Marketing of Services

Sir Kashif Riaz

ASSIGNMENT 2
2019
E-SERVICES IN ACTION.

Shahzad Khan
ID:13769
 Marketing of Services (Assignment 2)
E-SERVICES IN ACTION

Tripadvisor: A Traveler’s Best Friend

So, you’re going on a cruise! How did you choose the line, cabin, and excursions? Did you seek out recommendations
from friends and family? Perhaps you looked up reviews on www.cruisecritic.com before making your final choice. As a
part of TripAdvisor, LLC, Cruise Critic is just one website in a conglomerate that attracts nearly 36 million unique
monthly visitors seeking the best possible holiday. Booking Buddy and Seat Guru are also part of TripAdvisor, as is the
host site itself.

Whether you are seeking the best travel or accommodation fares, hotel or restaurant recommendations, or cruise
reviews, TripAdvisor has it all—and it’s free! Aside from the consumer-specific benefits provided, TripAdvisor also gives
businesses the opportunity to advertise to their specific target markets. Graphical advertising opportunities are
available on a cost-per-click basis. This service, combined with the travel advisory sites the company hosts, has resulted
in multiple awards and accolades from the industry. Some of the key features that have earned this recognition are as
follows:

▪ Flight Search with Fees Estimator—largest inventory of flights

▪ Top Values Index—value-based hotel search engine
▪ Restaurants—over 551,000 restaurants with 2 million+ ratings and reviews
▪ Gas Tank Gateways—vacation destinations one tank of gas or less away from home
▪ Quick Guides—downloadable guides to hotels, restaurants, and attractions in 13,000+ of the most popular
global destinations
▪ Traveler Network—connection to industry experts and fellow travelers
▪ Video—allows users to post vacation videos and marketers to post promotional clips
▪ Content Distribution—allows travel businesses to post TripAdvisor content on their own sites
▪ Saves—allows users to save reviews to a personalized folder for ease of search
▪ Maps—mashups provide hotel information, including price, availability, and popularity
▪ Inside Pages—allows users to contribute to travel guides
▪ goLists—provides users with travel lists submitted by other users
▪ Advanced Hotel Selection Tool—provides search options for an area’s most popular hotels
▪ Candid Photos—provides photos from attractions and cites across the world, while allowing users to post their
own
▪ Hotel Popularity Index—worldwide hotel ranking system based on web content
▪ Check Rates—pricing comparison and availability
▪ TripWatch—provides customized email alerts on users’ preferred hotels, attractions, and destinations
▪ Weekend Getaway Guides—free, weekly email guide personalized per zip code with weekend travel
information

Source: www.tripadvisor.com
Questions:

Based on the above identify the key benefits, USPs that are sought by the
customers and are essential for the survival of the business?

The travel and tourism industry is one of the most disruptive to emerge from digital communication
innovations. There are now a plethora of social media platforms dedicated to users who travel, book hotels,
read and generate reviews and comments online creating what Baka calls “Travel 2.0”(2016, p. 150). Zhao et al.
note, “searching for information relevant to their plans, from flights to hotel bookings, has become a
dispensable step in travelers decision-making process (2015, p. 1343). Indeed, rarely do tourists and travellers
make travel plans without the use of such platforms and once they are at their desired destination, they often
use social media to enrich their experiences and acquire trustworthy, credible and relevant information .Online
tourism platforms have grown to such a large extent some tourism scholars are calling the landscape a “virtual
tourist community”(Wang et al., 2002) while the notion of the “digital nomad”, people who travel the world
and use their portable devices and a connection to generate work, is now well-known within the
blogosphere(Wasserman, 2014). Kavoura and Borges (2016) define TripAdvisor as an imagined digital
community where users, although they have never met in person, will create content and assist each other in
order to benefit the community. One of the largest and well-known travel and tourism social media platforms
used by travellers and customers is TripAdvisor (www.tripadvisor.com). Founded in 2000 in the USA its main
core competence is that it enables and assists travellers and customers in gathering travel information to plan
their trip. It does so by allowing travellers to post reviews and opinions of travel-related content and engage
in interactive travel fora. It also offers trusted advice from real travellers and a wide variety of travel choices
and planning features with seamless links to booking tools. This social media site has become so influential in
the travel and tourism industry that one particular survey conducted in the UK notes, “83 percent of British
users were more likely to book accommodation if it had an award such as a Traveller’s Choice
recommendation

The benefit of TripAdvisor is that you can learn what customers like you think about various accommodations
for travelers, such as hotels, restaurants and attractions. Then, you can decide which places to go.
Following are some USP’s identified:

Brand.
Talk to younger folks about TripAdvisor and a lot of 'em will say, "That's something my parents use".

Trust.
User generated content can be shaky at low volumes. Businesses have a vested interest in good
rankings on TripAdvisor. It's not hard to imagine them lobbying for good reviews with customers,
friends, etc. Not bad for TripAdvisor (lots of traffic and SEO fodder). Not so good for the traveler.

SEO
They live and die by SEO. Mostly they live. SEO for them is a monster traffic driver, but that means
that they've designed for it (maximizing for content volume, page views, etc). This can sometimes be
at odds with user-centered product design.

Highlights:

1) Trip Advisor is great for suggestions of places to go/things to see,

2) Regarding hotel reviews, the challenge is that there are many types of travelers - corporate executives,
students, retirees etc. What might be expected for a business traveler on an expense account might
not even be noticed by a student traveler. Personally, the hotel reviews are valuable as an "exclusion
alert" -- for example, if contributors report that hotel is very noisy, and I'm a light sleeper, that's a good
warning to find a different hotel. If I read a dozen reviews, and nobody mentions noise, then I'm good
to go.

3) Personalize results based on a user's preferences

4) Incorporate better filtering mechanisms that let a user zero in on the handful of results
that they're most likely going to like.

5) While TripAdvisor’s value is based on its user generated content and strength in e WOM communication,
Develop at least 5 (five) additional servicecape for the above business and prioritize them with
respect to their importance to customers. Provide justification supporting your prioritization.

As the internet has become a necessity for people’s daily lives, many companies strive to build a unique and
personalized relationship with their customers, not only in the physical environment, but also in the virtual
environment.

Many companies pay special attention to develop their web sites to enhance customers’ overall online
experience of the company because customers’ interactions with company’s online environmental settings
influence their emotional responses as well as their behaviors (i.e. return or purchase intention).

An online environment is often described as E-servicescape, describing how customers feel when they
visit a web site, as what customers feel when they visit a physical store. E-servicescape in service
companies (i.e. hotels and resorts) is especially important, since a web site provides customers with diverse
opportunities to preview the property before they actually visit the location.

For example, similar to the role of employee of a hotel as a first contact with its guests on a physical property,
a well-designed hotel web site can provide good impressions about the property to online customers before
they actually experience or stay at the property

Overall social factors:

Overall social factors of the web site will influence online consumers’ flow experiences

These functions are especially important for lodging web sites because many prospective customers review
previous customers’ experiences before they make an online reservation. However, these B2C and C2C social
factors are influenced by individual’s different self-regulation focus. When customers use the promotion-
focused strategy, they are more likely to respond to social factors of the lodging web site because they tend
to focus on positive outcomes and ideal pursuit.
Enhanced Feedback Section:
One aspect I often find inconvenient is that there is usually no overview of the activity. I would like a wiki style
intro section which people could edit, maybe even providing some relevant links.

To have a greater online presence

To flourish your online booking business. It is very important to have a strong online presence.

 Social Media: Social media platforms are an inseparable part when it comes to your online
presence. Create your account on the relevant social media platforms and handle it punctually. Keep
the engagement through posts and stories.
 Google Business Listings: Get your hotel listed as a Google Business to increase your hotel’s
visibility when a guest searches for hotels like yours.
 Google Hotel Ads: Google Hotel Ads is another sure-fire medium provided by Google to increase
your bookings and strengthen your online presence. It allows people who are searching for a hotel
in a particular location to immediately see prices, ratings and review, rooms availability and so on.
New customers from online channel
Over the past few years the company has invested vast sum of money into the online platform. This
investment has opened new sales channel for TripAdvisor, Inc. In the next few years the company can leverage
this opportunity by knowing its customer better and serving their needs using big data analytics.

Simplify your booking process

Lengthy and complicated booking process will not attract guests to book with tripadvisor. Make sure
the booking process should be the simplest (it should be as simple as 2 steps). Also, tripadvisor
should provide them with multiple payment modes so that they can easily pay and book instantly.

Attract your guests to book with you

When your audience is going through your website, offer them something attractive to book directly
with you. You can display a few alerts and pop-ups to keep your visitor engrossed with the website.
These widgets influence your visitor to book with you.