Question

Topic: Student Questions

Theme-parks - Product Versus Service Or Both?

Posted by Anonymous on 4/22/2006 at 2:56 PM ET 125 Points
I'm working on a project for a marketing class I'm currently taking. At the moment I'm creating the marketing plan, but I've run into a crucial question, which I'm confusing myself with.

My project-group's "business" is a mini-golf attraction which also features a bar and a restaurant. Specifically, this miniature golf attraction is themed similar to the "Rainforest Cafe" in the sense that it will look like a jungle complete with special effects (fog, water, etc) and animatronics. The bar and restaurant will continue the theme.

I just wanted to check, this business offers both products and services right?

I imagine that the experience provided constitutes a service, and the equipment rentals (putter clubs, balls), food, drinks, and souvenirs constitute products. Or am I incorrect and the entire business only offers services? For some reason this seems less cut-and-dry to me than other product versus service examples.

I was trying to think of it as the same model that theme-parks such as Disney World use. They offer an experience through their rides and atmosphere, which is a service (I think), but also products in the form of food, drink, and souvenirs. I see this as being the same, just on a smaller scale.

Any help that can be offered is appreciated.
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by wnelson on 4/22/2006 at 3:34 PM Member
    For Coca Cola, they produce a soft drink that's a PRODUCT. For people dispensing Coca Cola, it's a SERVICE. If you manufacture, it's a product. If you distribute and dispense, it's a service. If your mini golf park had a factory attached to the jungle that made the soft drink, bottled it, and sold it in the gift shop, this is a product. When the restaurant sells the same soft drink in a glass with ice, this is a service.

    The gift shop is a service. Retail is not a product based industry - it's a service based industry. A gift shop generally is "service." The companies who make the "gifts" are a product business because they manufacture them. Disney World is a "service" company. In fact, Disney overall as a company is a service company. You may argue that the movies are a product, I suppose. But I would argue that isn't even the case. The entertainment industry as a whole is a service industry.

    As my friend Randall (W.M.M.A.) says, you have a service model through and through.

    I hope this helps.

    Wayde
  • Posted on 4/23/2006 at 2:11 AM Member
    Hi,

    I have to humbly make a small extra to what is said above:

    Compare your setup (themed mini golf with bar and restaurant) with a HOTEL.
    This way it might be easier.
    Overall the whole of the hotel is a product to be sold.
    Once you are in the hotel its all service that rings the bells.
    Consider this: once a person (a real human being) is doing something for another in an exchange it is as per definition a service. Whether in that exchange a product changed hands or not. A spa sells the product massage, once the masseur starts on your body its a service.

    This little line between tangibility and intagebility is often confusing. That's why the presence of the human service factor is so important.

    Food and drink offered in a restaurant as part of a hotel or other are indeed products, however, they become a service if the waiter becomes involved and if you consider the whole; for a hotel many of the outlets it has they are mere services in order to complete the customer experience.

    In your case you sell services and experiences. The room in a hotel might be a product but once the guest has slept in the bed and that bed is made the next day it has become an experience; a service.

    Regards,

    W
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