E-tourism in England a strategy .pdf

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Source: BTA/ETC 2002 It is apparent from this table that over half of tourism businesses now have a website and growth has been significant over the last year. However, only 2% of serviced accommodation businesses covered by this survey offered online booking, probably reflecting the large proportion of small guest accommodation operators represented here, for whom e-commerce represents a further stage of adaptation. As may be expected, the level of e-business activity in the hotel sector is more substantial, although a recent survey revealed that 42% of hotels surveyed did not have a formal e- business strategy. 1 Most major hotel groups and holiday operators now offer online booking facilities that are linked to inventory management systems which also support call centre and front desk operations. Commercial travel agencies have used extensive (and expensive) computerised reservation systems linked to air travel carriers and major tour operators for many years, largely supporting outbound travel. The development of the web, with its lower operating costs, has resulted in the emergence of new web-based booking agents such as Travelocity and LastMinute.com. Increasingly, hotel group systems and traditional travel agency systems are being linked to such webbased systems. It remains difficult, however, for the smaller tourism providers to link to such systems, which generally require guaranteed room allocations or continuous connection to hotel management systems. The result is a patchwork of separate systems offering selections of tourism products rather than a coherent and comprehensive market place in which consumers can readily search, compare and book. The immediate challenge therefore is to provide a coherent e-business framework for tourism in England. The smaller enterprises will then need to be convinced that e-business is worth investing in and the larger businesses persuaded that they can also benefit from aligning themselves with such a national system. 3.2 Lessons learnt from abroad Not surprisingly, since e-business is a global issue, many other countries have invested in e- tourism. A review of experience in other countries (described in Appendix 2) reveals that several countries have adopted some form of collaborative national and regional approach to product data management as a platform for web-based marketing and distribution. These precedents, whilst different in structure and degree of integration, support the ‘federal’ strategy proposed for England. It also makes sense for England to achieve as much consistency as possible with the database structures being developed in Wales and Scotland. 3.3 Key trends in e-business A full analysis of trends in the use of the Internet and e-commerce is set out in Appendix 3. The key market trends: • Use of the Internet has been increasing dramatically around the world – nearly ten-fold over the past six years. Growth is forecast to continue for the next five years, with webenabled mobile devices helping to stimulate this trend. It is not yet clear when this is 1 Hospitality e-Business: the Future, June 2001. 10/44 A strategy for modernising English tourism through e-business – July 2002
likely to reach saturation point or maturity, but some 39% of all UK households are now able to access the Internet from home. • Increasing proportions of Internet users are buying online, with a predicted 32% of UK users forecast to use the Internet for retail transactions over the next five years. • Travel and tourism will gain an increasingly large share of the global online commerce market, from an estimated 30% today to around 50% in the future. • The dominance of air travel has reduced from more than 80% four years ago to about 60% now, whilst hotels’ share correspondingly has doubled to nearly 25%. Accommodation, car hire and other ground-based products will gain a larger share of global online commerce in travel and tourism. • User profiles broadly match the target markets of many tourism organisations – Internet users tend to be relatively wealthy, well educated, and interested in independent travel. Data from the Office for National Statistics about Internet usage concludes that: There is a consistently high (43-52%) level of Internet usage amongst all age groups up to the age of 55. Older people have a lower (but certainly not insignificant) level of usage – almost one third of those up to 64 and one-sixth for those 65+. Usage increases consistently across the social groups, from 18% of socio-economic classification DE (low income) to more than 60% of ABs (professionals). Whilst three years ago, some 35% of women were Internet users compared with 42% of men, the gender gap has been closing. By October 2001 this had climbed to 51% of women and 55% of men. 3.4 The economic benefits of e-business The economic benefits of e-business arise from gains in operational efficiency and marketing effectiveness. These benefits are virtually impossible to estimate accurately, but, in broad terms, it is reasonable to predict an increase in productivity (including efficiency gains and value added) of between 25% and 33%. Specific productivity benefits could include financial gains, cost savings and non-financial benefits, particularly in areas like business administration and marketing costs: • Potential areas to enable additional income generation will include sales of tourism products such as accommodation and short-term special offers via the web, electronic mail and other new media channels. • Potential areas for cost savings could include reduced costs for publications - production costs, print runs and distribution; and savings in staff time – print production, enquiry handling, reservations, communications, etc. • Potential areas for non-financial gains will include increased marketing effectiveness and quality of customer service and relationship; increased productivity; and enhanced performance and better evaluation mechanisms. Whilst there would also be additional costs associated with e-business, such as online sales commissions, the net impact is likely to be positive. 11/44 A strategy for modernising English tourism through e-business – July 2002
Page 1 and 2: E-tourism in England A strategy for
Page 3 and 4: Contents Foreword 3 1. Executive su
Page 5 and 6: time content on the availability of
Page 7 and 8: 2. Introduction Tourism is a major
Page 9: 3. Background In tourism, as elsewh
Page 13 and 14: This strategy and the EnglandNet pr
Page 15 and 16: 4.2.2 Travel trade Potential requir
Page 17 and 18: • To be integrated into a nationa
Page 19 and 20: information. Technically, this woul
Page 21 and 22: 6. Key roles in support of e-touris
Page 23 and 24: As EnglandNet develops 3 , the pote
Page 25 and 26: 6.2.5 Regional Development Agencies
Page 27 and 28: Key Actions Lead role Others involv
Page 29 and 30: This same network, with some modifi
Page 31 and 32: Maintain a communications strategy
Page 33 and 34: 8. Monitoring and evaluation To eva
Page 35 and 36: Appendix 2: E-tourism in other coun
Page 37 and 38: 1.1 Internet users’ profile Inter
Page 39 and 40: Thus, over a period of only five ye
Page 41 and 42: It also indicates the reasons cited
Page 43 and 44: 60% 55% 50% 45% 40% 35% 30% 25% 20%

E-tourism in England a strategy .pdf

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?