E-commerce Business Strategy for Travel and Tourism Website

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E-commerce Business Strategy: Travel and Tourism

Contents
List of Figures..................................................................................................................................3
Executive Summary.........................................................................................................................4
Introduction......................................................................................................................................5
E-commerce Business Strategy.......................................................................................................6
Competition analysis in the travel and tourism industry.............................................................6
Products and services of the e-commerce website with its unique values..................................6
E-commerce Business Models.........................................................................................................7
Value Propositions of the E-commerce Website.........................................................................7
Revenue Model............................................................................................................................8
Competitive Environment............................................................................................................9
Online advertising and marketing tools.........................................................................................11
Conclusion and Recommendation to the Business........................................................................13
References......................................................................................................................................14

List of Figures
Figure 1: Industry Statistics and market shares of leading online travel and tourism companies...9
Figure 2: Statistical growth of different online travel companies till April 2017.........................10

Executive Summary
This report is generated to provide a clear understanding of the business strategies that are
adopted for the development if the e-commerce website. The website was based on online travel
and tourism that is adopted by many companies to increase their business. The e-commerce
website has been developed with unique products and services regarding travel and tourism
packages and destinations. Differentiation is used as a strategy for promoting this online
business. The proper description of the competitive analysis and the results are provided in the
report. The business model is discussed value, value proposition, revenue model and competitive
environment analysis are the key points of the business model that are discussed regarding the
development of the e-commerce website. Social marketing tools and location-based marketing
tools are used for the development of the e-commerce website. Proper recommendation
regarding the areas of improvement in the business strategies is provided in the report.

Introduction
This report is based on the business strategies that are adapted for the development of the travel
and tourism e-commerce website. The report will discuss the vision of the development if the
e-commerce website, the range of services and products that will be delivered by the website
with the unique value that will be generated by the services and products that will differentiate it
from other in the global market of travel and tourism. Competitive analysis will be discussed that
are used for the generating revenue model and value proposition of the website. Online
marketing tools that are used for the advertisement of the e-commerce website will be discussed
along with its benefits and the challenges that will be faced by the e-commerce website in
implementing the online tools. The report will provide a clear understanding of the
differentiation business strategy that is adapted for the development of the e-commerce website.
Proper recommendation regarding the scope of improvement for generating better revenue than
expected outcome will also be provided by the end of the report from the complete analysis of
the business strategies adopted and from the loopholes of the business strategies that are adopted.

E-commerce Business Strategy
Travel and tourism industry has developed a lot in the past years with changing the perception
among people in the way they choose to travel around. With changing technology-driven
solutions in travel industry differentiation is adapted as a business strategy for reaching the
global customers present everywhere around the globe by analyzing the competitors in the global
travel and tourism industry for providing best customer experience and travel options through the
online e-commerce website. Through market analysis of the competitors in the travel and
tourism industry, the e-commerce website is developed providing unique travel and tourism
services to the customers not only in terms of cost packages but mainly focusing on the
differentiating customer experience with the e-commerce website compared to others in the
market (Mohapatra, 2013).
Competition analysis in the travel and tourism industry
The travel and tourism industry is growing a lot in e-commerce business that is up to 13% in the
travel industry and 38% in the global e-commerce market. A lot of travel agencies have updated
them their services with their e-commerce website with recent market analysis Expedia and
Priceline are leading the global market of e-commerce travel and tourism industry. Multitasking
approaches are adopted across the market that optimizes the customer experience in more than
one device. Some of the travel businesses are taking insight into SEO to improve their business
strategies. Featured snippets are recently into global travel and tourism market trend. The online
travel and tourism industry is growing at a rate of 12% on an annual basis with different latest
business trends (Magobe, 2015).
Products and services of the e-commerce website with its unique values
The e-commerce website is designed with a wide range of unique service and products ranging
from amazing holiday destination around the globe to exiting packages including hotels and
traveling conveyances. It is organized in such manner that is spanning on a wide range of
continents and countries. The e-commerce website is divided into an attractive section
containing restaurants, hotels, recreations and highlighted different exciting activities for the

visitors at different traveling destinations. The site is designed in a way to provide a user-friendly
experience that will enable the visitors of the e-commerce website for planning their next trip.
The website will provide the exact feeling of the destinations with the virtual visit of the
destinations (Ratcliff, 2015). The travel destinations are divided into small manageable contents
that provide the visitor with the exact information of what they can expect from the trip. Hotel
recommendations are provided with attracting packages and links to online booking sites. The
design focused on differentiating the e-commerce website from other travel and tourism
websites by providing less details-heavy contents approach and provided more picturesque and
lives high-quality multimedia contents with an image of 100KB or even less that provide better
user experience with fast loading of the site information. Navigations maps with ticket booking
and public transport information. A local language and traditions direction are one of the unique
features provided to the users of the site. The e-commerce website is designed user interactive
with no flashy elements of design (Mangles, 2018).
E-commerce Business Models
Value Propositions of the E-commerce Website
Various business model tools are used to create a value proposition for the e-commerce website
in order to provide the best customer experience to the visitors of the website. Travelers
generally take the recommendations from their family and friend, visits multiple sites, compare
different pricing before they finalize their trip, based on the market analysis and SEO of various
sites the e-commerce website is developed with certain unique personalization’s and
customizations for attracting the visitor to the site and guiding them through the booking process:
 The homepage is made user interactive with high-quality images and as it is the first
impression of the website and the foremost chance to gain the attention of the visitors.
The navigation bar is provided with a recommendation based on browsing history and
promotions.
 Weather forecasting is provided with the visual effect of the destination searched by the
visitor for inspiring them.

 Real-time or weather banner forecasting the local weather of the destination is provided
for the visitors.
 Promotional offers with a recommendation from the recent search history for the
frequent visitors of the site are added to the homepage.
 To increase the user traffic or engagement of the visitors to the e-commerce website
email login is provided on the site (Payne.et.al, 2017).
 The e-commerce website also provides a range of segment for an elderly, family trip,
youngsters etc so that visitors can sort their trip according to their preference and also
provide cost-effective deals with packages according to these segments.
 Social proof tools are used for viewing the number of people for any destinations to guide
the customers more clearly with their trip.
 Social feedbacks are added to gain trust if the visitors of the site and to improve visitors
engagement on the site.
 Cross-sell recommendation is also added to educating the visitors about other similar or
different products bought by peoples.
 Navigations bars, Google maps, and traveling booking details are provided for the
travelers for better traveling experience with the e-commerce website.
 Clear pricing of the travel packages is displayed with no secreted fees so that customers
can trust the website and book a further trip with the website (Sengupta, 2015).
Revenue Model
The e-commerce website is developed with an objective to provide services to the visitors of the
websites those are the travelers as well as the sellers to their website that include companies for
providing transportations and hotel facilities and gaining profit from both suppliers as well as
from the customers of the website. To get success in the competitive global market of travel and
tourism the e-commerce website is developed with personalized booking packages, vacation
destinations and live video and audio features for attracting more customers to the website for
getting the return on the investment for setting up the e-commerce business. Different business to
customers (B2C) and business to business (B2B) models are used for generating a large number
of revenues for the e-commerce website. Meta-search is added on the webpage of e-commerce
website that enables the visitors of the website to get the real-time view of the pricing and

availability of the hotels and transportations, along with this it will also provide travelers with the
privilege to view and compare the different vacation packages and hotel pricing to get the best
pricing for their vacation trips and this provides better user experience it is estimated that with
meta-search the revenue growth of the e-commerce website will increase by 70% of the initial
investment. Cost per click advertisement is another business strategy that is added to the e-
commerce website for generating more revenue (Bednar, 2018).
Subscriptions are used as a recurring stream of generating revenue as subscription engage the
customer’s on the website through which they are regularly updated about the latest destination
plan as the customers generally plan their trip only once or may be twice during a year. With the
increasing competition in the global travel and tourism market it is important to stand out of the
competitors and to make a reputation in the market, advertisement of the e-commerce website is
done by cost per click and cost per thousand impression revenue models, cost per click (CPC) is
implemented by adding suggestions links advertisement of the travel or hotel agency on the e-
commerce website which when clicked or used by the user, the e-commerce website will get
paid by the travel agency or hotel agency in return of promoting their agency. Cost per thousand
(CPT) is another revenue stream that is used for the e-commerce website in which the e-
commerce website will earn revenue depending on the number of views that will be generating
from the clients of the e-commerce website (Wang.et.al, 2015).
Competitive Environment
The competitive environment in the online travel and tourism industry is increasing with a new
and unique way of website promotions and the competition of engaging more and more visitors
to the website from the last five years in Australia. Airbnb and Lux Group are also new to the e-
commerce travel and tourism market and showing a high rise of revenue to their investments
with their different services and solutions (Xiang and Fesenmaier, 2017).

Figure 1: Industry Statistics and market shares of leading online travel and tourism companies
Source: (IBISworls, 2019)
According to the statistics till April 2017 Travel Advisor is leading the online travel and tourism
market of the United States with 35 millions of monthly viewer to their site. After Travel
Adviser the second growing online e-commerce travel and tourism company is Uber with around
23.5 millions of monthly visitors on their sites. The third fastest growing company in this race of
online travel and tourism business is Expedia that is basically a booking as well as a site for rate
comparisons with a monthly growth of 12.9 million users on their site proving to the top
domestic service provider. With recent research, it has been found that Hotel.com has been the
top preference for travelers. Lyft and Travelocity were earlier leading the market but then these
companies are overtaken by AirB&B with a share market visit of 3.5%. Recently the Orbitz and
Travelocity have been acquired by Expedia which is leading the market. From Forbes research, it
has been found that Millennials are leading in generating the consumers in the travel industry
with their most unique and cheap packages for exploring destinations. Competitor’s analysis of
the travel and tourism industry was important and carried out for getting the best and unique
services and products for the e-commerce website (Andreea, 2014).

Figure 2: Statistical growth of different online travel companies until April 2017
Source: (Mangles, 2018)
Online advertising and marketing tools
Social marketing and local marketing tools was best recommended for the marketing and
advertising of the e-commerce website for attracting more customers to the website and for
generating large revenue for online travel and tourism business as according to Travel Media
Group 87 percentage of the travelers around the globe choose to serve at social media for
suggestions regarding best travel destinations, packages, and inspirations.
Social marketing tools: Social media has become a word of mouth for online marketing as it is
something that is accessed by each and every segment of the society so will prove to be the best
marketing tools for attracting the potential customers to the e-commerce site. With the use of
facebook, twitter, Pinterest, Instagram etc the e-commerce site can be put in front of the targeted
customers that will increase the awareness among the customers regarding the brand. Traditional
online tools for advertisements only fulfill the objective of attracting the customers whereas the
social marketing tools will engage the potential customers of the e-commerce site by
performing a conversation with the site. Social marketing will help in building a population of

the online fans of the travel and tourism business that will strengthen the brand name of the e-
commerce site and will constrain sales. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc engage the customers
with an interactive campaign of hashtags so the customers feel a part of the e-commerce site and
will help in getting a broader view of the customer's expectations from the site. Crafting of the
post from the travelers of the website on to the social media sites makes the visitors comfortable
to make sales with the e-commerce site (Zeng and Gerritsen, 2014).
Location-based marketing Tools: As the e-commerce site is for travel and tourism that is also
a location-based service so location-based marketing tool will target marketing messages to the
customers based on their locations. It includes sending of messages to the target customers based
on their locations via Geo-targeting advertisements. Geo-fencing tool detects a perimeter
surrounding physical location and then put advertisements to the targeted customers (Louden,
2014).
Several ethical and privacy challenges are related to the online marketing advertising tool that is
used for the marketing of the e-commerce website. The cyber and ethical issue is always there
regarding the inline information of the customers that can be hacked by the cyber attacker. The
increasing completion in the online market is also a challenge as every day a new company is
evolving in the market with a different and wide range of unique products and supplies related to
travel and tourism. The security and the ethical challenges can be overcome by the
implementation of proper security policies to the e-commerce website to built trust among the
potential customers if the website (Sotiriadis and Van, 2013).