Chapter Four

Internal Analysis

This chapter will provide an internal analysis that will discuss the company’s ability to meet the needs of its customers by using STP (Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning) analysis.

The customers of the Emirates Group can be segmented into the following groups: geographic segmentation, demographic segmentation, psychographic segmentation and behavioural segmentation. Customers are segmented based on geographic location. This includes customers who travel internationally, customers who travel regionally and customers who travel within the UAE. Customers are also segmented based on demographics such as age, gender and occupation. These include young and old, male and female, business travellers and leisure travellers, and high and low income earners. Furthermore, customers are segmented based on psychographics such as interests, behaviours and lifestyles. These include travelling for luxury experiences, travelling with eco-friendly services and travelling for exploration purposes. As well as this, customers are segmented based on their behaviours too which refers to behaviour patterns they portray with the airline company. For example, customers who travel regularly with the Emirates Group portray loyalty, customers travelling first time portray curiosity in the company, and customers travelling for business purposes portray their trust in the reliability of the services (Prayag and Hosany 2014, and Avram 2019).

With regards to targeting strategy, the Emirates Group follows a differentiated marketing strategy as they cater for a range of different customers and work to ensure they can meet their diverse needs. For example, one of the target customers includes business travellers. The Emirates Group provides efficient and reliable services that businesses can trust. Another target customer includes travellers who are cost-conscious. The Emirates Group provide flexible prices across their airline company meeting the financial needs of diverse customers. Another target customer includes travellers who are loyal to the company. The Emirates Group provides a loyalty program known as ‘Emirates Skywards’ for their loyal customers where they offer valuable benefits and aim to maintain the trust of their customers (The Emirates Group 2024, Shastri 2023 and The Big Marketing.com 2024a).

The Emirates Group is one of the largest airline companies in the world and has many competitors within the airline industry. Below is a positioning/perceptual map for the company portraying its position against its competitors:

As shown above, Etihad Airways is in the same positioning as the Emirates Group portraying its quality at a similar level to the Emirates Group. This can be a concern as the company can find it difficult to compete with them in retaining and sustaining customers. The other side illustrates the other competitors who provide high quality services but lower prices, which can be appealing to a diverse audience, hence increasing rivalry among the airline companies (Bhasin 2024, The Big Marketing.com 2024b)