Travel eBusiness Models - Travelocity
Author: David Bain
Article:
Travelocity.com / Travelocity.co.uk is owned and operated by
Sabre Holdings - a products, distribution and technology
solutions company focused on the travel industry. Their consumer
direct and business direct side of the business is Travelocity.
Travelocity has several million registered users and booked $4.9
billion worth of travel business in 2004. [Sabre-Holdings.com]
At the time of writing,
Travelocity is the second most popular
brand in the world in the Internet travel marketplace.
Travelocity.com is also the 386th most popular website in the
world, whilst the British version, Travelocity.co.uk is the
4884th most popular. [Ranking.com]
Travelocity was established in 1996 as a subsidiary or Sabre
Holdings and was the first travel website that allowed users to
browse, reserve and book travel-related products online.
[Answers.com]
Initially Travelocity appeared to be extremely 'community
orientated' - regularly arranging offline meetings and
presentations for 'do-it-yourself travellers'.
In 1998 Travelocity changed direction and became more 'travel
deals orientated'. They did this by incorporating the
availability to book flights, hotels and car hire directly from
their home page. [Archive.org]
In 2000 Travelocity became more aware of the need to market
themselves as a brand. This resulted in 2002 with a complete
re-design of the website to make it more user-friendly and
encourage return visitors.
Travelocity's present day website (designed in 2004) 'look and
feel' is starting to rely more on a higher percentage of
graphics. This offers website users a more visually appealing
experience, although it does rely on the user being more likely
to have a slightly faster Internet connection than they used to.
[Archive.org]
Travelocity Position
Travelocity.com is a fun, friendly, informative, useful and easy
to use website. In addition to this it is professional and
reliable. This demonstrates that Travelocity is comfortable to
try and be a 'love all, serve all' Internet Travel Portal.
Travelocity is however a company with an aggressive stance. It
does not form strategic alliances with other companies in order
to promote affiliate-marketing programmes. In addition, it
regularly seeks out potential competitors to buy.
In 2000, Travelocity purchased another early web travel company,
Preview Travel, [Answers.com] whilst in 2002 it purchased
Site59.com - a New York based travel business that specialise in
late bookings.
On 12th May 2005 it was announced that Travelocity had agreed to
buy
lastminute.com for £577m - creating Europe's biggest online
travel retailer. [Silicon.com] Part of the reason why
Travelocity wants to gain dominance quickly in the Internet
Travel Marketplace and grow by acquisition is that it
understands that the market is growing and evolving quickly.
It wants to be the first choice in the majority of consumers'
minds for future travel purchases. This is therefore one of
their major strengths. Whether or not their decision not to
evolve by forming strategic alliances may thwart this aggressive
growth strategy is yet to be seen.
To a certain degree, opportunities within the Internet travel
marketplace for Travelocity are still limitless. They can still
expand to cover more countries Internationally, they can still
improve upon their overall marketshare and they can still expect
both Internet users and the amount of Internet users willing to
book online to increase significantly.
Travelocity Core Competences
Travelocity are striving towards ensuring that their brand is
the most recognised and trusted available in the Internet Travel
marketplace. Their most important core competency is to offer an
integrated, easy-to-use and intuitive website that keeps people
wanting to come back to it much more that any competitor in the
field.
Travelocity Competitive Advantage
Travelocity have recently introduced their Bill of Rights onto
their website: Customers have the right to...
1) Get what you booked
2) The best overall value in travel 3) Accurate and objective
information upfront
4) Find what you're looking for quickly and easily
5) A straightforward presentation of your options
6) Speak with someone and get help anytime
7) Be inspired by your travel company
[Travelocity.com]
These seven key customer issues have been highlighted to
demonstrate why Travelocity believe that they are better than
the competition. Travelocity want their brand to represent
trust, reliability and service and therefore define what they
believe their competitive advantage to be.
The Merchant Model Conclusion
The merchant model is without doubt the most competitive
Internet business model for the travel industry. The two main
worldwide competitors - Expedia and Travelocity have chosen to
focus upon price and service level differentiation respectively.
It could be argued that Expedia however focus on their
value-adding activities - their existing infrastructure in order
to derive their core competencies of efficiency and price.
Travelocity on the other hand rely upon their 'bill of rights'
core competency in order to drive their 'value adding
activities'.
David Bain is founder of the
United Kingdom tourist
information website
http://www.TREKtheUK.com.
TREKtheUK is a comprehensive United Kingdom tourist information
guide featuring lots of places to go and things to do. Why not
consider
Wales
travel?
About the author:
David Bain is founder of the
United Kingdom tourist
information website
http://www.TREKtheUK.com.
TREKtheUK is a comprehensive United Kingdom tourist information
guide featuring lots of places to go and things to do. Why not
consider
Wales
travel?
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- Lone Wolf Adventure Articles and books on adventure, travel/adventure jobs, world travel on $25 a day, and how to travel for free.
-
Travel Cheap! Travel Well A book devoted purely for budget travel and discount travel. All the travel hot spots, the unknown secrets, the special deals.
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