Online Travel Industry
Internet travel bookings have been very prosperous these past couple of years. During the first three months of 2005, Internet travel bookings grew about 20 percent in the United States from the year earlier. Companies like Expedia, Travelocity, and Orbitz are putting more emphasis on selling to corporations and expanding in foreign markets. Travel has become one of the Web’s most developed categories. According to comScore, “online leisure travel bookings reached about $51 billion last year, or 44 percent of all online sales. Roughly 30 percent of all travel bookings occur online, which is a far greater share than retailing stores.” Between 2001 and 2003, leisure travel bookings more than tripled, to $43 billion.
After the September 2001 attacks, the travel supplier industry had to take action in order to stay profitable. The industries tried desperately to reach consumers by offering discounted airfares and hotel prices, but the industry did not have enough money to support the advertising and marketing of these bargains and deals that they offered after the September attacks. The industry then turned to companies like Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, and Priceline in order to advertise their bargains. These companies became great allies to the suppliers by selling hotel and airline bookings at hefty prices.
In order to save even more money, the travel industry began to reduce the number of cut-rate rooms and airline seats they offered through travel agencies, while increasing efforts to attract customers directly to their Web sites, where they could sell their products commission-free.
For starters a few days before the attack on 9/11, the airlines stocks did go up. Which means the supply and demand was greater. America was making more money, which is good. The airlines that stocks markets went up, were the airlines that were hijacked which than lead to them going bankrupt. Gabi Logan was saying on USA today “ Despite this government-funded measure, several prominent American airlines declared bankruptcy not long after the 9/11 attacks.” Due to bankruptcy more than just money was
Qantas has undertaken significant changes over the last decade to cope with internal and external factors such as the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 which effectively reduced the demand for international travel. Qantas initially reduced its international travel flying capacity by 11%. Fortunately, the collapse of Ansett which halted domestic competition in the Australian aviation industry which had dropped the bidding price war for consumer finances, softened the blow on September 12, 2001.
By targeting business travelers, we were able to make more profits. Despite the availability of close substitute (competitor), business travelers remained as our major customers and thus boost our profits.
The Airline Industry is a fascinating market. It has been one of the few industries to reach astounding milestones. For example, over 200 airlines have gone out of business since deregulation occurred in 1978. Currently, more than 50% of the airlines in the industry are operating under Chapter 11 regulations. Since 9/11, four of the six large carriers have filed for and are currently under bankruptcy court protection. Since 9/11 the industry has lost over $30 billion dollars, and this loss continues to increase. Despite the fact that the airline industry is in a state of despair, JetBlue has become the golden example, a glimpse of what the industry could be.
The seventh largest major domestic airline in the United States (US), Southwest Airlines, is commonly known or referred to as a low-cost carrier. Southwest Airlines is the only major airline that provides short-haul, point-to-point service in the United States. In fact it was the first airline of its type ever started; it has become the archetypical low-cost airline. The idea has proven itself so well, that other start-up airlines have based their company strategies upon the basics of Southwest. Today, there are two other low-cost air carriers (the other two airlines are considered national airlines and not major airlines) that are actively and aggressively competing with Southwest Airlines for business and profit turning. The three American low-cost air carriers are currently posting profits even in light of the US economy’s current state of affairs, with Southwest Airlines first, JetBlue second, and Air Tran third, in profits. How is this possible when the major six airlines are reporting losses of millions and millions of dollars each quarter? The answer to this question begins about 30 years ago.
When the attacks of September 11th occurred, the federal government had to completely close down some airports in the US. This created a negative effect on the industry as it was a shock to their entire organization. Planes in the US and around the world were canceled due to this attack as well. Planes were not flying anywhere, as the plan was to prevent any other attack. Each plane that was cancelled had to be paid by the airline company directly. According to the International Air Transport Association there was a drastic change in the amount of flights between the date before and after the event. Around 37,600 less flights flew the day after the attack had occurred. The number of flights dramatically decreased in those three days; in addition every...
Along with the low stock index numbers of September 17th, the airline industry and travel stocks were also rocked. One of several airlines announcing layoffs, US Airways said that they would be terminating 11,000 jobs. These heavy losses were contributed to airlines “being grounded last week [week of September 11th], plus passengers have been apprehensive to fly, in the wake of the hijackings” (Stock Markets Reopen 1).
Southwest Airlines has effectively used a variety of promotional elements in its integrated marketing communications, making it one of America’s largest airlines with 3,300 flights a day to 72 domestic cities. Southwest Airlines has used all four possible elements of the promotion mix: advertising, public relations, personal selling, and sales promotion, but has focused primarily on advertising and public relations to add value to the product offered to customers. Its focus on advertising and public relations is directly related to its large size and it’s nationwide reach. Also, advertising and public relations are the most cost-efficient methods of promotion, and an airline as large as Southwest is forced to have promotional elements that benefit from economies of scale.
Over the last 20 years, airlines have distributed ticket sales through online tickets sales, via individual airline websites, through online travel sites, or through travel agencies. This has changed the way that individuals can purchase airline tickets, rather than the antiquated methods of going to the airport counter to book a flight.
Airline and travel industry profitability has been strapped by a series of events starting with a recession in business travel after the dotcom bust, followed by 9/11, the SARS epidemic, the Iraq wars, rising aviation turbine fuel prices, and the challenge from low-cost carriers. (Narayan Pandit, 2005) The fallout from rising fuel prices has been so extreme that any efficiency gains that airlines attempted to make could not make up for structural problems where labor costs remained high and low cost competition had continued to drive down yields or average fares at leading hub airports. In the last decade, US airlines alone had a yearly average of net losses of $9.1 billion (Coombs, 2011).
Economics plays a huge role in the airline industry. For Southwest, the CEO states that they kicked off a “low fare revolution” back forty-five years ago when the company began. It was their goal to make flying affordable and convenient for the average man; flying was no longer going to be just for the elite. According to CEO Gary Kelly when Southwest Airline originated “only 15 percent of Americans had traveled by plane” (The Low-Fare Revolution). That number has currently risen to more than 85 percent of the United States population, with a large part of the credit going to Southwest Airline. All of this being said, one author notes that since
When a business aims to be as successful as possible in selling its products and services, it must examine in detail whether or not the products will be attractive and necessary; if the price is optimal; if the product is being distributed in the best locations; and finally, how interest and awareness can be created for the products. In order for a business to target all of these elements to the right people at the right time, it must employ the right type of marketing mix: Product, Price, Place and Promotion. In a dysfunctional time for the airline industry, most airlines, especially major carriers, are adapting the concept of "doing less with more." One low-cost carrier, JetBlue, is changing the domestic aviation landscape in this regard and is defying the odds. Here is a company that has examined each marketing mix elements carefully, has adapted them to its customer’s needs, and is succeeding because of this approach.
Thanks to these factors, pricing becomes one of the primary uses with which hotels attract customers. However, due to customers’ independent nature, there influence over industry players is limited. In the high-end segment of hotels, price influence becomes even less as hotels find it easier to differentiate themselves from the competition and customers become less price sensitive coming to expect higher prices as a symbolism of superior quality and services. Lastly, corporate business and tour operators can exert more influence due to their large purchases but this affect is of a limited nature and does not extend across the whole
In recent years, business tourism has become increasingly prevalent and prevailing in the tourism industry. There are large quantities of significant changes which have far-reaching implications for all consumers and suppliers of business travel such as consumption patterns, great developments in transport and communications technology, and the world´s political and economic changes related to tourism industry. All these developments have brought large effects on business travel as well as the main challenges to this sector for the coming years. Every day, tens of thousands of people are beginning or ending their business trips all around the world, while numerous conferences or exhibitions are being held globally, so business tourism is a
There are factors which are affecting the consumer behavior in Tourism are Safety and mature consumers, Web, Pricing and tourism studies. The web is considered one of the important factors, which have been argued by the authors about its importance in terms of its influencing acknowledgment.