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There are 3 new posts in "WATBlog.com - Web, Advertising and Technology Blog in India" State of Affairs: WATBlog Analyses The Indian Online Travel SpaceInnovations, deals, slowdown, growth, if anyone has been tracking the Online Travel Agents and Portals space lately it is abuzz with news of all kinds. The highs and travails of being one of the few successful business models on the web in India I guess. The online travel segment has been one of the best performing in the e-commerce space in India and has been amongst the fastest growing as well. If a government driven portal can make money by the millions then surely there is no question about its scale and success. Recently, the sector has seen a flurry of activities including newer features, potential mergers, international deals, funding and even pink slips which strangely didn’t stuck out as a sore thumb. WATBlog decided to do a follow up of our much appreciated Bird’s eye view of the Indian online travel niche we covered in May. In this post we discuss
The Latest NewsThe past couple of weeks (months actually) had its share of news circulating in the Indian blogosphere covering the OTA space. Right from Travelguru reportedly being picked up international giant Expedia, to the launch of bus search services by Rediff and Ixigo, to the launch of Tripadvisor and hotels 2.0, to Zoomtra and Yatra going international, along with m-ticketing being made available by Ticketwala and Cleartrip laying off nearly 42 employees despite getting heavily funded and to complete the circle a middleman entrant in the form of Gosinbad - an ad network focusing in the online travel niche. And add to this the latest cup of news coming out that perhaps the Travelguru-Expedia deal which was never officially confirmed has been called off. And we also had the big launch of Cleartrip’s train booking service. It is big, because train bookings currently seem the most lucrative market and almost all portals were are eyeing that pie, and CT would certainly drive home the first mover advantage. While the train booking service was expected since the announcement by IRCTC to open its API way back in January this year, the apparent call off of a deal which finally seemed like the harbinger of consolidation in the niche is certainly a dampener. Apparently, Expedia developed cold feet on the value of Travelguru at the last moment. The initial reports which came around in July had suggested Expedia to invest as much as $17 million into Travelguru to take its valuation to nearly $75 million. The deal unfortunately though has been called off. The idea and impact of these news pieces can be seen only when we understand the current scenario of the entire industry and the atmosphere surrounding it. The Current Outlook and Enviroment of the SpaceThe rising fuel prices can be held responsible for almost all that is happening in the online travel segment whether good or bad. Aviation driven traffic on these sites has slumped considerably in the domestic market owing to the hike in prices by almost all airlines (by as much as 40%) which was a direct fall out. This meant a slowdown in the entire OTA sector because they were primarily driven by airline ticket sales, the reason of course being IRCTC monopoly over railway ticketing. And if rising fuel prices were not enough, the zero percent agent commission policy also fluttered the wings of the ‘high flying’ online travel space. Therefore they began looking for newer alternatives. The OTA space began looking offline to drive ticket sales while travel portals added more flavor to their service on their way (no pun intended) to become aggregators. We then saw Rediff and Ixigo launched bus search service; Ixigo in fact took it a notch higher by bringing hotels 2.0 into the picture. Seeing the dwindling airlines market perhaps, and the fact that railways wasn’t open, bus ticketing services went on an overdrive with Ticketwala leading the pack. It opportunistically added mobile ticketing services and hired a big gun to fire a nationwide advertising campaign. Players like Cleartrip and Makemytrip, Yatra and Travelguru though began facing the crunch with the rising fuel costs, lesser sales and the lack of an opening to generate scale. Cleartrip chopped a big chunk of its team and Travelguru first tried to find a buyer and now as we know finds itself without one. However, the growth in the internet usage, added with the lucrative and now spending Indian middle class shining bright it attracted both new players as well as innovative packages. For all said and done, the online travel market was expected to touch a pleasing $6 billion by 2010. So we had, Expedia which had already entered the Indian market earlier in the year now bring in Tripadvisor. The fact that it was an international player with an established Indian audience gave it a quick edge over Oktatabyebye and Raahi (MMT and Yatra owned respectively). And earlier in the year we saw Makemytrip launch special holiday plus package while Travelguru went the affiliate route. It thus added a much needed new dimension to the fast crowding market. And to this, the much awaited opening of IRCTC API which happened in July, and all eyes were on who would push the gates first. Cleartrip took the honours while it is anybody’s guess to know that others will follow suit soon. Considering the fact that Makemytrip was the first to launch the much blogged about rail search service early this year, Cleartrip has certainly taken the wind out of their sails with this move. Makemytrip had commented on livemint.com on how important it for them to get into the rail segment amplifying the impact of Cleartrip’s launch. Deep Karla of MMT had in fact quoted that, "You cannot be in the travel space without rail ticketing. We were away from the scene (till now) since railways did not allow us.” (Source: livemint.com). Therefore it is obvious to expect similar news with perhaps innovative added features coming out in the near future as to that of Cleartrip. The Way ForwardBesides expected features as mentioned above, maybe we can expect a lot of innovation in this segment both technologically as well as in terms of marketing, services and their approach in general. Thinking out loud here, a tie up or some sort of consolidation surely on the cards. In a market which has all players with perhaps the same level of experience and with little to call in terms of technology difference, they are bound to provide similar core services. We already see players going all out to cater to all kinds of users right from the big ones to the lesser known talking the same jargon and same services. Something has to give here. On the other hand we might also see individual tie ups happening to create unique packages and offers in an attempt to distinguish and create an USP. But things can’t continue the way they are now. Everyone is a ‘leading travel site‘, everyone offers ‘the best deals‘, everyone gives ‘unmatched packages‘, why are so many of you there then? The situation also calls for aggressive marketing tactics which can be expected in a highly competitive market. While the downside of course is the dwindling pie, on the other hand it can drive up growth of the online segment which will be good for the entire Indian e-commerce industry in general. Aggressive marketing will also bring in VAS into play with added dangling carrots for the user. So one can expect travel discounts, combined holiday packages, convenient booking systems and perhaps more intuitive and hassle free interfaces. This essentially would be good news for all of us who use the web for our travel arrangements. Where Does the Potential Lie?Niche portals or services perhaps, something like luxury products on the lines of what Yatra introduced recently. Then we have news of state governments trying to push tourism further with innovative products and experiences themselves, which might open a lot more options for travel websites to carve out a difference. We might also see a lot of middle players offer value add services either enabling a certain technology or opening up a new vertical like how Gosinbad did with its ad network. Beyond the services of course, as is the case with any online entity, the content and level of engagement which extends to building trust in the brand will matter a lot in the long run. Efforts like that of Cleartrip in having a tutorial explaining the ticket booking process even before launching the service through their blog will certainly help push visitor loyalty and usage in an excessively competitive and in demand market. To conclude the online travel space seems ripe at the moment for innovation to come into play. User experience and value addition to the core products might be the differentiating factor for the market players to look at implementing. Either way, for the end user the industry certainly carries some good news. Related Posts Also check out Our Jobsite: WATJob Our Video Show: WATShow Our Gaming Blog: WATGame Our Consulting: WATConsult SatNav Technologies Launches Initiative For GPS Enthusiast, To Enable Community InvolvementSatNav Technologies, a Hyderabad based IT company has just launched “Citizen Mapper” - an initiative for encouraging the community involvement in enhancing the quality of its GPS software database. This includes rewarding the user for suggesting new Point of Interests (PoI). The user gets a credit of Rs.5 every time a Point of Interest is added to the map. Once the user gets to 50 credits, she can avail to a free upgrade to SatGuide. Taking the help of community to upgrade a GPS database makes lot of sense. GPS has a very high resolution, so, the possibilities of PoIs are much higher here. As is obvious, it won’t be possible for a single company to build such a huge database. Asking users to submit interesting points and incentivizing the same is a strategy that can work. GPS services have taken off in India. Many Indians companies have been launching their own versions of mappings services. Nokia Maps was one such service which was heavily advertised recently. The consumers have come to know about Maps and Mapping applications. With devices becoming stronger by the day, running a GPS app looks like a no brainer. Though, it hasn’t still caught on in India in a big way, if the carriers and GPS companies work together to provide the services in an affordable manner, it might just work big time. Related PostsAlso check out Our Jobsite: WATJob Our Video Show: WATShow Our Gaming Blog: WATGame Our Consulting: WATConsult Protect Your Company’s Stock Prices From Noise Through Social MediaNot many might have noticed, however, a couple of weeks back a 6 year old article began going about the web as breaking news about United Airlines applying for Bankruptcy, caused as much as a 75 percent drop in the airline’s stock, highlighting the impact of information processing and its effects in new media. Just to give you a backdrop of the story, “The steep sell-off in United's shares came after a news service in Florida distributed an old story posted on the South Florida Sun-Sentinel Web site six years ago. The recirculated story gave the appearance that United had filed for bankruptcy protection again. In fact, the story was originally published Dec. 10, 2002, by the Chicago Tribune, marking the airline's decision at that time to seek protection from creditors. Moments after a headline for the story hit Bloomberg who took cue from this apparent ‘new story’, shares in United stock fell from about $12 a share to a low of $3, prompting a halt in trading of United stock.” (Source:Chicacgo Tribune) Considering the volatile environment of the markets in general these days, such news might have irrevocable effects, in United’s case fortunately the truth came out and the stock recovered the losses later on. However, their reputation certainly might have been hampered a bit. All this could have been avoided had they kept a track of their brand name and its mention and used the influence and reach of Social Media to thwart rumours in their bud. The best part is it wouldn’t have even consumed much time or cost anything, social media never does much anyway. So how does one handle the flow of information on the web?WATBlog suggests taking the following steps particularly with regards to managing news which can have a negative impact on your stock prices. 1. Connect with your investors through social networking sites:The multiple options that most social networking sites give help in quickly reaching out to your target audience. You can create a group on Facebook or a community on Orkut specially for your investors, say ‘WATBlog Investor Community’ and reach out to your investors through your website or any other communication you already peruse. You can use the send message to members option to quickly connect with the users with messages that can be as short as 2 or 3 lines instead of the two page long PR that you need otherwise. 2. Become part of microblogging communities and track your brand mentions:The way microblogging is catching on, it is inevitable that much like social networks which boast of over 100 million users, even services like Twitter, Pownce will have a major following. And as has often been seen lately, news spreads on these services really fast and we have seen instances of Twitter breaking news stories off late. Here is an very good read on Twitter as a news tool. You can begin by following financial bloggers on twitter and other online journalists whose handles can be easily found through their websites and profiles. Next, start susbscribing to RSS feeds on keyterms like your brand name or stock symbol on Summize or Twitter Search as it is known now. This way you can keep yourself updated about any mention and reach out to the carriers of information. Endorse the fact that you are on twitter so that people can confirm any news about you that they have heard or want to share. 3. Subscribe to Google News Alerts and Popular Financial Blogs:Subscribing is one of the best way to track topics online. Put in news alerts for your brand name, or the exchanges that you want to follow and you will keep getting updates. In United’s case this could have been very handy because the news wasn’t picked up immediately after Google News crawled the old page presuming (with valid reasons) to be new. The news could have been immediately blotted out had someone been tracking the brand. The same is the case with popular blogs, they have highly influential visitor base and are often looking for breaking news. Subscribing to blogs and alerts are easy as checking emails. WATBlog has in fact provided an in depth tutorial on RSS feeds and subscribing earlier. 4. Keep in Touch With Popular Forum ModeratorsIt wouldn’t be productively viable to monitor and be part of forum activities online, unless that is your job all the time. Hence, it would be a good idea to be in touch with forum owners or moderators to do the work for you to inform you if they see a new thread or topic about your company that is catching a lot of attention. You can then correct the information on the same platform and put an end to noise. The forum guys would be happy to assist because it also lends credibility to their own community. Even a huge network like Network18 use their Moneycontrol forum to promote and pitch their new offerrings. 5. Have a corporate blog and use it to provie complete details on the issue at handNumerous views and opinions have been published online on the importance of having a corporate blog and its benefits. Yet, many are still sluggish with their acceptance to these inherent benefits a communication platform like a blog provides. Nevertheless, build one if you don’t have one and use it to provide all the details about the issue at hand to your investors, customers and even employees. In the points mentioned before, given the fact that you have to reach out quickly the messages maybe short and to the point. With a blog you can go in depth and have a complete coverage of any misproduction of information for current and future reference. It will also help bury the negative news that would be floating around on the web. If you look at the above points, most of them are not very different from a regular Online Reputation Management campaign. However, the scrutiny keeping in mind the latest developments was on the financial industry and aimed at marketers handling financial products and brand. We hope you find this information useful in extending your presence and making the most of it during time which require action online. Also, though the tone of the post might intend a direct address to those responsible for a company’s brand to take part actively in social media, it need not quite be the case. The above mentioned activities can easily be assigned to a trainee or an intern to handle and keep track of. This will considerably save costs, time and effort on part of the organization while still being socially saavy. Related PostsAlso check out Our Jobsite: WATJob Our Video Show: WATShow Our Gaming Blog: WATGame Our Consulting: WATConsult More Recent Articles
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