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Much has changed in the business world since the birth of technology and the subsequent discovery of the world wide web (www) in 1989.
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Much has changed in the business world since the birth of technology and the subsequent discovery of the world wide web (www) in 1989.
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According to South African Tourism (2015), more than 180 million bed nights were sold in 2015, making the hotel industry an attractive client of e-commerce.
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suppliers and customers meet in a virtual space to perform transactions using Internet technology as it has the potential to add substantial value to business operations and competitiveness of a business.
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scene of the famous lion-buffalo-crocodile battle watched more than 75 million times on YouTube)
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e-commerce has not only
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changed the way business is conducted, but has increased the revenue of organisations tremendously, in particular that of the travel and tourism industry.
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The top three visited travel sites include Booking.com, Expedia.com and Hotels.com.
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survey conducted in Hong Kong of 249 leisure travellers, 80% searched for hotel information using Web tools, with more than half making their bookings through hotel host websites or third-party websites
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They wouldn't be able to gather this information on technology unless they had the proper technology to do so.
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right: © 2016 A
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understand how the various online sales platforms interconnect.
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the internet consumer of today assumes all businesses worthy of trade have a website;
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it is not enough for hotels to rely on their web pages alone for room sales.
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An aspect of e-commerce revolves around how social media affects a hotel’s online presence, and how it is used as a tool for gaining a notable share in the e-commerce market for hotel room sales.
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In an increasingly competitive market place, tourism products require an effective distribution strategy for a firm to reach its target tourists and local markets
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E-commerce mainly helps in the generation of leads, presenting information about the tourism product to the customers, and facilitating the transaction process electronically
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The Internet is an ideal platform for the tourism industry
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1) they are intangible, 2) their production and consumption cannot be separated, 3) they are perishable, and 4) they are seasonal
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online travel booking is the specific business-to-consumer (B2C) transaction in the context of online tourism
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Social commerce should be considered broader than the act of sharing shopping experiences with others, as it has challenged and redefined traditional vendor-push business models and marketing strategies (Gonçalves Curty & Zhang, 2013:260-261).
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E-commerce allows the tourism consumer to purchase tourism products and packages online and act as his or her own travel agent by building personalised travel packages and eliminitaing the need for traditional processes
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From a hotel business perspective, e-Procurement is a good example of the innovative use of technology in the lodging industry
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2B
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E-procurement can be defined as a business-to-business (B2B) tool that supports the buying process
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implementing e-procurement has become an important enabler for achieving a flexible and responsive supply chain.
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An example of e-procurement or a business-to-business transaction would be a hotel selling its rooms to OTAs on a wholesale or commission basis.
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e-commerce in the modern tourism and hospitality industry is important because the Internet is the lowest cost hotel-booking channel, most travellers research hotel reservations on the Internet, and social media and online hotel reviews are an increasingly important decision factor.
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there are three most common retail sales channels – brick-and-mortar, catalogue and the Web – across the elements that characterise the shopping and business ownership experience
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Travel services are categorised into Accommodation and Airlines, as these two components constitute a large part of the hospitality industry.
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This research study is focused on room sales, therefore the distribution channels used for this purpose will be explained, namely, Online Travel Agents (OTAs) and merchant sites.
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Today, e-commerce focuses on profitability.
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challenge for retailers is to attract the attention of the digital natives (consumers who have grown up in the digital world) and persuade them to spend more, as well as to attract digital immigrants (consumers who are presumed to resist new technology or at least have trouble accepting it) to this way of shopping.
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Social media can increase communication for a website and create brand awareness.
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a social network is a virtual community, profile site or website on the Internet that brings people together in a central location, to talk, share ideas and interests or make new friends.
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platforms such as social network services (
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is one of the main reasons for advancement in Web 2.0 technologies and developments in e-commerce.
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social commerce providers started their businesses by combining group-buying with selling discount coupons offered from their partners over the Internet.
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Although the statistic does not identify the specific modes used to make room reservations, it can be presumed that electronic sales made up a considerable percentage as sales method.
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consumers have become the storytellers and are the new brand ambassadors.
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social media is driven by word-of-mouth and if done properly can improve positioning in the market
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e-commerce is still new. Getting (2007), maintain that most online communities are free and are growing at a rapid rate.
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An online rating site is a system of ranking places, products and services via customer reviews based on past experiences.
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TripAdvisor is classified as a meta-search engine, which is defined by Webopedia (2015) as a search engine that queries other search engines and then combines the results.
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the prevalence of traveller reviews had a significant impact on the online sales of hotel rooms and that hotel managers should seriously consider the impact that online reviews of their hotels on these websites have on the consumer.
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Online channels allow the potential customer to see the location details and compare hotel prices easily, as well as read online reviews which have a wider reach and are less ephemeral than traditional word-of-mouth reviews.
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Figure 1 further illustrates the direct booking channel guests have to hotels via the Internet.
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Reservation System (CRS) in the 1960s to the Global Distribution System (GDS) in the 1980s and the advent of the Internet in the early 1990s, the tourism industry has always been confronted with the rise of new technological developments
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rapid growth of online travel agencies caused traditional indirect distribution channels through tourism intermediaries to decline
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The Internet has become an integral part of everyday life. In order for businesses to be sustainable, they need to have an e-commerce presence
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it is a service that can be readily offered to global markets and it can become a trade platform joining suppliers and buyers from around the world
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with technological advancements, firms are increasingly reaching out to their customers through a variety of channels such as e-commerce, m-commerce and brick-and-mortar establishments. Heinemann and Schwarzl (2010:1) contend online retail today is taking place at a higher level of evolution than in the initial years of e-commerce.
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there are technical and non-technical aspects associated with e-commerce
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How can hotels compete in a digital world and what will their future business models look like?
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an intranet as a private network, operated by a large company or organisation, which uses internet technologies, but is insulated from the global Internet by a firewall (a system designed to prevent unauthorised access). An extranet, however, is an intranet that is accessible to some people from outside the company
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studies in the tourism and hospitality arena have indicated that ICT is a tool particularly suited to this industry for a variety of reasons.
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The Internet has become an integral part of everyday life. In order for businesses to be sustainable, they need to have an e-commerce presence
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The hospitality industry is an ideal trade for making use of e-commerce and the social web.
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Reputable booking sites such as Booking.com, Expedia.com and Tripadvisor are visited by over 300 million online visitors each month.
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Internet users have become demanding in their expectations of company presence online.
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“if I can’t find enough information on your hotel it’s probably not a good choice.”
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E-commerce is expected to reach global sales of $1.5 trillion by 2018 (Statista, 2016), and therefore hotels in CT will need to increase their presence on the internet, not only on booking sites, but also on the social web in order to receive a sizable share of electronic sales.
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This article talks about where the internet has brought us in the business world and where it is taking us. There are other articles included to support the idea that hospitality businesses need the internet inorder to successfully reach out to and market toward customers. Along with the idea that if a business does not have an online presence,that, is an untapped stream of revenue. As well as the combined business efforts that go into delivering a flawless product to its customers via the web. There were two case studies that took place in order to understand the role e-commerce has played and will potentially play in the hospitality industry.
