64% of all music-related spending for millennials is on live events, like concerts and festivals (MC, 2015). Traveling to a foreign destination is nothing new for Millennials. Twenty-five percent of Americans said they would travel to a different country to watch their favorite artist perform. This fact ties into a study about how fundamental culture is to the development of stories and journeys (Stefan, 2019). Combining EF’s passion for travel and Millennials’ love for music is an innovative way for a brand-new experience. Through research, we have noticed that many travel agencies don’t implement the music industry into their travel packages. The purpose of this proposal is to deliver a new and innovative experience for Millenials to enjoy in a foreign country by combining culture and music. ProposedSolution The solution we propose to EF: Ultimate Break is for the company to start exploring a new source of income in a market they have not monetized, the live event and festival market. By incorporating travel packages that include cultural experiences and festival tickets in several European countries, the company will be able to target young adults who desire to visit a new country and enjoy the local music festival scene. According to Billboard magazine, at least 32 million people attend music festivals every year (Lynch, 2015). So, why not tie local music with culture? These packages will be assorted by genre and choice of countries. For example, if a customer is a big fan of Indie-Rock, their package will include countries like England, Italy, and France. If they like hardcore music, the package will take them to Germany, Belgium, and Sweden since these are popular destinations for the genre. We believe this proposal is the perfect fit for EF: Ultimate Break because it targets exactly the same audience EF targets, young adults between the ages of 18 to 29 years old (CISION, 2017).
  • 5. StrategicBusinessProposal Page 5 of 35 2: Environmental Scanning Internal Analysis Company Overview EF: Ultimate Break, a subsidiary of Education First, is a travel company that creates all-inclusive trips at an affordable cost. Founded in 1965, EF and their subsidiaries have focused on the education of our youth and their ability to grow and learn in many aspects. Their vision is “Opening the world through education,” by bringing culture, education, and language together in order for young adults to expand their knowledge and experiences (EF, 2019). This has included scholarships, learning new languages, and eventually their travel branches of the company. Their trips attract a younger following of those who want to gain new experiences and not break the bank. Trips can be planned to just one country, or to multiple countries across one continent. This allows a younger generation to create new experiences and immerse themselves in different cultures at the same time. On these adventures, the travelers not only get to make their own memories but also get to make them with those in their group and build new relationships. EF: Ultimate Break works with well-known companies in order to build a reputable, safe, and organized vacation. Thus, taking all the guesswork out of traveling for the millennials who are focused on the experiences without all the fuss. EF does all the work for the consumer and bundles every aspect of a trip so the price they give will have no surprise add-ons unless someone chooses to add an excursion. This cuts the stress of flights, hotels, transportation, and more so the trip is easy and carefree from the start. As Millennials begin to go into the workforce and earn an income that they can spend on wants and not just needs, they can begin to invest in new experiences (Eventbrite, 2014). With 18-29-year- olds as their target, they look to focus on creating a user-friendly site to navigate through in order to optimize the experience of the user before and during their adventure. Elite Daily ranked EF: Ultimate Break as one of the top 6 travel companies for young adults, stating that the best part of EF is “All you have to do is choose a trip, show up at the airport, and get ready to have the time of your life,” (Johnson, 2018). As they continue to add new experiences and research new places to discover, EF: Ultimate Break can continue to capture the attention of those that are hungry for knowledge and adventure. Financial Standings Founded in 1965 by Bertil Hult, Education First’s (EF) financial standings have been rapidly growing since the start of their business. Hult was a young college student eager to start a business that’s focused on experiential learning (EF, 2019). At first, the funds were non-existent since it was a start-up, however, the business started to incline once EF made a name for themselves in other countries like France and Sweden. According to Owler, their annual estimated revenue in2019 is around $50 million (Owler, 2019). Currently, Education First has 52,000 employees in 114 countries. On their website, they have 1,000 open positions in their company which means that they are in good financial standing and are investing in the expansion of the company. The market is growing as well. The United Nations estimated that young adults are the biggest chunk of international travelers and generate more than $180 billion in
  • 6. StrategicBusinessProposal Page 6 of 35 tourism revenue (Machado, 2014). Since this market travels for music festivals as well, Education First needs to implement music festival travel packages. Since Education First is a private for-profit company, many of their financial records are difficult to find. Due to this finding, we decided to compare Education First’s financial information to other travel companies. Brightspark Travel Inc. is a company that has similar services and morals as Education First. They generate annual revenue of 4.6 million and currently employs around 200 employees (Crunchbase, 2019). Since both companies have similar ideals, their records can correlate. The Vice President of Business Operations for Brightspark Travel Inc. stated that their sales spiked by 15% from 2014 to 2015 due to customer satisfaction (LinkedIn, 2019). The travel industry has continued to grow and its revenue has increased because of the need from their target market. Education First is one of the strongest competitors in the travel business catered to students. During 2018, the company had reported having a revenue of $50 million USD (Owler, 2019). Their competitor, Brightspark Travel Inc., only made $4.6 million USD (Crunchbase, 2019). When comparing both companies side by side, we can assume that Education First is dominating the market. The reality of Education First’s situation is that they rely on their profits from their traveling department to support their educational programs. This weakness can be easily fixed by EF investing more of their revenue into their travel branch, Ultimate Break. If they invest in the live event market they can generate enough money to invest in other business ventures. Organizational Strengths EF: Ultimate Break has many strengths that can put themselves ahead of some of the competition. Their packages not only include all the expenses at each destination, but they also include the flights and travel insurance. It seems that most, if not all of the major competitors do not offer either of those which adds an additional cost and hassle to their consumers. Another would be the ability to set up a payment plan for a vacation, or even a “travel now, pay later” account (EF, 2019). This makes the cost of the trip easier on the consumer’s wallet and allows them to take more opportunities than those who would have to pay in one lump sum. Another strength they have that truly pulls the millennial market in is ease of access. Their website lays out all of the information before the trip is booked or any information is given. Other websites require information before the trip can be tailored to the traveler’s liking when it comes to add-ons. This transparency allows the adventurer to not question or worry about what they are getting out of their trip. Organizational Weaknesses The main weakness we easily identified with Education First is their lack of events and excursions catered to young people who enjoy live events as much as they enjoy traveling. While looking at their website, we observed mainly cultural excursions and landscape observation (EF, 2019). According to research, 70% of travelers prefer trips where they have new experiences than trips where they get to discover only new sights (ST, 2018). Since consumers are more focused on creating memories and having new experiences, we consider the lack of adventure and music-related trips provided by Education First is one of its main weaknesses. If EF changes this pattern, they will gain an advantage over their competitors and be ahead of them which can potentially lead to a larger customer pool.
  • 7. StrategicBusinessProposal Page 7 of 35 Customers All year round, there are hundreds of festivals that take place across Europe. This number has been increasing exponentially due to the high demand for live music events in these countries (UIF, 2010). Overall, the festival market has kept an exponential growth worldwide which shows that people are attending music-related events now more than ever. The music events segment has reported an estimated $34.41M in revenue, a 13.3% growth compared to the previous year. In 2023, the expected revenue from this market is estimated to reach $50M (Statista, 2019). The customer for EF: Ultimate Break is a music aficionado who attends two to three festivals each year and spend around $91 per festival (EB, 2016). These fans love to purchase band merch at the shows they attend in order to represent and support the musicians they love. During 2016, the licensing industry merchandisers’ association profited $3.1 billion USD in merchandise sales for artists and bands. This number shows a10% increaserate compared to the year before and this number hasn’t stopped growing (Ruvo, 2018). Other research done on live events and festivals shows that 54.7% of individuals who attend festivals in Europe are males. The same studies found that these individuals are 29.2% between the ages of 21 and 25 and 38.3% are single (FI, 2017). Our customer is considered to be a “festie.” The definition of a “festie” is a person who is extremely passionate about attending music festivals. In order to understand the ideal consumer for our new venture with EF: Ultimate Break, we created a customer persona: Jonah. Jonah is a single 23-year-old, American citizen from New York. We decided to choose New York because itis one of the states with the highestnumber of international flightdepartures (Surry, 2017). Jonah is interested in attending live events and being outdoors in his free time. He used trips to Europe in order to escape from his normal life and loves to visit different countries in Europe such as Spain, France, and Italy. One day Jonah hopes he can say he traveled to all continents. When Jonah attends shows, he enjoys drinking craft beer and taking Polaroid pictures. Jonah has a broad music taste; however, he enjoys Electronic and Alternative music the most. He spends most of his revenue on these genres through ancillary items like concert tickets, streaming, and even fan clubs. Collaborators Even though Education First is a privately-owned company, they have teamed up with multiple organizations to celebrate the meaning of unity. This can fallinto multiple categories; however, EF wants to make sure that each collaborator is focused on the purpose of uniting people and celebrating the mix of cultures. In 2018, the CEO of Education First’s North American division, Edward Hult, announced the partnership with Slipstream Sports. Hult noticed the #SaveArgyle campaign created by Slipstream Sports and was astounded by the amount of support it came with it. The purpose was to keep the United States cycling team alive throughout 2018 and more years to come. Education First was moved by the idea of diverse backgrounds coming together to achieve athletic feats, “It aligns perfectly with EF’s mission of opening the world through education and our commitment to bringing different cultures together,” (EFPro, 2019). Both organizations are committed to breaking down cultural barriers and constantly teaching people how to effectively communicate. Since our proposal is focused on uniting people and cultures with music festivals, Education First has implemented music into their collaborations. Spark Marketing Entertainment, an independent and international music consultant, teamed up with Education First to provide a once in a lifetime experience
  • 8. StrategicBusinessProposal Page 8 of 35 to meet Taylor Swift and attend her concert in Paris, France. Exclusive to students registered with EF, all they had to do was take a quiz on Taylor Swift and Parisian culture. The contest ran through 43 countries via social media and select mailing lists. On Valentine’s day, three lucky students met Taylor Swift and got to enjoy the show (Spark, 2011). By combining their passionfor travel and consumers’ love for music, Education First and Spark Marketing Entertainment’s cross-promotion international campaign was an absolute success. External Analysis Competitors Contiki, G Adventures, Topdeck, and Intrepid are direct competitors of EF: Ultimate Break because they offer the sameproduct and target those in the millennial agegroup. Allof these companies offer a variety of trips to countries all over the world for different periods of time. Whether someone wants to travel to Ireland for a week or travel to multiple countries in Europe for a month, these companies offer packages that appeal to a millennial that is dying for adventure and an escape (Johnson, 2018). All of the companies bundle their packages to include everything in the country or countries that the traveler will visit and allow payment plans to afford the adventure. However, the only company that bundles every aspect of the trip from beginning to end, including the international flights to and from the countries where you start and end your journey, is Education First: Ultimate Break. The competitors have some packages that seem cheaper upfront but as far as the cost after the airfare is added, EF: Ultimate Break comes out on top of the competitors. Refer to Appendix A for an in-depth chart of Education First’s direct competitors. As for the live event section of the business venture Education First is delving into, we believe that Live Nation is the biggest indirect competitor for EF. Live Nation and AEG currently dominate the live event market in Europe, making an astonishing $12 billion collectively (Murphy, 2016). We believe that Live Nation is our biggestcompetitor becauseof their new festivalpassport. During 2017, Live Nation created the festival passport that allows their clients to attend festivals all around the world held by the live event company. The price of these “passports” range from $1,000 to $5,000 and include only the admission for the festivalitself,excluding lodging and transportation. (O’Brien, 2018). Since our proposal will include the “passport” concept and the correct lodging and transportation, this package will stand out against competitors because it includes cultural excursions, providing travelers with the best of European local entertainment. Business Climate Political & Regulatory Education First currently focuses on the travel and tourism sector. This industry is regulated by the U.S Travel and Tourism Advisory Board in the U.S, and the World Trade and Tourism Council Internationally. As a new business venture, EF could invest in the live event market. Live events are not federally regulated but the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice have laws in place to keep the ticket sales for these events fairand ethical. As far as the music and artists themselves, music is censored and banned based on each country’s laws.
  • 9. StrategicBusinessProposal Page 9 of 35 Political issues that currently affect these industries are censorship and music that take a protest against a topic in politics has affected artists and their ability to travel to certain venues and countries. Examples of this in the U.S and Europe would be The Dixie Chicks were banned on the radio in some counties due to them insulting the president. Another would be Snoop Dogg being banned from Europe and Amy Winehouse being banned from the U.S due to their lifestyle getting them in trouble and the effects people believe it would have on their country and/or youth. A major issue in Europe is Brexit and its effects on artists in both the U.K and the rest of the E.U. This would mean that artists in the U.K cannot work in the E.U and vice versa. Unfortunately, that includes touring (Daly, 2018); with this information, we learned that the U.K could lose roughly 1 billion pounds or 1.3 billion U.S dollars. As far as censorship, streaming has taken some of the power from those who try to censor artists’ music. Groups such as the FCC, BBC, and Clear Channel have pushed to only broadcast edited versions of songs, but consumers’ ability to search for and stream the explicit versions elsewhere allows the artists to be able to express their art as they intended. Child Media expert Christopher Bell also discusses in an interview on how we need to stop censoring everything around kids and realize that they are smarter than we make them out to be. He uses Kidz Bop as the prime example of the fact that you can edit and censor a song, but the meaning and interpretation is still there. If more people start to speak out about this, it could really change how artists’ music is viewed. British lawmakers and citizens are pushing to preferably kill Brexit, or postpone it for as long as they can (Mueller, 2019). Additional research would need to be done as far as who is allowed in these countries and what keeps people from performing there. With Brexit, we would have to focus our idea away from the U.K and focus more on the rest of Europe. This way if it is voted in, then artists aren’t negatively impacted at the festivals we decide to work with. Economic Since Education First (EF) has multiple travel packages around Europe, this is the region we want to focus on. Currently, Travel and Tourism in Europe is nearly 70% the size of Europe’s retail sector which means that this specific sector generates high revenue for the country. The World Travel and Tourism Council predicts that employment in the Travel and Tourism sector will grow 2.4% over the next decade (WTTC, 2016). The live event industry, specifically pertaining to festivals, has been very influential in Europe's economy. Live Nation and AEG are one of many companies to produce popular European Festivals like Lollapalooza Paris and the British Summer Time Festival. Collectively, both companies are bringing in around $12 billion for the live event industry (Murphy, 2016). Since both companies own multiple entities in Europe, they would bring in at least a quarter of those earnings to the European economy. Even though the production company who held the festival is earning profit, so is the local economy. For example, Live Nation is earning thousands from Lollapalooza Paris, but the city council in Paris is earning a profit for the city as well. So passionate that they will do anything to see the perfect lineup or environment. Organizers and promoters take into consideration of what they think and want in any festival around the world. Twenty percent of festival goers attend 5-6 festivals per year, spending an average of $91 per event compared to the average customer (TicketStripe, 2019). Our target customer is willing to spend a lot of
  • 10. StrategicBusinessProposal Page 10 of 35 money for the experience. Rather than purchasing a movie ticket or buying a new shirt at the mall, this customer’s spending habits are focused on music festivals. Our target customer is loyal and research shows that the average “festie” will attend their favorite festival at least three times. That gives organizers a reason to upsell new and existing customers. There are two changes that we expect may happen that will decrease the attendance of European festivals. First, the lack of high-profile headline artists will lead to less attendance at any festival. A study done by the European Festival Census states that almost 30% of regular concert goers would be put off from purchasing festival passes due to the lack of high-profile headliners. This can be caused by the lack of artists willing to travel to another country or the pay is not up to their expectations. Second, is the rise of pass prices. If the price of passes were to incline, it would most likely lead to a decrease in attendance. At least 60% of active “festies” say that the current price for festivals is just “ok.” If organizers increased the price, they would lose loyal customers. Social & Cultural There are many trends that can be observed in the travel industry. One of the most dominant trends in this industry is cultural travel. Studies done on the matter have shown that 70% of travelers show a desire to go on trips that provide an experience rather than trips that only provide them with new and beautiful landscapes. These experiences include activities like trying local food, music, adrenaline, traditional crafts, and local guided trips (ST, 2019). Another dominant trend is traveling to European destinations. Studies conducted by the COSME program of the European Union show that Europe makes up 40% of international tourist arrivals worldwide (UNWTO, 2016). In Europe, we can see an increase in small independent music festivals. While Live Nation is still one of the biggest concert venue and festival owners in Europe, many independent companies have been gaining traction for the past couple of years. This noticeable increase is due to the fact that traveling and festival attendance is growing exponentially for festivals hosted in Europe. Most countries have seen an increase of at least 12% in their attendance rates for festivals, therefore each year more and more festivals are emerging in the marketplace (Petersen, 2017). Around 823,000 people from around the world traveled to the UK alone during 2016 to watch a live performance (O’Connor, 2017). A prevalent trend that we observed among our target audience is that young American adults are more and more willing to travel outside of the United States just to attend music-related events. During 2018, eDreams conducted research about American millennial travel habits. The company surveyed 13,000 young adults across the country to discover that 25% are likely to travel outside of the United States to watch their favorite musical acts perform. Also, 40% of Americans who took the survey expressed they are interested in attending music festivals outside of their own country, compared to the 36% global rate (TAC, 2018). A social issue that has been impacting festivals and other live events in Europe, especially from the years 2015 to 2017, is the increase in terrorist attacks. Although these social problems are not directly related to the travel and live event industries, they play a big part in the decision process of choosing to travel to a certain country or not. For example, after the 2015 bombing in Paris and the 2017
  • 11. StrategicBusinessProposal Page 11 of 35 bombing in the Manchester Arena, which occurred in concert venues, many people around Europe were afraid to attend live events. This fear was also installed in the travel industry after the bombings of the Brussels airport. Fortunately, this trend has had a major decrease. During 2017, Europe only experienced two bombings and the last attack was during August 2017. Studies show that terrorist attacks have decreased between 20% to 24% worldwide (Taylor, 2018). Technological There are multiple technological trends that are currently booming in the travel industry. One of them is Augmented Reality (AR). Less advanced than Virtual Reality (VR), AR is cheaper and is more accessible to the everyday customer. AR involves augmenting a person’s real surroundings to create more of an experience. For example, if a tourist was standing in front of a historical building and looking for more information on the landmark, they are able to find more information about the building by swiftly moving their phone in front of it (Revfine, 2019). One technological trend across the music festival industry is the implementation of RFID bands. RFID is an acronym for Radio Frequency Identification Device. Using an RFID band has become more convenient for the average festival goer. It unlocks cashless payments for easy purchasing on merchandise, food, and drinks. It also allows locational tracking for event organizers to gather data on the movement, choices, and preferences of customers (Breaker, 2018). Millennials are one of the leading generations when it comes to technology. In a PEW Research study, 92% of millennials own a smartphone and they are the leaders in those who use social media platforms (Jiang, 2018). Millennials are also leaders in knowing what technology is the best and the worst. From 2016 to 2017, we have seen exponential growth in the use of mobile apps. The time spent on mobile devices grew from 40% to 49% (Enge, 2018). Also, during 2017 a total of 178 billion apps were downloaded and this number is expected to grow to 258 billion by 2022. This research shows how quickly mobile is taking over many industries (Statista, 2017). With this information, we will implement this as a convenience for our customer. Instead of going on a computer to purchase travel packages, we want our customers to easily book major festival packages from the comfort of their own home. Industry Trends Business Opportunities There have been many instances where consumers are willing to travel to see their favorite artist or performer. Especially when they are on tour. Following an artist on tour has been a common trend in the United States for many decades. Research shows that international music fans are more willing to travel to see their favorite artist compared to locally domestic fans. Just inside the United States, people are willing to travel at least 900 miles to a music festival (Lynch, 2015). More research shows that Americans are most inclined to travel to a destination because of its local music scene. Twenty- five percent of Americans said they would travel to a different country to watch their favorite artist perform. With this information, Education First will notice this trend and implement our proposal into
  • 12. StrategicBusinessProposal Page 12 of 35 their business. The number of people willing to spend thousands on a travel package will generate revenue for Education First if they wanted to create festival curated travel packages. Business Threats Miscommunication can be a business threat within Education First and festival organizers. For example, if there was an instance where the festival was to be canceled, the organizer could completely forget about their partnership with EF and not inform them about these changes. There could be many reasons for festival cancellation like not pertaining to the correct permits or poor ticket sales (Smith, 2018). A threat could also be a replication of our product. If Education First: ALL ACCESS starts to become successful, our competitors could mimic our travel packages and potentially steal our loyal customers. This is why we should constantly update the features within the package to ensure customer satisfaction. 3: Strategy Formulation Operations Organizational Impact Implementing music festivaltravelpackages for Education First: Ultimate Break in addition to the already offered packages is a very organic choice for the company. The service we are suggesting the company starts selling appeals to their target audience, therefore, not many changes related to operations need to be implemented. When it comes to the promotion and marketing of the product, we can take some efforts to expand the already existing marketing teams in several countries with a special focus in the United States in order to push this new product to our target audience. EF will not be overwhelmed with their new addition of the new packages because the company already has most of the logistics needed in their other travel packages such as lodging facilities and traveling partnerships. In order to effectively execute the music festival travel packages correctly and create a memorable experience for the consumer, we need to hire an industry professional who has a broad knowledge of music festivals inEurope and can act as a tour director for these events. At Education First, they hire tour directors who are insightful and culturally connected with the area they are traveling (EFtours, 2019). Hiring an individual who is heavily invested in the music festival industry while also having knowledge about the city around them will be an ideal candidate. Also, hiring someone who is completely fluent in the native tongue is a plus. We would need two tour directors for each experience: the Indie and Electronic package. Currently, every tour consultant earns a salary of $40,618 a year (Glassdoor, 2019). Since we only need to hire two tour consultants, this will lead to not overspending and won’t lead to major changes in our budget.
  • 13. StrategicBusinessProposal Page 13 of 35 Sales, Marketing, &Distribution Marketing Mix Price The price for the travel packages is variable, depending on what city in the United States of America the traveler is flying from and also if he/she decides to purchase additional optional tours and excursions. For the Indie-Rock travel package, we suggest EF: Ultimate Break charges $5,500 and $6,000 USD for the EDM version. The base price for the Indie-Rock package includes airfare from the United States (that starts at $500 from New York City) to Barcelona and a flight from Barcelona to Billund, Denmark, from Aarhus to London and from London to Hilvarenbeek, which cost around $100 each. (Google Flights, 2019). The package also includes transportation around the cities, lodging and tour guides for all the activities done. One day tickets for Nos Primavera Sound is 80€, the equivalent of $90USD. NorthSide passes for one day cost 1095 DKK, around $164USD. As for Isle of Wight, the ticket for the designated day is 60£, an equivalent to $78USD. Finally, tickets for Best Kept Secret in the Netherlands is 85€, $95USD. Taking all of these expenses into consideration we believe that $6,000 USD for the trip is a fair price for the package, allowing the company to make a reasonable profit. As for the EDM package, it includes the $80USD ticket for Ultra; the $120USD ticket for Tomorrowland and the $80USD ticket for Dominator. A flight from NYC to Brussels, Belgiumcosts around $800USD. To travel from Belgium to the Netherlands, the travelers will be taking a 2h train panoramic ride that costs only $45USD. As to travel from Amsterdam to Split in Croatia itwill cost around $150USD for a plane ticket. We valued this package at $5,500 USD, $500 USD less than the Indie-Rock package, considering the package includes fewer flights, local tours, festival tickets and days in the countries. The festival travel package is unique in the market, the most similar packages that we can find are the ones including traveling and cultural excursions like the ones provided by EF: Ultimate Break. Product The product we are developing for EF: Ultimate Break is a new addition of several traveling packages that include lodging, traveling expenses, cultural excursions, and festival passes. These travel packages allow EF’s consumers to travel to unknown countries and get to learn and experience anew culture while also experiencing local entertainment. For the first year, we are suggesting that EF: Ultimate Break creates two new travel packages. The first travel package is a 14-day trip for fans of Indie-Rock music. The package includes 1-day passes for Nos Primavera Sound in Barcelona, Spain; NorthSide in Aarhus, Denmark; Isle of Wight in the Island of Wight, United Kingdom and Best Kept Secret in Hilvarenbeek, Netherlands. The second package is a 10-day trip for lovers of EDMand Hard bass. This package includes tickets for Ultra in Boom, Belgium; Dominator in Eersel, Netherlands; and Tomorrowland in Split, Croatia.
  • 14. StrategicBusinessProposal Page 14 of 35 Distribution The packages are distributed through the EF: Ultimate Break website already. So, we plan on adding these packages and options to the site that is already created in order to distribute the product. Promotion We will use direct marketing by visiting colleges all over the country and talk to students about our new package options. We will have brochures and flyers made to hand out to the students that includes the pricing and what the trip consists of. This tactic will allow us the opportunity to market to a large group of people and see firsthand who in our market show a true interest in the new music added to our existing trips. It will also give us a chance to add a personal touch to build our relationship with our consumers because we will be able to talk to them and explain our product firsthand. Our employees that visit the colleges will also have sign-up sheets where we can collect information in order to send out texts and emails to those who are interested. Another way we'll market our new festival trips will be through social media and online ads. We will pay to push our ads on social media websites such as Facebook and Instagram to those in our market. So those who like and affiliate pages such as colleges, event companies, travel, etc. to their profiles will be the ones we push the ad to. Other websites we can post ads on would be retail sites that our market shop from such as Urban Outfitters, Amazon, Vans, and Target. We are also going to have one of the travel ambassadors that we hire to find new experiences to take one of these trips. Then we will have them create a review on it and upload it to YouTube with photos and video from the trip itself. For popular influencers, it will cost around $3,000 to promote and share our packages to their viewers (Henderson, 2017). This will show our market what our travelers actually do and how much they enjoy their trips. All of these tactics work together to incorporate popular places our consumers are both in person and online. This way we get to show them what our new trips are all about and tell them in person as well. Millennials look for an escapeor experience, so reaching to them through the places they need an escape from can push them towards buying our product. Lastly, we will focus on guerrilla marketing. One idea is to place stickers and photos of well-known attractions on mirrors around a college campus and in local retailers. Each mirror will represent one of the European countries in our travel packages and have “Imagine Yourself Here” written on the top and “#EFUltimateBreak” written on the bottom of each mirror. These can be restroom mirrors or reflective surfaces such as windows where people can see themselves. Another guerrilla tactic would be to create coffee sleeves and coasters that say, “Wish you were here” and look like a postcard with designs matching the different countries in our trips. This could be the Eiffel Tower for France, Big Ben for the U.K, etc., and will include the same hashtag as the mirrors we post on. We will place these in local coffee shops and bars in a college town for our consumers to see and find. Sales Strategy Through promotion on major social media platforms, we will market the new music festival travel packages on outlets like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. The consumer then will go on the EF: Ultimate Break website and have the option of choosing either an Indie or Electronic music travel
  • 15. StrategicBusinessProposal Page 15 of 35 package through the ALL ACCESS option. We will use the same sales teamwho executes the original EF: Ultimate Break campaigns. Legal Legal Factors The legal factors we will consider has to deal with contracts and insurance for employment and our consumers. We have to draft new contracts and create a trademark for our new subsidiary. Regulations EF Ultimate Break has offices in the countries that they book their trips to and abide by and are knowledgeable of the laws in each country. As far as the travelers themselves, it is stated in our guidelines for every trip that they are responsible for attaining any legal documents needed for each country beforehand. If there were an instance where one of our customers were to lose their legal documents while being abroad, they have to go out of their way and locate the nearest U.S embassy in order to retrieve a last-minute document (Schmalbruch, 2015). When purchasing the packages with the festivals included, the traveler is also agreeing to abide by the regulations put in place by the festival itself as well as our rules we provide regarding safety, culture, and laws of each location. Contracts There are multiple contracts we need to execute in order to effectively sell these music festival travel packages. First, we need to draft new employment contracts for the tour consultants. Drafting an employment contract spells out the rights and obligations of each party, protects the job security of the employee and protects the employer from certain risks like the release of confidential information (Carnes, 2017). Since these individuals have more knowledge of music festivals compared to other consultants, we would need to establish a new contract for them. Another contract to consider is creating a partnership contract with Live Nation. Since they host a majority of the music festivals in Europe, we want an exclusive partnership with Live Nation for joint promotion and a discount of passes. This will decrease spending in our budget and will give us a special discount that our consumers can’t get anywhere else. Insurance At the moment, EF: Ultimate Break provides travel insurance through Specialty Insurance Solutions for each person that purchases a travel package. This includes up to $50,000 of medical insurance for any injury big or small. As well as any non-emergency needs, delays, and other travel issues (EF, 2019). This will take care of our travelers that choose to purchase it, which we always strongly recommend to them. As far as the festivals, they are all individually insured, so, we do not need to add any additional insurance to our package. Our travelers are insured by the festival through their own insurance, even though they will be covered by us on their trip with the purchase of the package. This can also be interpreted as general liability insurance.
  • 16. StrategicBusinessProposal Page 16 of 35 Intellectual Property Since we are adding a new subsidiary to Education First, we have to trademark the new name, so it does not cause consumer confusion. The process of owning a trademark is very simple and it starts with getting the approval from the Board of Directors. As long as there is approval from management, a company will be able to create a trademark for the subsidiary (Masters, 2016). After this, we have to submit an application to the U.S. Patent and Trademark office so Education First: ALL ACCESS can become its own LLC. 4: Proposal Budget & Projections Sales Projections During the first three years Education First: All Access is going to focus on implementing two festival travel packages focused on the musical genres EDM and Indie Rock. We chose these two genres due to the high attendance these genres draw to live events with attendance rates as high as 74% (Nielsen, 2018). Also, the target audience for this type of events exhibits high discretionary expense power and spends a high portion of their income on leisure (LaPonsie, 2018). In addition to the festival travel packages we are going to implement Education First: Ultimate Break and Education First: All Access merchandise, that travelers can purchase as a souvenir. In the first year we will be providing only the two tours during summer with 30 people capacity each. Since it is the first year this type of service will be available we predict we will sell at least 15 of these travel packages. EF: All Access is selling the EDM packages for $5,500 USD and the Indie-Rock packages for $6,000. These prices are based on research conducted prices for lodging, tour guides, travel costs, concert tickets and excursions. The Indie-Rock package includes flights from New York to Barcelona, valued at $500 USD and the European flights to all cities included in the package, which costs around $300 USD, festival passes for four included festivals valued at $417 USD, lodging for 12 night in the value of $75 per night and tour guides to accompany the travelers to all events and excursions scheduled during the trip, who are paid $350 during this trip. Education First has partnerships with airlines, concert ticket providers and local hotels, which lowers the cost of the trip to $1,520 USD, instead of the original cost price of $2117 USD. Bringing an overall profit of $4,480 USD for this product. As for the EDM package, it includes the $800 USD ticket from NY to Amsterdam, train tickets to access Belgiumand a flight to Croatia that costs $195 USD, 8 nights at local hotels valued at $600 USD, tour guides for the entire trip, who are payed $250, and passes for 3 festivals in the value of $280 USD. By selling this item for $5,500 we are profiting $4,116 USD per package sold. During the first year of operations we do not predict we will be making any profit, in fact we predict a $114,518 USD loss. Starting the new travel packages means that the company needs to hire new staff, invest on marketing, and purchase new equipment, bringing a high initial cost for year one. This new business venture of offering clients travel packages including festival passes is only possible due to the fact that Education First: Ultimate break is the mother company for Education First: All Access and is investing in this project. Since the company has an annual revenue of $50 million USD and are investing in several branches of the company, they have the money to invest in the project, without running out of funds (Crunchbase, 2019). During year two we are expecting to sell out of both travel packages,
  • 17. StrategicBusinessProposal Page 17 of 35 introduce merchandise, and have fewer expenses, bringing the Net Profit from -$114,518 USD to a positive $209,498 USD. Finally, during year three, we are implementing these same tours in several continents, boosting our number of attendees to 170 in total, we also predict that we will sell at least $7,000 pieces of merch, including t-shirts, shirts and stickers. Our predicted net profit for year three is $726,863 USD. Education First is one of the strongest competitors in the travel business catered to students. During 2018, the company had reported having a revenue of $50 million USD (Owler, 2019). Their competitor, Brightspark Travel Inc., only made $4.6 million USD (Crunchbase, 2019). When comparing both companies side by side, we can assume that Education First is dominating the market. The reality of Education First’s situation is that they rely on their profits from their traveling department to support their educational programs. This weakness can be easily fixed by EF investing more of their revenue into their travel branch, Ultimate Break. If they invest in the live event market they can generate enough money to invest in other business ventures. Refer to Appendix 4 for an in-depth overview of our sales projections. Project Budget Our budget includes investments in marketing strategies, employment of new team members and distribution of the product. Education First already has a sales teamso we would assign certain sales representatives to be in charge of the Education First: ALL ACCESS branch. In order to execute the ALL ACCESS package, we would spend around $59,945 in Year 1 on marketing materials that will include brochures, window clings, coasters, coffee sleeves, and social media marketing. With direct marketing, we will be spending $1,500 on email and text blasts for constant reminders to our dedicated consumers (Aland, 2017). In Year 2 & 3, we would gradually increase this cost to ensure more exposure. For operations, we will be hiring two tour coordinators for each package: the Electronic and Indie music festival packages. This will cost us $80,000 every year since each consultant earns around $40,000 a year in revenue (Glassdoor, 2019). We will also be hiring a street team through a company called Nationalstreetteams.com that one of our potential partners, Live Nation, hires as well. They have used this company in the past for certain shows and special events. This will cost us around $30,000 a year to employ. For the distribution of the product, we will employ a web designer to constantly update and apply changes to the website to match the ALL ACCESS aesthetic. The web designer will cost us $1,000 every year and we will secure a domain for the ALL ACCESS brand (WBE, 2019). Education First will purchase the domain and it will be a fee of $750.
  • 18. StrategicBusinessProposal Page 18 of 35 5: Strategy Implementation Timeline & Key Milestones Pre-Launch In order to put these new packages together, we will start by researching popular festivals both in the U.S and in Europe. This research will begin once the summer is over and the data from their current summer run are available, along with years past. Then we will compare them and find their similarities in order to decide which festivals are best for the trips, as well as appeal to our market. As we research and compare, we will be looking for popular genres, ticket costs, revenue, market share, and who within our target market attends them. Once we see which festivals in Europe compare to popular festivals in the U.S, then we will narrow down to a select few that fall into the Alternative and Electronic genres to create our travel plans for the package. Once we have our packages scheduled out to where the festivals fall into the dates of our summer trips, we will begin to reach out to the companies and promoters that put on these European festivals. We will work to create a connection with them and create an actual partnership or negotiate ticket prices with them. This will allow us to purchase the tickets at a lower cost than the retail price in order for us to make a profit off of them, and potentially benefit a company or promoter with a higher attendance count. Due to the travel packages we provide being limited, we will only need to purchase a specific amount from the promoter for the trip. In order to lower the risk of overbuying, we will start by purchasing a lower number, and purchasing more later if they are still available. Once the tickets are in place, we will begin our marketing strategy. Our market within college age and young adults, therefore we will work our way around college towns in order to reach them. We will hire a street team to go around to a select amount of campuses and hand out brochures and answer any questions from the consumer. The street team will also put up our window clings and distribute the coasters for the guerilla marketing tactic ahead of walking around the campus. Our social media team will be focused on getting our ad out there with our new travel packages as the focus of the visual. We will be pushing these ads on Facebook, Instagram, and retail sites for 3-5 months depending on how fast packages sell, or how close we get to the trip before we are unable to let people sign up if it is too close to the trip. We expect to begin all of this marketing in January, once students return from their holiday break. This will be the time that they can start to saveup for atrip, usegifted money as a down payment, plan their summer, etc. so we will have people working around campus up until 60 days before the trip. Year 1 The goals we have set in place for year one is to distribute at least 3,000 flyers to students on college campuses and gain at least 500 followers from this direct marketing tactic. We also set a goal to sell at least half of the packages that we offer for each trip, which would be around 15 each. The milestone related to these goals will be to have our full street team hired and in place to send out to the campuses to speak to students about our product. The benchmarks in the timeline to achieve these goals will be to secure the funding for the new street team and marketing tools, research the best companies to hire the street team through and establish relationships with these companies. This part of the plan will go
  • 19. StrategicBusinessProposal Page 19 of 35 into action in August when allof the 2019 summer festivals have ended, and we can seethe current data for each one. Then we will begin to reach out to these companies the following months, in hopes to have the festivals picked by September. This will give us time to take the last few months of the year to hire the needed teammembers and begin to designand print marketing materials (Glassdoor,2019). Starting in January, we willsend our teams out to the colleges to begin to pass out brochures to begin connecting with our consumers on a personal level. We will also send out or coasters and coffee sleeves to the local coffee shops and bars to useand getour new product out there right after the holidays. Between January and April, we will be marketing our new travel package up until the final sign-up date. The trips will then take place in June and July. Year 2 The goals we will work on in year two are to expand our genre options for our festival packages and extend our trips out to more countries. We also plan to double our sales from the previous year, which would be selling out or almost selling out each trip. The way that we plan to reach these new goals will begin with continuing the partnership we hope to start in year one and already having the festivals
  • 20. StrategicBusinessProposal Page 20 of 35 lined up again. We hire people to take trips in order to give us feedback, so we will work to put together review videos and post them around September of 2020 to start marketing again for the next summer’s trips. Along with these reviews, we plan to gain a larger social media following in the process of posting about the first year’s adventures. We will focus on the schools in the areas we saw the most interest from for the next year to build a loyal following. In January we plan to use the same marketing tactics as the year before because they will still reach our target market. The following months will be the same as the year before. Year 3 Our year three goals will include expanding the festival packages to different continents such as Asia and South America. Along with the expansion, we plan to release a merchandise line that is a collaboration between EF and the festivals the consumers are attending. In order to reach this, we will start by researching the festivals within the new markets as we did in year one and decide which festivals will fit the new packages. Then, we can establish connections with companies and promoters.
  • 21. StrategicBusinessProposal Page 21 of 35 Once we get the new festivals in place, we will begin to design the merchandise, and research who we will have produce the product. Once we have the production going, we will set up the online store with the final merchandise lineup for travelers to purchase for their trip. This will begin in August once the year two trips have ended, and we can begin on the next year’s packages. Again, we plan to keep a similar marketing plan as it fits with our target market and their habits. Any adjustments made will possibly be minor to change with what our market finds interesting. This will still take place six months before the trips take place. 6: Future Plans Long-term Opportunity & Development Plans Education First: ALL ACCESS has plenty of opportunities for long-term development. With the success of our packages, we want to implement the music festival travel packages in multiple continents other
  • 22. StrategicBusinessProposal Page 22 of 35 than Europe and Asia. Research shows that there has been an explosive growth in the international music scene within the past decade (Lewis, 2019). This statistic proves that there is an opportunity for music festival packages to develop in continents like South America and Australia. Festivals like Lollapalooza in Brazil and Beyond the Valley in Victoria, Australia can be strong additions to potential music festival packages and consumers can experience excursions like an animal hunt or exploring the beautiful jungles. Another long-term opportunity that can blossom from these music festival packages has to do with the promotion of the product. At the moment, we are planning on promoting the packages to college students who attend universities across the United States. For more engagement and interaction during the college visits, we thought of implementing VR technology to enhance the student’s experience. For example, if we were to market a music festival travel package that is available in Australia, students will be able to put the headset on and see sights from Australia that includes kangaroos and Savannahs. The price of VR technology has significantly decreased due to consumer interest (Alton, 2018). This means we will be able to easily purchase some headsets, like an Oculus Rift, without stressing about overspending on promotion.
  • 23. StrategicBusinessProposal Page 23 of 35 7: Appendices and References References (n.d.). Retrieved May 10, 2019, from https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/brightspark-travel- usa#section-overview (n.d.). Retrieved May 10, 2019, from https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisacurtin1/ (n.d.). Retrieved May 10, 2019, from https://www.intrepidtravel.com/sites/intrepid/files/IG_Annual_Report_2017.pdf 4 Music Festival Statistics Defining the 2018 Season - Eventbrite. (2018, December 04). Retrieved May 10, 2019, from https://www.eventbrite.com/blog/4-statistics-defining-the-2016-music-festival- season-ds00/ Aland, M. (2019, February 04). SMS Marketing – Costs, Strategies, and More. Retrieved from https://fitsmallbusiness.com/how-sms-marketing-works/ Alton, L. (2018, May 15). Cheaper VR is coming: will it be enough to kick-start consumer interest? Retrieved May 16, 2019, from The Next Web website: https://thenextweb.com/contributors/2018/05/15/cheaper-vr-is-coming-will-it-be-enough-to-kick- start-consumer-interest/ big ben png - Google Search. (2019). Retrieved May 18, 2019, from Google.com website: https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=_dDgXLjpEcuv_Qab1JGADQ&q=big+ben+pn
  • 24. StrategicBusinessProposal Page 24 of 35 g&oq=big+ben+png&gs_l=img.3..0l2j0i5i30j0i8i30l7.194297.204939..205624...6.0..0.88.1422.18..... .2....1..gws-wiz-img.....0..35i39j0i67j0i10.-QNXBfvMIs0#imgrc=8q8E20ZvnQQsHM: Contiki Competitors, Revenue and Employees - Owler Company Profile. (n.d.). Retrieved May 10, 2019, from https://www.owler.com/company/contiki Definitive Guide - How Much Should A Website Cost You? (May 19). (2019, May 02). Retrieved May 15, 2019, from https://www.websitebuilderexpert.com/building-websites/how-much-should-a- website-cost/ EF Education First becomes new naming partner. (2019, January 11). Retrieved May 10, 2019, from https://www.efprocycling.com/slipstream-sports-announces-ef-education-first-as-new-naming- partner/ EF Education First Salaries. (n.d.). Retrieved May 10, 2019, from https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/EF-Education-First-Salaries-E335551.htm Festival Insights. (2017, September 22). The European Festival Market Report 2017. Retrieved May 10, 2019, from https://www.festivalinsights.com/2017/08/european-festival-market-report-2017/ Festicket. (2018, October 3). TOP 10: Music Festivals in Australia 2019 - Festicket Magazine. Retrieved May 17, 2019, from Festicket website: https://www.festicket.com/magazine/discover/top-10-music- festivals-australia-2015/ G Adventures Names New Online Marketing Manager. (n.d.). Retrieved May 10, 2019, from https://www.gadventures.com/press-releases/2011/Jan/07/New_Online_Marketing_Manager/
  • 25. StrategicBusinessProposal Page 25 of 35 Glassdoor. (2019). EF Education First Salaries. Retrieved May 19, 2019, from https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/EF-Education-First-Salaries-E335551.htm Henderson, G. (n.d.). How Much Does Influencer Marketing Cost? Retrieved from https://www.digitalmarketing.org/blog/how-much-does-influencer-marketing-cost Hopper. (n.d.). Which States Are Most Likely to Travel Abroad This Year? Retrieved May 10, 2019, from https://media.hopper.com/research/which-states-are-most-likely-to-travel-abroad-this-year How Americans Spend on Music. (2015, September 17). Retrieved May 10, 2019, from https://www.marketingcharts.com/industries/media-and-entertainment-59371 How to Create a New Company or Subsidiary of an Existing Company. (2012). Retrieved May 16, 2019, from Legalzoom.com website: https://info.legalzoom.com/create-new-company-subsidiary-existing- company-21015.html Is Doing Too Many Things at Once Bad for Business? | Page 2 of 2. (2010, April 15). Retrieved May 10, 2019, from https://www.allbusiness.com/is-doing-too-many-things-at-once-bad-for-business- 14283444-1.html/2 Johnson, C. (2019, May 08). The 6 Best Tour Groups For Young Professionals Who Need An Escape From Work, Like Now. Retrieved May 10, 2019, from https://www.elitedaily.com/p/6-best-tour- groups-for-young-professionals-who-want-to-make-new-memories-12975059 LaPonsie, M. (2018). Do Millennials Have Their Spending Priorities All Wrong? Retrieved May 16, 2019, from US News & World Report website: https://money.usnews.com/money/personal- finance/spending/articles/2018-08-30/do-millennials-have-their-spending-priorities-all-wrong
  • 26. StrategicBusinessProposal Page 26 of 35 Live Nation To Sell 2018 "Festival Passport" That Gives You Access 100 Major Festivals Worldwide. (2018, April 09). Retrieved May 10, 2019, from https://liveforlivemusic.com/news/live-nation- festival-passport-2018/ Lynch, J. (2015, April 22). Check Out These Surprising Stats About U.S. Music Festivals. Retrieved May 10, 2019, from https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/music-festivals/6539009/music- festival-statistics-graphic Machado, A. (2018, July 24). How Millennials Are Changing Travel. Retrieved May 10, 2019, from https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/06/how-millennials-are-changing- international-travel/373007/ Music Events - worldwide | Statista Market Forecast. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/outlook/273/100/music-events/worldwide#market-revenue Music Festival Demographics - Who Are Hardore Fans? - Eventbrite. (2019, January 09). Retrieved May 10, 2019, from https://www.eventbrite.com/blog/music-festival-demographics-ds00/ Olenski, S. (2017, June 27). Travel Brands Shift Their Attention To The Millennial Market. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveolenski/2017/06/27/travel-brands-shift-their- attention-to-the-millennial-market/#7561deef63d7 Riotta, C. (2019, May 07). Going To A Music Festival Not Only Makes You Happier, It Changes Your Life. Retrieved May 10, 2019, from https://www.elitedaily.com/life/music-festival-make-you- happier-more-open-minded/999777
  • 27. StrategicBusinessProposal Page 27 of 35 Schmalbruch, S. (2015, October 7). What to do if you lose your passport while traveling abroad. Retrieved May 17, 2019, from Business Insider website: https://www.businessinsider.com/what-to- do-if-you-lose-your-passport-abroad-2015-10 Stefan. (2019, May 06). A new culture in travel? Retrieved May 10, 2019, from https://www.itij.com/story/115541/new-culture-travel Smith, C. (2018, October 01). Live Event Cancellations: Why Are So Many Festivals Being Canceled? - XLIVE - Las Vegas. Retrieved from Taylor Swift teams up with EF Education First for Promotion. (n.d.). Retrieved May 10, 2019, from http://www.spark-me.com/portfolio_page/taylor-swift-teams-up-with-education-first-for-promotion/ The Magic of Doing One Thing at a Time - Harvard Business Review. (n.d.). Retrieved May 10, 2019, from https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-magic-of-doing-one-thing-at-a-time Top Deck Tours Limited. (n.d.). Retrieved May 10, 2019, from https://suite.endole.co.uk/insight/company/04905253-top-deck-tours-limited Tour Directors | EF Educational Tours. (2019). Retrieved May 17, 2019, from Eftours.com website: https://www.eftours.com/tour-directors Travel Insurance Guide. (2019a). Retrieved May 17, 2019, from Sis-inc.biz website: http://sis- inc.biz/efultimatebreak/ Trafalgar. (2018, December 11). 8 Important Travel Trends That Will Shape 2019. Retrieved May 8, 2019, from https://www.smartertravel.com/trafalgar-2019-travel-trends/
  • 28. StrategicBusinessProposal Page 28 of 35 Why Is It Important to Have Employment Contracts? (2017). Retrieved May 17, 2019, from Bizfluent website: https://bizfluent.com/about-5426487-important-employment-contracts.html
  • 29. StrategicBusinessProposal Page 29 of 35 Appendices Appendix1:Competitive Analysis
  • 30. StrategicBusinessProposal Page 30 of 35 Appendix2:MarketingExamples Coaster and Coffee Sleeve design: Mirror and Window design:
  • 31. StrategicBusinessProposal Page 31 of 35 Appendix3:CompetitivePricing
  • 32. StrategicBusinessProposal Page 32 of 35 Appendix4:SalesProjections