Lamport Hall

sector of historic buildings, whereof approximately 1’500 are open to everyone in the UK (July 2001, Mintel).

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

Here can be introduced the concept of day-trips. Indeed, the indicative number of domestic day-trips is about 163.1 millions within the UK spending more than 26 billions pounds. This kind of excursion has known a sharp increase in the past five years and passed from 114.05 millions day-trips in 1995 to 140 millions in 2000, according to www.staruk.org.uk. A last

detail is that 73% of visitors travel by car. (www.nlr.org.uk/places/LineMap.htm).

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

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Finally the sector of Heritage attractions for Lamport Hall is essentially visited by local

people. However, Lamport Hall has, as mentioned before, others activities, as it said before the recreation and organisation of weddings, and thematic weekends. These other functions

appear to be complementary activities, which are used as a competitive advantage in a strategy of diversification, according to Igor Ansoff Matrix. In this case, the analysis will be detailed in the Competitive analysis.

3. Analysis of the c urrent market and potential market of

Lamport Hall.

As indicated before, Lamport Hall has an activity being essentially based on regional target market. According to the Mintel (2000), historic buildings are most popular among older customers segments, specifically those between 35 and 64 years old, reflecting their more

sedate leisure pursuits. With a socio-economic approach, consumers from: A, B and C1 will most likely visit this kind of historical site, most probably due to a higher level of cultural

education. Similar to this approach, historic buildings hold most appeal for empty nesters with no family (ABC1 classes, aged between 35 and 65 years, who are working with no children aged under 16 living at home. They are, therefore, the classic no family / empty nesters with probably a high income that

can be spent on themselves rather than on family) and working managers (working AB classes).

Finally, it can be observed that married men at a lifestage defined as empty nesters / non- family (people aged between 35 and 64 with no children aged under 16) or post-family (visitors aged over

55) are slightly more inclined to visit historic buildings than women being at pre-family and family lifestage. Two lifestyle clusters are identified in this target market:

• Thriving: people who are wealthy achievers from suburban areas, affluent greys from rural communities and prosperous pensioners living in retirement areas.

• Expanding cluster is identified as affluent executives and well-off workers, both coming from family areas.

According to Mintel (2001), these different kind of visitors, called “drive-ins” will come to Lamport Hall, but will also be the type of visitors for museums, art-galleries and gardens. Thus the sector of the historic buildings is able to attract new visitors by using promotion

tools in the other Heritage attractions. However, according to Mintel (2001), 45% of

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persons visiting historic attractions have visited them only once during the last 12 months. This information gives no precisio n on the frequency of the visits, and the visits at Lamport Hall are apparently not repeated acts.

SWOT analysis of Lamport Hall.

Strengths and Weaknesses

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

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

Opportunities and Threats

Two pheno menons are showing that the target population of Lamport Hall is increasing. Firstly, According to the Annual Abstract of Statistics, the trend for the day-trips is increasing since ten years and secondly, the population between 35 and 64 growing (expectation of increase of 7% in the region for 2006). However, the sector of historic buildings has a lot of competitors, some of them are well know and others have free access to attractions. Finally the tourism sector is very much influenced by economy, the unemployment and world situation and therefore the visitors expenditure diminish.

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