Transcript The internet and B2B marketing

Tourism distribution on the internet
Changing channels?
See Cooper and Lewis in Buhalis and Laws
• New media
– disintermediation?
– new virtual travel agents?
– budget airlines and hotels as an alternative to
the traditional package
– or the same vertically integrated operators
offering mass customisation
Internet penetration globally
• In US, Japan and Northern Europe around
70% of the population is already on-line
• The growth is likely to come from
– Brazil 15%
– Russia 20%
– India 7%
– China 9%
www.internetworldstats.com
The Impact of the Internet UK
• 61% of the population have access (Mintel
2006)
– 75%+ for ABC1s under 55 years
• Half of these have browsed holiday/travel
sites
– 35.1% of consumers booked their last holiday on
the internet in 2005, an increase of 12% points
from 2000.
• Better informed customers
European online market
The top fifteen travel sites
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Europe 2005
Expedia
Viamichelin
TUI
Lastminute
SNCF
Trip Network
Deutsche Bahn
Easyjet
Opodo
Ryanair
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Hotels.com
Ebookers.com
Thomascook.com
Travelocity
Yahoo Travel
New gateways for travel and
tourism information and bookings
• Airlines:
– individual airline sites
– their affiliate networks easyjet.com
– Sites owned by airline consortia – opodo, orbitz
• Hotel sites sites of individual hotels, groups or consortia
• Bed banks hotel booking companies – Utell, Hotel
Connect, Hotelopia
• Destinations sites run by national, regional or local tourist
offices
• On-line travel agencies: Expedia, Travelocity
• Review sites
Tripadvisor
• Late booking sites – lastminute.com, Cheap Flights
New entrants offering travel booking
• Portals
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travel pages of internet service
provider portals – Yahoo, Orange
Vortals* travel pages of specialist portals –
tennis.com, igolf.com
News media
On-line newspapers and other
media – telegraph, guardian, cnn
Auction sites
eBay, Qxl
Social networks Facebook, mySpace, WAYN
Adapted from Buhalis 2003
So much choice- who do you trust?
The big brands?
• The traditional tour operators – Thomas
Cook?
• The ones that spend most on advertising –
Expedia?
• The ones linked to a brand you know?
– Affiliate networks – white-labelling
– Including content from another provider on
webpages with your brand Easyjet
Or your mates?
• User-generated content (Web 2.0)
• Harnessing the collective intelligence
(O’Reilly)
• Websites relying on users, not businesses or
experts, to provide the material
• YouTube, Wikipedia
Tripadvisor
• 15 million travel reviews
• 25 million users a month
• an affiliate network of leading on-line travel
agencies, tour operators, airlines and hotel
groups.
• TripAdvisor is owned by on-line travel
agency Expedia, Inc.
Social networks
• On-line communities created by ‘viral’
recommendations
• Often linked by some shared value
– Communities of consumption (Cova)
– E.g. Facebook travel groups
WAYN
• Where are you now?
• Community-based website where you can
log your trips, see who’s there and make
new friends
• 11.4 million members
• Travel companies can advertise on WAYN
or use WAYN information on their sites
A new distribution network
Airlines
Global Distribution
System
Hotels
Destination
Management
System
On-line
agency
Attractions
Satnavs
Maps from
Google Earth
Youtube
videos
Social
network
Tripadvisor
reviews
‘Aggregated content’
SMS
Friends
Customer
• How do the traditional operators fight back?
Dynamic Packaging
• Dynamic packaging is a travel industry term for a more
flexible way of booking a holiday. Instead of offering
customers a set package off the page of a brochure, the
agent or operator assembles the elements of the holiday to
meet the customer's requirements.
• By using 'bed-banks' - companies that offer a database of
hotel rooms at a discounted rate - the agents can match the
prices of traditional tour operators while achieving better
profit margins for themselves.
• For an example of a bed-bank company
• see www.travelberry.co.uk
Why the tour operators will survive
• Customers with busy lives value the convenience
of a ‘one-stop-shop’ for all their travel purchases
• Faced with a bewildering choice, consumers value
the reassurance provided by a well-known brand
• Suppliers value the efficient access to wide
consumer markets provided by intermediaries
• The purchasing power and marketing spend of the
large consolidated companies continues to give
them a competitive advantage over their smaller
rivals
On-line marketing
The uses of cyberspace
Angehrn 1997
Virtual Information Space
Web pages
Product info
Price
Availability
Virtual Transaction Space
E-commerce
Orders
Payments
Virtual Communication Space
Advertising
Email
Message boards
Virtual Distribution Space
Downloads
File transfers
Fulfillment
Order-tracking
Search engine marketing
• Keyword analysis
– what words do potential customers use?
– optimise the site design to ensure high listing
• Paid placement
• Pay per click
– bidding against competitors for highest listing
• Domain names
see www.webgravity.co.uk
Web site design
www.insites.be in Pelsmacker
How do you judge a good website?
• Content productivity
– relevant, up-to-date, meeting needs
• Browse efficiency
– ease of navigation
• Design efficiency
– interpreted and understood correctly
• Exchange level
– interactivity
• Emotional attractiveness
– entertainment value
Relationships on-line
• Communication
– information
– dialogue
• Differentiation
– exclusive content and services for subscribers
• Personalisation
– using cookies to recognise and personalise
• Reward
On-line communities
e.g.user forum, message board
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Customer to customer communication
added value for the website user
Viral marketing
feedback
PR vehicle not an advertising medium
Effects on the value chain
• Disintermediation
or re-intermediation
• Depersonalisation
or customisation
• Commoditisation
or value-added
differentiation
or customer contact
management
• Customer control of
contact and content
• De Pelsmacker et al (2001) Marketing Communications Prentice Hall
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Cooper and Lewis in Buhalis and Laws Tourism Distribution Channels