ICT and e-business in the tourism industry ICT adoption ... - empirica

Tourism
15% for the previous year. Other ancillary sales include onboard catering. This, however,
currently averages little more than €1.30 per passenger. At present, scratch cards are
sold so it is possible that, at some future stage, online gambling would be introduced. It is
likely that any increased revenue from gambling would be achieved by players being
drawn to facilities which would be made available via the well known Ryanair website.
The customer service quality facts are clear: the US Department of Transportation ranks
airlines on three criteria, on-time arrivals, baggage handling, and customer complaints.
Ryanair is consistently the European leader on all three measures. In addition due to the
minimal in-house administration costs afforded by the public online booking systems,
Ryanair’s low-cost-flights business marketing model includes frequent “give-away” flights
as well: 23% of its tickets were given away in 2005, and half of all flights are slated to be
“free” (i.e. not including taxes and landing charges) within the next four years. As
spokesman Peter Sherrard stated, “When demand is low, we give away empty seats and
find that passengers are buying our on-board food and drinks products, rent cars through
us and purchase hotel accommodation. It’s much better for us to have people feeding into
the revenue that way, even though they are travelling for free”.
References
Research for this case study was conducted by Henry J F Ryan, Lios Geal Consultants,
on behalf of e-Business W@tch. Sources and references used:
Information provided by Peter Sherrard and Lorna Farran, Ryanair
Communications in April 2006.
Desk research, company website www.Ryanair.com, annual reports and press
clippings.
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