chang haoying, rebecca lin yimin, lincoln xu yunke...
TRANSCRIPT
Chang Haoying, Rebecca
Lin Yimin, Lincoln
Xu Yunke, Catrina
Zhao Zhao, Gigi
Zou Xiaohan, Lotus
A Project
Submitted
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
For the Master of
Social Sciences in Media Management
Supervisor: Dr. David Ko Lap Kwong
School of Communications and School of Business
Hong Kong Baptist University
Hong Kong
May 2015
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Abstract
Recent years, Chinese government has issued some policies to encourage the tourism
industry. With the large amount of capital input, 2014 saw the bloom of OTA market.
However, advancement is inevitably accompanied with problems. Three giant
OTAs----Ctrip, Elong, Qunar, taking over half OTA market share, have done vertical
integrations to monopoly downstream resources, which adversely triggers low price
battles in OTA industry. Besides, new startups’ participation makes the competition
fiercer than ever.
Unexceptionally, Yaochufa, a startup online travel agency whose service mainly
focusing on peri-urban tourism, is also affected by this market environment.
Therefore, this essay will cover the company’s current business model, the analysis of
the existing market, the threat and obstacles in the current and future market, possible
future strategies and the development for its expansion.
The analysis of this paper is based on background research, quantitative and
qualitative study. A significant amount of second hand information has been collected
from the Internet, academic journals, and the company’s business report. The
information has been classified and further preceded, helping to understand the
company’s external and internal environment, its existing strategies, major
competiveness as well as the threats from its fierce competitors. Based on the
knowledge above and previous researches, we designed a quantitative survey to
examine the online travel agency users’ habits and behaviors. Questionnaires are to be
distributed both online and offline, to enable the quantity, width and quality of the
sample. At the meantime, qualitative study is conducted by interviewing the
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marketing manger, Mr. Wushupeng. With his sharing, we are able to understand the
company’s strategies and industry ecology from an insider’s view.
Keyword: Yaochufa, OTA, Strategic Analysis
Declaration
We declare that unless otherwise stated, all research is original. All references cired in
this research paper have been read appropriately.
Signed: Date:
Chang Haoying, Rebecca
Signed: Date:
Lin Yimin, Lincoln
Signed: Date:
Xu Yunke, Catrina
Signed: Date:
Zhao Zhao, Gigi
Signed: Date:
Zou Xiaohan, Lotus
Acknowledgements
We would like to give our profound thanks to Dr. David Ko, our project supervisor,
for his inclusive comments, invaluable advice and enduring support throughout the
project.
We are especially grateful to all our families and friends for their generous support
towards the fulfillment of the project, including Dr. David Ko for editing the final
report. In addition, we would like to thank Mr. Pengshu Wu, the senior manager of
marketing department of Yaochufa, in accepting our invitation to be interviewed and
also his valuable sharing.
Table of Contents
ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................. 2
DECLARATION .......................................................................................................... 4
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................ 5
TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................. 6
1. INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................... 9
1.1 Objectives of the Study .................................................................................................................... 9
2. LITERATURE REVIEW ...................................................................................... 10
2.1 OTA Industry Background and Analysis ...................................................................................... 10
2.1.1 The Developing Phase of OTA in China ................................................................................... 10
2.1.2 The Value Chain and Business Model of OTA ......................................................................... 11
2.1.3 External Environment Analysis – PEST ................................................................................... 14
2.1.4 Five Forces Analysis ................................................................................................................. 16
2.2 Background of Yaochufa Group and Company Analysis ............................................................ 24
2.2.1 Introduction to Yaochufa Group ............................................................................................... 24
2.2.2 Internal Environment Analysis –SWOT ................................................................................... 25
2.2.3 The Marketing Mix of Yaochufa ............................................................................................... 27
2.3 Competitors Analysis ...................................................................................................................... 32
2.3.1 Major Competitor: Ctrip ........................................................................................................... 32
2.3.2 Other Direct Competitor: Tuniu, Tongcheng ............................................................................ 34
2.3.3 The Scuffle of OTA Market ...................................................................................................... 35
2.3.4 Threat of Traditional Travel Market: Travel Agencies, Hotels ................................................. 37
3. METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................ 40
3.1 Design of the Study ......................................................................................................................... 40
3.2 Interviews ........................................................................................................................................ 40
3.3 Description of the Questionnaire ................................................................................................... 41
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4. ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS ................................................................................ 42
4.1 Interviews with Top Management ................................................................................................. 42
4.1.1 The Relationship between OTA Industry and Hotel Industry ................................................... 42
4.1.2 Strategies in Developing New Market and Old Market ............................................................ 43
4.1.3 Insights about the Future of OTA Industry ............................................................................... 44
4.2 Survey Results Analysis ................................................................................................................. 45
4.2.1 Summary of the Survey ............................................................................................................ 45
4.2.2 Implications of the Survey ........................................................................................................ 54
5. MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS ....................................................................... 55
5.1 Attention to niche market .............................................................................................................. 55
5.2 Create a Consumption Festival ..................................................................................................... 56
5.3 Brand Image Promotion ................................................................................................................ 56
5.4 Expand business by financing ....................................................................................................... 57
5.5 Get more resources through multi-channel .................................................................................. 58
6. CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................... 59
6.1 Utilize the Big Data to Approach Customization ......................................................................... 59
6.2 Transfer the Traffic to the Mobile Terminals ............................................................................... 59
6.3 Focus on overall cost-leadership.................................................................................................... 60
6.4 Increase income and decrease expenditure .................................................................................. 60
6.5 Strengthen market position by consolidating relationships with both upstream and
downstream ........................................................................................................................................... 61
6.6 Value-Added Service ...................................................................................................................... 62
7. LIMITATION AND FUTURE RESEARCH ....................................................... 64
7.1 Limitations ...................................................................................................................................... 64
8. APPENDICES ........................................................................................................ 66
8.1 Transcript of the Interview with Mr. Wu Pengshu ...................................................................... 66
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8.2 Survey Sample Questions ............................................................................................................... 70
BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................................................... 75
1. Introduction
1.1 Objectives of the Study
Recent years, Chinese government has issued a range of policies to support the
tourism industry. With the large amount of capital input, 2014 saw the bloom of
Online Travel Agency (OTA) market. However, advancement is inevitably
accompanied with problems. Three giant OTAs----Ctrip, Elong, Qunar, taking over
half OTA market share, have done vertical integrations to monopoly downstream
resources, which adversely triggers low price battles in OTA industry. Besides, new
startups’ participation makes the competition fiercer than ever.
Unexceptionally, Yaochufa, a startup online travel agency whose service mainly
focusing on peri-urban tourism, is also affected by this market environment.
This paper, therefore, will give suggestions to the future development of the OTA
Company, Yaochufa, by analyzing the market environment and the customer need in
the current situation and making predictions of the future trend of the industry.
Moreover, the company’s current business model, existing market, finding out
potential opportunities through collecting and analyzing the first-hand data from both
the target customers and the manager of Yaochufa.
In this essay, Yaochufa’s current business model and existing market will be analyzed.
Also, it will cover the threat and obstacles of both current and future market, along
with possible future strategies and the development for its expansion.
2. Literature Review
2.1 OTA Industry Background and Analysis
Thanks to the ever-increasing advancement of the Internet, E-business has been and is
expected to be a tendency, providing a fertile land for online travel agencies’ (OTA)
expansion. The following part will specifically analyze OTA market in China.
2.1.1 The Developing Phase of OTA in China
Tracing back early to the 1990s when China set up its first Internet, online travel
agencies has already come into existence. At that time, online agencies, such as Ctrip
and eLong, were the first movers. However, owing to resources shortage and the
inexperience, the whole OTA market’s profits were highly dependent on commissions,
generated only by booking tickets and hotels for tourists. To put it in another way, in
the 1990s, OTA in China was in a “commissions-relied” stage.
Moving into the early 2000s, increasing agencies, such as Mango and China Travel
Agency, shifted from off-line to online. In this phase, two breakthroughs should be
noted. One is the variety of online products while the other is the birth of vertical
search model. From one hand, since more agencies joined in OTA market, they
introduced multiple off-line products online, thereby enriching the diversity of online
traveling products. In the second place, as there were more online agencies than
before, intensity in competition was inevitably fiercer. This boosts agencies trying to
find a new way out----vertical search model, which offers consumers a platform to
compare prices vertically. The representative can be Qunar.
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In the next stage from 2006 to 2010, people own more disposable incomes out of
social transformation. Hence, apart from satisfying basic human needs, they also seek
for a higher quality life. Likewise, in tourism industry, the need for enjoying holidays
was mentioned. In addition to this, there was also a change in people’s thinking
patters for travelling, changing from package tour to self-tour. Both of them urged the
agencies to offer more specific service. The best examples can be Lvmama and Tuniu,
both of which provide consumers with tailor-made travel routes. Moreover, being
increasingly mature, consumers asked for more, not just booking for them, about the
OTA’s service. Then the sociality of OTA was given to birth. The representative can
be Mafengwo where travellers are able to share their owns experiences about journeys.
All in all, in this stage, the whole OTA market takes on a “more-segmented” image.
Nowadays, seeing OTA generating large profits, an increasing number of firms are
participating in this field. For one thing, giant online retailers such as Taobao and
Jingdong are exploiting their own OTA markets, providing a series of products so as
to earn revenues from commissions. For another, airlines and hotels are intensifying
direct sales by either establishing their own websites or collaborating with online
agencies. But no matter how the sales are presented, online travel agencies are and
will continue to be a trend in a long future.
2.1.2 The Value Chain and Business Model of OTA
Now that online travel agencies are fad at present, the value chain should be taken
into account for the purpose of defining the profitability of this industry. And the
whole value chain of OTA can be divided into three parts: supplier, middlemen and
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consumers. Detailed explanation will be followed.
On one hand, these three components have a relationship of “going downstream”.
More precisely, for suppliers, it has six sub-sections. They are: clothing, food, housing,
transportation, sightseeing, shopping and entertainment. All of them are independent,
meaning every single one cannot be considered as a complete traveling product. Just
like that people can live in a hotel but cannot shop in it while restaurants are there for
eating rather than living. Thus, only when all the six items are combined, can they
serve the function of a tourism product. And the agencies exist in the value chain as
an integrator. Most commonly, agencies cooperate with suppliers in the upstream,
selling those products of suppliers in a way of either retailing or combined-selling, to
consumers in the downstream. And agencies mainly obtain benefits from
commissions or price differences. In this case, the whole chain, from supplier to
agencies and to consumers at last, just like a river going down from the upstream to
downstream.
On the other hand, the relationship between suppliers, middlemen and consumers can
be not in a sequential way. Putting it more specifically, more suppliers are skipping
agencies and providing service to customers directly. For instance, some airlines and
hotels found their own websites where sell products to customers directly. To some
extend, this can save a sum of commissions, better control distribution networks and
popularize supplier itself at the same time. In contrast, some of agencies also tend to
do the vertical integration within the industry, merging suppliers upstream, so that
they can gain stronger control of the prices, squeeze out other OTAs with low prices
and even gradually monopolize the whole market.
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As facts presented above, the whole value chain of OTA consists of three parts:
suppliers, middlemen and consumers. They can be either sequential or not. And with
the value chain, several business models for online travel agencies should be
mentioned.
The first group is partially traditional. The one owning the longest history can be
those agencies providing booking service such as Elong and most of them make
profits by commissions. Next comes search platform model such as Qunar. This kind
of model mostly utilizes the relationship between upstream and downstream to
provide vertical research. The last are those appearing to be more integrated, such as
Ctrip and Lvmama. They offer both booking service and route designs. And vertical
integration is also not uncommon in this model.
In addition to models mentioned above, there are another two forms of OTAs. One is
called social network sites (SNS) or user-generated content (UGC) model while the
other is consumer-to-business (C2B) model. More specifically, SNS or UGC model,
which tourists may share their traveling experience such as Mafengwo, mainly
generates revenues by means of advertising or cooperating with tourism
administrations. As for C2B model, the pioneer can be the Priceline in America. More
accurately, Priceline gives consumers the chance to set a price as they wish. Once
price accepted by any supplier, the deal is done. Thus, it is, evidently, a complete C2B
model where offers an information platform for both suppliers and consumers.
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2.1.3 External Environment Analysis – PEST
Key Points of Yaochufa PEST Analysis
Political Governmental support
Economic High investment heat of social capital in tourism
High GDP per capita
Social The rise of e-business
The increase of cell phone netizens
Technical The increase of netizens
The development of cell phone apps
The following part will explain the macro environment of online travel agencies
market in detail.
For politics, the whole OTA market enjoys much support from the central government
that has issued a series of policies, supporting online traveling. Early in the year of
2009, State Council has already launched “Views on the Acceleration of the
Development of Tourism Industry”, pointing out that tourist industry should be
developed into a strategic pillar industry for national economy. What is more,
National Tourism Administration named 2014 as the “Year of Smart Travel”,
encouraging taking advantage of advanced technology, such as cloud computing and
intelligent terminal, so as to promote the online travels’ service quality and users
experience.
On the economic front, there is, from one hand, a high investment heat of social
capital in tourism. Simultaneously, the investment and merger within the industry are
active. These two all motivate and better service quality for the whole industry
environment. From another, according to figures released by Office of National
Statistics, Chinese GDP has reached 9,494,600,000 dollars with 6,858 dollars GDP
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per capita by 2014 (National Bureau of Statistics, 2014). According to the western
experience, when GDP per capita surpasses 3000 dollars, tourism development will
step into a phase called “highway”, reflecting on the rise of tourists’ number and
revenues, and the expansion of tourist industry (People Daily, 2008). From this, the
economic improvement of OTA is in its golden age.
From the social aspect, the rise of Internet drives the increase of ‘Netizens’, which
further facilitates the heat of E-business. According to statistics of The 34th Report on
Internet Protocol (IP)-Based Networks Development in China, released by China
Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), by June 2014, the rate of Chinese
netizens using OTA has grown from 29.3% to 30.0%. In the mean time, the number of
online booking consumers reaches 75,370,000 with the growth by 29,800,000 in 2013
(CNNIC, 2014). Thus, it can be seen that online trading has already become prevalent.
Additionally, according to statistics of The 35th Report on Internet Protocol
(IP)-Based Networks Development in China, released by China Internet Network
Information Center (CNNIC, 2015), the number of Chinese netizens has surpassed
649,000,000. Among all of them, mobile netizens occupy a remarkable share of 86%,
amounting to 557,000,000. Furthermore, the report demonstrates that by the end of
2014, the growth rate of mobile netizens has appeared to be the most dramatic, which
further elaborate that mobile market will be the most potential in the near future.
Lastly, ever-accelerated cell phone apps provide technical support for online travel
agencies. The application and popularization of those apps stimulate consumers’
travel needs. Besides, compared with personal computer (PC), mobile apps tend to be
more convenient, thereby prompting numerous off-lines consumers to be on-line. And
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according to The 33th Report on Internet Protocol (IP)-Based Networks Development
in China, released by Chine Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC, 2014),
there have been nearly 500 millions mobile netizens by 2013, which further facilitates
the wide proliferation of cell phone apps.
As analysis presented above, under the era background, the online travel agency is in
its golden ear, no matter from what perspective.
2.1.4 Five Forces Analysis
2.1.4.1 Threat of new entry – High
Thanks to governmental support and the blooming of Internet industry, the barrier for
joining in OTA industry is much lower. According to “2014-2015, analysis and
prediction to the development of China's tourism” (China Government, 2014), the
total turnover of online tourism products will reach 400 billions RMB, tripling in the
past 5 years. Moreover, some experts pointed out that the tourism was likely to
become one of the pillar industries in the future five years, and online travel will
devote a lot in this booming industry. According to the political support, increasing
investors are making more aggressive push into OTA market, which further increases
the number of OTAs. Therefore, it is obvious that the entry barrier of OTA industry is
becoming lower than before (Shirlene, 2015).
2.1.4.2 Threat of substitutes – High
Foreseeing the promising development of tourism industry, companies in other fields
have tried their best to grab a piece of the big cake. 2014 witnessed 85 investments
worth over 10 billion RMB in total into OTA industry. Besides, some big moves of
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BAT, namely the three major Internet companies: Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent), and
groupon websites are all related to the product overlapping with tourism industry.
Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent (BAT) are involved in the tourism industry. As the top 3
Internet companies, with huge amount of users, capital, and technological advantages
BAT are very likely to occupy a large market share of the tourism industry by
establishing a new OTA product, or investing several potential OTA websites.
Baidu: Investment in OTA giant and develop its own OTA community
On June 24, 2011, Baidu Inc., owner of China’s most-popular search-engine, agreed
to buy a majority stake in China OTA website Qunar for $306 million and became the
biggest shareholder of Qunar. Early that year, in the late April, “baidu travel” was put
into use as the a tourist information community service platform, aiming to offer tips
and recommendations to the people planning to go for a trip and to meet the demand
of travelers’ need before, during and after the trip (Mingxuan, 2014).
Alibaba: Investment and related diversification to create synergy
After its record-breaking of US$25billion New York IPO, Alibaba made its first
investment of 2.81 billion RMB to a Chinese hospitality technology provider
including reservations management software, inventory, billing and broadband
networks, Beijing Shiji Information Technology Co., Ltd, to create a synergy with its
core e-commerce division in September 2014. And Alibaba Group’s online travel
business, Taobao Travel became an independent business and changed its brand
named to Alitrip(去啊). Alibaba is betting on this comprehensive offering of travel
products and services to differentiate itself in the market.
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Alibaba invested byecity.com, a domestic travel website focusing on overseas tourism,
with USD 20 million's of broadband capital in March. Alipay’s e-payment platform
and Taobao Trip had an internal cooperation and launched Lvyou Bao (“旅游宝”) in
July 2014, which is a travel product with investment benefit. In the same month,
Alipay reached a cooperation agreement with Global Blue, a tourism shopping tax
refund company, in which Chinese tourists can use Alipay for tax refund while
shopping in Europe. In December 2014, Alipay starts offering the purchase of public
transport cards via its mobile apps “Alipay Wallet” for cross-border travelers. So far
Alibaba Group has built a comprehensive layout in the travel market from aspects of
IT basic services, oversea tourism, e-payment, and transportation.
Tencent: Large scale investment
Tencent has already been a shareholder of LY.com (one of the major online tourism
platform for both B2B and B2C business), Elong（an leading online hotels and air and
train tickets booking website）and Lvmama (a tourism business-to-consumer based
e-tourism website, as well as a platform for DIY tour advisory and booking in China).
Besides, Tencent also invested woqu.com (an online travel reservation platform,
helping users plan a self-help trip), and breadtrip (a social application that enables
users to record and share their travelogues). Although a lot of money has been spent
on OTA, Tencent haven’t integrated the resources well so far.
Meanwhile, the industry has become the favor of more and more e-business tycoons.
For example, JD.com purchased the online hotel reservation platform, "HotelIVP" at
the beginning of 2014 and announced its focus on medium- and high-end travel
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service after six months.
China's leading group-buying site Meituan has been recruiting talents with tourism
experiences, and launched an official Wechat account called “Going out for fun on
weekends”(周末出去玩). Before that dianping.com is trying to be a part of OTA by
offering some tourism product linking to Ctrip, Elong, Agoda, Booking.com and some
other hotel booking websites. All these groupon websites have shown their great
interest in OTA these years.
Since more and more people prefer to backpacking or DIY trip, customization travel
service has been a threat to those standardized big OTA companies but a great
opportunity for those new startups (Yan, 2015). OTA startups focusing on niche
market mushroomed recent years, and they are trying their best to customize their
services. However, the competition between those startups is still extremely fierce
because of the lack of both capital and unique selling point. Although they offer
special services compared with standard OTA, most of them have similar positioning:
focusing on surrounding tourism or outbound tourism (Xinhua, 2015).
2.1.4.3 Bargaining power of buyers – high
Thanks to the prosperity of tourism industry and widespread of the Internet, tourism is
tourism is no longer a prerogative of few for buyers. People can find the needed
information provided by OTA through a click of mouse. The OTA companies provide
a variety of options for customers who generally make careful comparison in terms of
service, price, etc. For the purpose of gaining more customers and representing larger
market share, OTAs usually sacrifice profits by means of lowering the price. Taken
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together, the bargaining power of buyer can be high, which is a great challenge for all
OTAs.
2.1.4.4 Bargaining power of suppliers – Medium
In general, suppliers of OTAs are the mainly traditional, such as off-line traveling
agencies, hotels, tourist sites and the ticket offices. Since the member of OTA
companies is huge and they’re relatively homogenized, suppliers have more options
and can choose the most influential and costless/prestigious and money-saving one,
offering them potential customers in both peak and off seasons. In another word, with
more consumer resources and a higher reputation, an OTA will stands more chances
in the negotiation with suppliers.
Besides, according to news reports, though 85% of hotel orders are from OTAs,
cooperation cost with them is increasing. Under this circumstance, many giant chain
hotels prefer to establish their own official websites, providing online booking service
and partly reducing the cost. As for those small downstream companies, online
booking websites have also been used as a platform to share the latest booking
information because of the low cost of building websites. However, since the
information resources of the downstream companies are much less than most of the
OTA’s, the bargaining power of supplier can just be medium.
2.1.4.5 Rivalry among competitors – High
For the competition in Chinese OTA market, it can be stiff. Reasons are followed.
Ctrip (with market value over 6.3 billion US$), Quar (with over 3.2 billion US$) and
Elong (over 600 million US$) are the three business giants in Chinese OTA market.
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Because of the first-mover advantage, these three giant companies entered OTA
market at an early age, holding roughly 70% market share of the total in 2014.
Possessing sufficient capital and abundant resources both upstream and downstream,
these three giant companies are more competitive than Lv.com, mafengwo, lvmama
and some other smaller OTAs. However, the Internet era keeps no customer loyalty in
front of low prices. Thus, in 2014, OTAs have made every effort in the sales
promotion such as "one-yuan ticket" of LY.com, "Free Lively Scenic Spot" of Qunar,
to name but few.
Exhibit 1 China Online Travel Agency Market Share by Revenue in Q2 2014 (CIW
Team, 2014)
In addition to the famous OTA, emerging small companies are also another threat.
Standardized big companies have their difficulties to meet peoples’ diverse needs.
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Thus, lots of startups show their strengths on tailor making the tourist product.
Yaochufa is a typical example. “Peri-Urban Tourism”, meaning traveling around the
residential city, is one of the niche markets, which have been paid much attention to.
As the capital of startups is limited, some peri-urban tourism OTAs only focus on a
few cities, and some of them are only available on mobile apps. The chart below
shows the information about some main peri-urban tourism OTAs (Jia, 2014).
Zhoumoqunar
周末去哪儿
Lanrenzhoumo
懒人周末
Meizhouliu 美
周六
Yaochufa 要
出发
Birth December
2013
November 2014 July 2014 August 2011
Product Apps for
IOS，android
account
Apps for IOS，
android
Apps for IOS Apps for IOS，
android
Websites
Wechat account
Coverage
areas
Shanghai,
Beijing,
Guangzhou,
Shenzhen,
Nanjing,
Suzhou,
Hangzhou,
etc.
Beijing ，
Shanghai ，
Guangzhou ，
Shenzhen
Shanghai,
Hangzhou,
Suzhou,
Zhoushan,
Yanghzhou,
Linan
Oversea cities,
Sichuan
province and
Yunnan
province
Services Using
location
Customized
activities
Activities
recommendation
Hotel, tourist
sites
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based service
to
recommend
activities ，
comments
and dating，
Cooperation
with travel
agency
Ticket／hotel
booking
recommendation
Cooperation
with travel
agency
Ticket ／ hotel
booking
and C2B
shopping guide
Travelogue
sharing
recommendation
and online
booking
Theme tour
recommendation
Cooperation
with travel
agency
Ticket ／ hotel
booking
Travelogue
sharing
Volume of
users
4million 2million 1.1million
Investment B round
investment
A round
investment
Angel
investment
B round
investment
Exhibit 2
The homogenies character of surrounding tourism OTA result in big overlap on
function and target customers, which makes the competition between them even
intense. Another threat for the small startups is the big OTA companies. With huge
amount of capital, the OTA giants can easily develop a similar function for the niche
market and promote in a more efficient way to take the place of these small startups.
In sum, no matter in niche market or in the whole market, the rivalry among the
competitors is extremely high.
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2.2 Background of Yaochufa Group and Company
Analysis
2.2.1 Introduction to Yaochufa Group
Founded in August 2011, Yaochufa is the only online travel agency targeting
white-collars. It offers consumers the flash sales of high-and-middle-end hotels and
holiday products.
So far, service provided by Yaochufa has fit into the needs of family tours. More
precisely, its products mainly focus on peri-urban travels, including package tours,
customized tours and freewill-combination tours. Consumers can enjoy 30% to 40%
discounts. Besides, the service of Yaochufa also covers some derivative products such
as hotels and tickets.
With the excellent service, Yaochufa, as a rising OTA companies, has made obvious
accomplishments. According to the board of director, Until June 2014, the number of
Yaochufa users has exceeded more than 1,200,000, ascending by 120 folds, compared
with the number of 10000 in the initial stage.
Besides increased popularity, the outstanding achievements bring Yaochufa
governmental acceptance as well. And such an acceptance can be simply reflected by
those awards such as annual top 10 excellent tourism e-commerce website in 2012, to
name but few.
Proved by facts, Yaochufa is acquiring its brand awareness gradually. However,
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compared with the OTA giants and similar companies, Yaochufa still has to build up
its on USP and find a better business model which can integrate more resources and
create synergy effects as well as profitability.
2.2.2 Internal Environment Analysis –SWOT
Key Points of Yaochufa SWOT Analysis
Strength 24-hour customer service system
Lower hotel costs
Weakness
Less market share in both peri-urban and other markets
Less famous brand image
Heavy burden of 24-hour customer service system
Opportunity Low market penetration of peri-urban tourism
Threat Threats from OTA giants
Price war
Facing the intense rivalry and complex market environment, to survive among so
many competitors has become the priority for Yaochufa, even if it has obtained
considerable achievements recently. In the following part, the SWOT of Yaochufa will
be analyzed in detailed.
Internally, Yaochufa Group owns lots of strengths. Firstly, with the 24-hour customer
service system, Yaochufa provides its customers a round-the-clock service, solving
problems at any time and any place. Also, on the premise of ensuring products’ high
quality, it offers consumers the lowest price, comparing with the products offered by
the similar competitors, which attracts more potential customers. Yet, the major
difference between Yaochufa and other online travel agencies is the capability to sell
rooms in a slack season. Putting it more specifically, hotels suppliers will basically fix
the price in accordance with sales figures in any off seasons. As long as the sales are
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higher, then the purchasing prices can be lower. That is to say, only when Yaochufa
achieve the highest off-season sales among all competitors, can they get the cheapest
purchase price from suppliers. Simply put, the more Yaochufa sells rooms in off
seasons, the lower its cost will be. That is what really matters for Yaochufa Group.
But strengths are always accompanies by weakness and Yaochufa Group is not
exempt. In the first place, its products tend to target on only peri-urban tourism,
resulting in low market share in other field. And even within the peri-urban tourism
field, Yaochufa still occupies a less significant share. Besides, in comparison with
other OTA commercial giants such as Ctrip, Yaochufa Group is not widely known to
the public. What is more, its 24-hour customer service still places a heavy burden on
the cost.
In a long run, Yaochufa Group’s opportunity still lies in the peri-urban travelling. It is
not just because of its experience and popularity. The market penetration of peri-urban
tourism itself has not been fully developed. That is to say, Yaochufa Group still has
much potential waiting to be cultivated in peri-urban travelling area.
However, the entire market conditions leave little room for optimism. For one thing,
the similar type online travel agencies are considerable. With greater popularity, they
offer even more diversified service, attracting more consumers at last. For another,
unique selling points of small OTA such as Yaochufa are easy to be copied by large
ones as giant OTA have control of more resources, which equips them with the chance
to cooperate with as many suppliers as possible or even do the vertical integration
directly. Much worse, the advantage of Yaochufa might also be easily curtailed by
27
large OTA with lower price. Therefore, how to maintain its strengths can also be the
top among its working list.
2.2.3 The Marketing Mix of Yaochufa
2.2.3.1 Positioning
Yaochufa (www.yaochufa.com) belongs to Guangzhou Kulv travelling agency
co.,LTD(广州酷旅旅行社有限公司)an e-commerce company focusing on tourism
industry. The website of Yaochufa (www.yaochufa.com) was officially unveiled in
October 2011, as a travel website offering holiday bargain and high-end hotel booking
service. Initially, it represented itself as a boutique hotel recommendation website.
Unfortunately, this kind of business model turned out to be not profitable enough after
a few mouths running. Then yaochufa.com changed its focus to short-term
“Surrounding Tourism”, including offering discount information and online booking
services of fancy hotels, restaurants, tourist sites tickets, around some first/second-tier
cities. The target customers are the urban white-collars，middle-class families, and
high income group who have cars of their own and prefer to go on an short trip
around the city they live on weekends. Yaochufa.com provides the customers with the
package service of surrounding tourism with high-end tourism product (transportation
excluded) and promising offer the outstanding bargains to customers with its
development strategy: making tourist “simper, cheaper, beyond expectation”.
2.2.3.2 Product
Tangible product
Yaochufa has expanded its product into two major forms. Besides the official websites
(www.yaochufa.com) available on both PC and smart phone, Yaochufa also has
28
developed mobile app for IOS and Android smart phone users. To make it more
convenient for customers to order online, Yaochufa’s official Wechat and Sina Weibo
(micro blog) account has been attached with the function of online booking and order
management.
Service
Yaochufa focus its efforts on surrounding tourism and comes up with several services
to meet customers’ needs.
A. Packages of surrounding tourism
Yaochufa offers selections of hotels, restaurants and tickets of tourist sites of certain
cities and package them with discounts on sale. The packages help customers to save
a lot of money and also reduce the trouble of booking one by one. Meanwhile, the
sales volume of downstream products is increased by this strategy.
B. Self-driving travel
Because Yaochufa’s major service is surrounding tourism and most of the target
customers have their own car, self-driving travel to neighboring cities is one of the
primary services of Yaochufa. The short-term self-driving trip provided by Yaochufa
is mainly about tourist sites around big city within 3-hour driving.
C. Combination
Since the development of technology makes it easier for people to get necessary
information they need to go on the trip on their own, an increasing number of tourists
would prefer a DIY trip. By recommending the carefully designed DIY travelling
routes with ticket, restaurant, hotel booking around the destination, Yaochufa grabs
the chance of O2O trends. Yaochufa provides customers with various options:
consumers can either buy the DIY package which includes all the services or just buy
29
the separated service according to their needs.
D. Customized service
With the diversification and personalization of the customers’ demand of travel,
customized service has become a trend among OTA industry. In order to seize the
immediate market opportunities, Yaochufa launched “C2B reverse customized
service”. C2B reserve customized service is designed by analysis based on the big
data of customers’ previous preference, which can bring better experience and more
bargains to customers.
E. Theme tour
In order to attract more consumers, Yaochufa launched some package product based
on specific themes to meet the need of different market segmentations. Taking
parent-child trip theme as an characteristic example, by attract the kids in the family,
the whole family will be involved in the purchasing process. Yaochufa has planned
diverse theme tours according to different timing and different target groups. So far,
more than 20 themes can be found on the home page of yaochufa.com.
2.2.3.3 Price
Because of homogeny of most OTA, customers are very sensitive to the price.
Customer loyalty strongly sticks to the price. Low price is one of Yaochufa’s
commitments. The business of Yaochufa covering hotel booking, tourist sites tickets
booking, and package booking.
A basic price comparison of different categories between Yaochufa and other OTA
companies is shown as follow.
Hotel Ticket
30
booking(RMB)
惠州喜来登酒
店
booking(RMB)
苏州乐园双人
票
Yaochufa 355 288
Ctrip 265
Zhoumoqunaerwan 419 296
Qunar 224
Exhibit 3
Because of different positioning of the OTA, some product in yaochua.com will not
be found in other OTA websites. But from the chart above, compared with other
websites focusing on surrounding tourism, the price of Yaochufa is the more
reasonable. However, the OTA giants like Qunar and Ctrip are more competitive in
terms of pricing.
In addition to competitors’ pricing, for the purpose of making money, the cost price
should also be taken into consideration. The original price of the hotels, restaurants,
tickets offered by suppliers is also a main factor of pricing. Yaochufa represents the
positioning and keeps its profits among others by taking cost and the price of
competitors into consideration.
2.2.3.4 Promotion
Discount is one of the most common ways in OTA promotion. On the home page of
yaochufa.com, a splash page about encouraging people to download Yaochufa apps
can be easily found with the advertising saying snapping up the surrounding tourism
31
at jaw-dropping prices.
Coupon is another method to attract people’s attention. In October 2014, in order to
celebrate the 3rd year birthday, Yaochufa distributed cash coupon 300 million RMB in
total to every Yaochufa user. On Singles’ Day, November 11, 2014, while mainstream
e-commerce companies tried their best to offer the biggest discount，besides cash
coupon worth 100 million, Yaochufa also launched the “Go for a trip with only 11
RMB” campaign, stating that some special sections of hotels were offered with the
price of only 11RMB during November 11th
to 23rd
(Jinghua Daily, 2014).
Media are also useful tools to enlarge its influence among potential customers. Apart
from publishing some advertisments on tradition print media (such as Nanfang Daily,
Beijing Times, etc), Yaochufa was also reported in online media, such as Sina,
Netease and so on.
Moreover, Yaochufa also its official account on Sina Weibo, Wechat, and Tencent
Weibo. Customer can check and make orders through Wechat and Sina Weibo account.
However, with less than 20 thousand followers, the click through rate of social media
is limited.
2.2.3.5 Distribution
Cooperate with e-commerce
Yaochufa cooperate with several e-commerce websites, selling its products on
Taobao.com, Tmall, JD.com, etc
Collaborate with Groupon websites
32
The cooperation between Yaochufa and groupon websites can attract more users from
a large user group. 60% of Yaochufa’s sales are introduced from the groupon website.
Famous groupon websites, such as Lashou.com, Meituan.com, Dianping.com, etc. are
the businesss partners of Yaochufa.
Join hands with other OTA
Since the product diversity is a key selling point of all the OTA companies, large
amounts of Yaochufa products can also be found on some famous OTA, such as Ctrip,
Elong, and qunar.com.
2.3 Competitors Analysis
2.3.1 Major Competitor: Ctrip
Founded in 1999, Ctrip is now the oldest and also largest online travel platform, being
Yaochufa’s major threat in the OTA market. As a “one-stop travel service provider”,
Ctrip takes the leading and almost monopolizing position in this market. Up to now, it
holds an “App installed capacity” of 160 million, active members of 141 million and
50% of the online hotel booking market share.
Ctrip’s threat to Yaochufa mainly comes from two aspects, the value added services
Ctrip can offer and it’s powerful Ground Call System. Ctrip achieved this with its
huge company scale and sufficient capital, and it further squeezes the market of small
OTA companies, like Yaochufa.
33
2.3.1.1 Value Added Services
Ctrip managed to construct a tripartite platform according to the “Value Added
Services” theory. It either sighs contract, or merges companies of hotels, airlines,
catering, insurance and scenic spot tickets. Fact is, Ctrip has currently signs contracts
with more than 28,000 hotels worldwide and most of international airlines. This
enables them to provide extra low price and value-added-services to customers, who
can be easily attracted by low price and good service. On the other hand, the huge
number of customers becomes the best resource when bargaining with those big
supplier companies.
Besides, its strong financial background allows it to fight price war with competitors.
Their often-used strategy includes “1 RMB Ticket” or “1 RMB Hotel”. They attack
small OTA companies this way and somewhat monopolize this market.
Exhibit 4 Value-Chain of Ctrip
2.3.1.2 Ground Call System
Ctrip currently has more than 4,000 sears to meet 24/7 human services, as well as
nationwide ticket delivery. This high-quality service and great reputation brings a
34
sense of security, which could not be provided by small OTA companies. Yet as this
market develop, this could turn to a burden for Ctrip in the near future, as was
predicted by many experts within this industry. According to them, OTA’s future is
heading towards completely online. The huge number of stuff wages can easily cause
huge cost burden for Ctrip.
2.3.2 Other Direct Competitor: Tuniu, Tongcheng
2.3.2.1 Tuniu.com
Established in 2006, appeared on the market in 2014, Tuniu is a direct competitor for
Yaochufa.com. The stock code of it is “Tour”.
Tuniu.com has unique market segmentation and the e-business mode. The core
competitiveness is the custom-tailor service. With the rapid growth of the market
segment，Tuniu has become the best OTA website in China.
So far, Tuniu boasts over 3000 resource suppliers, which covered over 70 countries
and regions. Within China, there are 64 departure cities, and the registered users have
surpassed 3 million.
The core business of Tuniu.com is the overseas tourism. Of which the main product is
team tour, followed by the independent travel. The business has stretched into
self-driving travel, cruise tourism, scenic spot, as well as tickets booking. In 2014, it
has covered over 60 centers, which include 95 departure cities and 120 destination
cities all over the globe. The volume of business transactions of team tour accounts
for nearly 70% of the total sum. The net profit in 2014 was 2606 million RMB.
35
Nevertheless, the high running cost of 24h call center is a thorny concern in the future
development of Tuniu.com.
2.3.2.2 Tongcheng travel (ly.com)
As the only OTA company who possess B2B (platform between corporations) as well
as B2C (public tourism platform). The “six as one” system developed by Tongcheng
has been becoming the standardized soft ware for the travel agencies in China. The
business of Tongcheng covers the hotels, flight tickets, spot tickects as well as the
online-booking of DIY tour. The development of travel software and the information
about the destination is also provided by the system. The subsidiary of
Tongcheng.com provides credible data and information to the registered members.
And it has become the first-class transaction platform in B2B business.
Nevertheless, the promotion activity“1RMB Ticket” has cost pounds of money; the
capital chain of the company became narrow, which caused severe concerns in the
funding channel.
2.3.3 The Scuffle of OTA Market
In the early years, the main theme was the huddle of the main corporations. Ctrip.com
keeps its competitiveness by optimizing its products and services as well as the
industrial chain of the OTA market. They took acquisitions frequently within the
industry, and reached a complimentary situation with LY.com.
As the development of market segmentation, the situation shifted from tripartite
36
confrontation into a much fierce one, which indicates that the companies are
struggling for the first chance. The permeability of OTA is rather low in the market,
and the strength of different companies is adjacent. This leads to the price war among
the companies. Only through this way, can the companies grab the first chance to
catch the off-line customers, and occupy more market shares. It is predictable that the
price war will be a common situation in 2-3 years. The team, business mode,
integration capability, as well as the capital infusion will be the direct elements, which
affect the structure of the traveling market. In spite of the three tycoons, the
second-line companies should generate power as well.
In recent years, the market segmentation of OTA market became much clearer. It is
undoubtedly that the online travel represents the future of the OTA. The capital
merger of the Qunar, Yilong, Tongcheng formed the monopoly trend of the online
travel market. Nevertheless, the opportunities are exactly in the OTA market. As
Tuniu.com has made the leisure traveling as their major product, the essence of the
market has been manifested, especially the market segment trend of the OTA. Some
companies like Lvmama and Tuniu are still making advantages of the segmentation to
survive in the fierce market environment so as to consolidate their status in the market.
The large-scale acquisition didn’t scare the small companies. Their unique selling
point is the core competitiveness. Among which Lvmama promoted a series of high
cost performance products like ”short-distance” travel from March in 2014, and then
produced “special sale” channel in their official website. It took full advantage of their
resource in the field, and provided some cost-effective DIY lanes for travelers,
committed in the one-stop service in self-driving field. In addition, the travel social
media Mafengwo reached cooperation with the flight companies, in collaboration
37
with the tourist administration and flight companies, further developed the
tailor-made products and service for the consumers, this kind of personalized service
based on the data collected by the market research, focused on the destination, the
travel approaches and the timetable as well as the budget. Actually, it’s a kind of
presell plus reverse customized service mode. Thus it is a C2B mode.
In accordance with the investment field, the travel in suburban city is still fervent. The
market research report indicates that this kind of products belong to the short-distance
travel. In general, one of them is the platform approach. And the community mode,
which needs the accumulation of customers, the progress could be slow. The third one
is the package sale, represented by the Yaochufa, focused in the resort hotel,
combined with the SPA and packaged products. It is obviously that the overseas
traveling boasts the biggest part of investment, and there are some new modes, which
emphasize the control of the resource. When Tuniu.com appeared on the market, the
funding reached one hundred million dollars.
2.3.4 Threat of Traditional Travel Market: Travel Agencies,
Hotels
As the online travel platforms continuously develops, traditional physical travel
agencies, hotels and other traditional tourism feel the fiercest competition ever. On
one hand, mainstream OTA companies, like Ctrip, Tuniu, Tongcheng speed up the
pace of expansion, mergers and acquisitions, continuously embezzling traditional
SME market. On the other hand, hotels’ official website and reservations center,
which is their main distribution channel, frequently lost to OTA’s order amount. They
have to pay large number of commissions to OTA companies they signed contract
38
with, yet their pricing on the official website cannot be below OTA’s price. This, at
the moment, contributes to their major pressure.
In 2013, the transaction scale of OTA market reached 218.1 billion dollars, increased
by 27.7; nevertheless, the penetration rate was merely 7.7%. Through which the
online air-ticket transactions reached 131.8 billions, which accounted for the biggest
part of the market. The turnover on hotel transaction was 48.54 billion dollars, though
it was second ranking in the OTA market, it has the momentum to replace the
air-ticket in the near future. The price war between the hotels and different OTA
runners facilitated the maturity of the market. It was predicted in 2017, the turnover
on online hotel booking transactions will reach 100 billion dollars. Remarkably, in
order to occupy more market-share in the APP market, the price war between the
competitors has transferred to the APP field. Which will bring a marginal increase on
the booking of the hotels.
39
Exhibit 5
3. Methodology
3.1 Design of the Study
The analysis of this paper is based on background research, quantitative and
qualitative study. A significant amount of second hand information has been collected
from the Internet, academic journals, and the company’s business report. The
information has been classified and further preceded, helping to understand the
company’s external and internal environment, its existing strategies, major
competiveness as well as the threats from its fierce competitors.
Based on the knowledge above and previous researches, we designed a quantitative
survey to examine the online travel agency users’ habits and behaviors.
Questionnaires are to be distributed both online and offline, to enable the quantity,
width and quality of the sample.
At the meantime, qualitative study is conducted by interviewing the marketing
manger, Mr. Wushupeng. With his sharing, we are able to understand the company’s
strategies and industry ecology from an insider’s view.
3.2 Interviews
There are plenty of reports about OTA companies; however, most of them focus on
industrial aspects and giant companies. To gain more detailed information about OTA
industry and the strategies of start-ups, we carried out a telephone interview with the
senior manager of Yaochufa on the 14th of February, 2015.
41
The interviewee was Pengshu Wu, the senior manager of marketing department.
Before the formal interview, we had conducted a simple investigation to get some
basic information about the industry and the company. The interview consists of
several questions, which fall into 3 big categories. The entire interview process was
taped and conducted in Chinese. The English version is included in the Appendices
section.
3.3 Description of the Questionnaire
Our group developed a questionnaire based on the summary of the top management
interview. By comparing the opinions from both the company and customer, we hope
to carry out more specific suggestions to the company’s current strategies.
The target age range of respondent was between 10~50. The survey was carried out
from the 16th of February to the 28th of February. The distribution channels are social
media platforms (Wechat, Weibo) and website (sojump.com). Totally, 271 respondents
took part in the survey. Among the respondents, 187 were the user of OTA services
while others hadn’t used OTA services yet. We defined the former group of people as
“the users group” and the latter ones as “the potential users group”. In order to give
some suggestions on developing and maintaining customers, we delivered preference
survey to both groups.
The survey results will be shown in two parts. The first part is the summary of some
key findings. The second part is the implications delighted by the summary.
4. Analysis and Findings
4.1 Interviews with Top Management
To gain a more profound understanding of OTA industry and the strategies OTA
set-ups’, our team conducted an telephone interview with the senior manager of
Yaochufa on the 14th of February, 2015.
The interviewee was Pengshu Wu, the senior manager of marketing department who
is in charge of marketing strategy development and product evaluation. The interview
has been summarized in 3 major categories: 1) The relationship between OTA
industry and hotel industry 2) Strategies in developing new market and old market 3)
Insights about the future of OTA industry.
4.1.1 The Relationship between OTA Industry and Hotel
Industry
Since hotel booking is the core business of OTA, the understanding of hotel industry
will bring us more insight about the ecological environment of OTA industry. Hotel
industry has low and peak seasons, which indicates that increasing the revenue of low
season to meet the cost is a vital demand of it. To solve this problem, hotels need to
predict the sales in some future period of time and make adjustment in the whole
operation plan. The core value of OTA exists in its capacity of gaining the future sales
directly and clearly. Generally, the room price offered by the hotel depends on the
sales, which the OTA companies create in the low seasons.
43
The room resources are distributed as four parts: reception sales (1/4), wholesale
booking (1/4) and OTA sales (1/2). Since many traditional travel agencies have
become purchasing channels of OTA, OTA companies actually control about 85% of
the room resources. The relationship between hotels and OTA companies can be
concluded as “interdependent while competing”. The power of hotels lies in its room
resources, which can vitally affect OTA’s user experience. Meanwhile, OTA
companies’ bargaining powers come from their customer resources and large
quantities of hotel information.
Although OTA can bring consumers to hotels, the intensified price war in the OTA
industry has kidnapped the profits of hotels. In this case, some hotels begin to make
alliances to fight against OTA companies. According to the Transaction Cost Theory,
outsourcing only works while the internal cost is higher than the external one. If OTA
companies continually squeezing the profits of hotels, a growing number of hotels
would prefer to own their own booking platform.
4.1.2 Strategies in Developing New Market and Old Market
Hotel has strong region features, for instance, most of the hotel in first-tier cities is
business hotel while most of the ones in Sanya, Hainan are resort hotel. The hotels
downtown are also different from those in the outskirts. As a startup company with
limited resources, while entering new market, Yachufa will choose some sorts of hotel,
which have less competition. However, since the policy of different hotels in different
cities vary a lot, successful model in one city may not work in another.
Internet industry shares Matthew Effect, which means the more a product sales, the
44
greater potential of sales it will have. To maximize the use of external distribution
channels, Yaochufa puts emphasis on creating a few “explosions” instead of providing
lots of ordinary choices. There is little customer loyalty in OTA industry. To increase
customer engagement, besides low price, Yaochufa also provides some other
promotions such as coupon and account credits. It's worth noting that all the
promotion activities should be under the regulation of hotels’ policies.
Yaochufa mainly uses some booking statistics; such as occupancy rate and refund rate
to monitor and evaluate the user experience. To make sure the room is available,
Yaochufa always buys out certain quantity of rooms and finds ways to exchange room
resources from other platforms. There are two departments in the company, which in
charge of customer services. One is in responsible for confirming information of hotel
and customer; the other is responsible for solving the problem after sale.
The information of customer mainly comes from two parts, one is from survey and
interview with customers, the other is from the former operation statistics. This
information is an important reference for future plans.
4.1.3 Insights about the Future of OTA Industry
To meet diversified needs of customers, some big OTA companies have been working
on some customization systems, which can provide individualization travel product to
different consumers. However, this innovation has high requirements to data. Besides,
since different product has different policies, it’s difficult to balance the costs and
prices among different products. Moreover, customization seldom creates economy of
scale, so the price may not be competitive and lead to the loss of customers. So the
45
current customer services are still focusing on the critical mass.
To gain a larger market share, most of the OTA companies are losing money because
of the low price. To survive in this environment, OTA companies need sufficient
capital reserves as well as good sales performance, which will attract more investment.
Since the competition of OTA industry is highly intensified, even the giant companies
dare not to widen differences in gross profit rate. For OTA companies, the most
critical business data are sales volume, number of registrants and the growth rate of
market share. What we should note here is that the current business model does not
necessarily lead to loss; it does have the possibility of making profits.
Along with the prosperity of hotel industry, OTA industry saw a fast development in
2014. Most of the companies are copying the current business model and fighting for
the market share with low prices. In the next few years, innovations may occur mainly
on developing more sophisticated business, such as providing the service of booking
in a period of time instead of just on a single day. The purpose of the innovation is to
meet the demands of the hotels so that to get a better price.
4.2 Survey Results Analysis
4.2.1 Summary of the Survey
Demographic Information of the Respondents
The majority of respondents (79%) were aged between 20~30 (Exhibit 6A). Nearly
86% of them belong to the low and middle-income groups (Exhibit 6B).
46
Exhibit 6A: Age Distribution of Respondents
Exhibit 6B: Income Distribution of Respondents
Respondents’ Preferences of OTA Services
67% (187) of the respondents were the users of OTA tools. As for the question “How
much would you prefer OTA to traditional travel agency?” among the users group,
over 90% of the respondents still preferred OTA (index above 3) to traditional travel
agency (Exhibit 6C). Hopefully, for the potential users group, nearly 90%
respondents were also interested in OTA rather than traditional travel agency (Exhibit
6D).
12%
79%
6% 3%
10~20 21~30 31~40 41~50
60% 26%
9% 2% 3%
~5000 5000~10000 10000~15000 15000~20000 20000~
47
Exhibit 6C How much would you prefer OTA to traditional travel agency?
(Users group. 1 represented no interest. 5 represented very interested)
Exhibit 6D How much would you prefer OTA to traditional travel agency?
(Potential users group. 1 represented no interest. 5 represented very interested))
Among the services purchased by the users (choose 3 items from 7 items), hotel
reservation ranked the top (89.3%) on the list of the quantity. Air ticket (87.7%) and
2.14% 4.28%
25.67%
32.62%
35.29%
1 2 3 4 5
4.76% 5.95%
47.62%
26.19%
15.48%
1 2 3 4 5
48
train ticket (49.73%) were also hot-sale products (Exhibit 6E). While choosing an
OTA platform (choose 3 items from 7 items), most of the existing users would
consider convenience (86.63%) and price (85.03%) as the top two most important
factors (Exhibit 6F). Surprisingly, promotion (27.27%) was not as attractive as
after-sales service (37.97%) and service abundance (43.85%). Compared with the
existing users group, the potential users’ preferences were almost the same (Exhibit
6G). However, the attractiveness of price (79.76%) and promotion (19.05%) were
even lower in the potential users group. Interestingly, the potential users group paid
more attention to brand than the existing users group.
Exhibit 6E Distribution of the Services Purchased by the Users
87.70%
49.73%
89.30%
36.36%
23.53%
3.74% 9.63%
Air Ticket Train Ticket Hotel Reservation
Entrance Tickets Tourism Packages Car Rental
Others
49
Exhibit 6F Distribution of the important factors of OTA (Users group)
Exhibit 6G: Distribution of the Important Factors of OTA (Potential users group)
While making a hotel reservation (choose 3 items from 5 items), respondents mainly
focus on environment (92.25%), price (88.93%) and convenience (67.16%) (Exhibit
6H). Comparing with other groups, higher income groups (income above 15000 RMB
per month) concerned less about price but more about environment and service
(Exhibit 6I).
86.63%
37.97%
85.03%
43.85%
27.27%
19.25%
Convenience After-sales service Price
Service Abundance Promotions Brand
80.95%
41.67%
79.76%
51.19%
19.05%
27.38%
Convenience After-sales service Price
Service Abundance Promotions Brand
50
Exhibit 6H: Distribution of the Important Factors of Hotel Reservation
Exhibit 6I: Distribution of the Important Factors of Hotel Reservation (Ranged by
income)
The results also showed that 91% of the respondents would like to have customized
88.93% 92.25%
67.16%
38.75%
12.92%
Price Environment Convenience Service Reservation flexibility
0.00%
20.00%
40.00%
60.00%
80.00%
100.00%
120.00%
Price
Environment
Convenience
Service
Reservation flexibility
51
services (Exhibit 6J), which meant that customers could package the services
together according to their preferences.
Exhibit 6J Desire Degree of Customized Services
(1 represented no interest. 5 represented very interested))
Respondents’ Travel Behavior
92% of the respondents traveled less than 5 times a year (Exhibit 6K). Most of them
preferred to travel on their own (63.84%) or combine independent travel with some
travel products (31%) (Exhibit 6L). 65% of the respondent has relatively more desire
to travel during the weekends (Exhibit 6M). Among the groups who were willing to
travel on weekends, most of them would like to go to outskirts and surrounding city
(Exhibit 6N). The group with strongest willingness even wanted to have long
distance travel (nearly 30%).
3% 6%
30%
32%
29%
1 2 3 4 5
52
Exhibit 6K Travel Times of the Respondents
Exhibit 6L Distribution of Travel types Preferences
Exhibit 6M: Desire Degree of Travel in Weekends
(1 represented no interest. 5 represented very interested))
92%
8%
less than 5 times 5 to 10 times
64%
5%
31%
Independent travel
Travel in groups
combine independent travel with travel products
10%
25%
39%
13%
13%
1 2 3 4 5
53
Exhibit 6N Distribution of Destinations of Weekend’s Travel
Comparing the consumption level among income groups, we can see that higher the
income of the group, more money would it spend on travelling in China (Exhibit
6O).
Exhibit 6O: Expenditure on Traveling in China (Ranged by income)
0.00%
10.00%
20.00%
30.00%
40.00%
50.00%
60.00%
2 3 4 5
Downtown
Outskirts
Surrounding city
Distant city
0.00%
10.00%
20.00%
30.00%
40.00%
50.00%
60.00%
70.00%
~5000
5000~10000
10000~15000
15000~20000
20000~
54
4.2.2 Implications of the Survey
Since most of the respondents (around 90%) from both the users group and potential
users group were all interested in using OTA services, there are lots of opportunities
for OTA companies to grab more market share from the traditional travel agencies. A
key point here is to attract the potential users to take the first step of using OTA
services.
To maintain existing customers and attract more new customers, price and
convenience are two key factors. Besides, brand image is especially important to
develop potential market. We should also note that promotion may be a good way to
increase sales, but it’s not highly valued by both the users groups.
We also notice that environment (92.25%), price (88.93%) and convenience (67.16%)
are the main considerations of medium and low-income groups. As the income grows,
people may value more about environment and service. These differences of
preferences are important for the company to develop differentiation strategy while
targeting in varied market segmentations.
The results also showed that 91% of the respondents would like to package the
services together according to their preferences. Meanwhile, by comparing the degree
of travel desire and the destinations of the respondents, we find that the group with
strongest willingness also wanted to have longer distance travel. This interesting
result indicates that, since price is not an effective way to create “user stickiness”,
providing upgrade and customized services to VIP customers may be another
opportunity to increase customer’s loyalty.
5. Managerial Implications
5.1 Attention to niche market
Hotels vary a lot in different places. For instance, in first-tier cities, hotels tend to be
business while in some tourist spots they are resort hotels. For now, the competition
among online travel agencies appear to be increasingly fierce, thereby focusing on
niche market is the way out for small companies. To illustrate, Shanghai, as an
international metropolitan, has much more business hotels. Thereby, small businesses
such as Yaochufa, should pay much more attention to tourist hotels as Shanghai is
also a city with many scenic spots.
Specifically, from a macro perspective, the OTA development of our country is
lopsided. Generally, first-tier cities own more resources, and people requiring more on
traveling. Therefore, the concept of OTA has already been quite mature in those cities
and the market is saturated. On the contrary, for second or third tier cities, market
penetration level is still very low. Thus, some online travel agencies are shifting their
geographical locations to those places. And for the purpose of attracting more
consumers, businesses such as Ctrip, strive to offer various sales promotions activities;
“1-yuan ticket” to name but few. But it is worth noting that niche markets can be
distinct in different places or cities. Thus, specific analysis should be based on
concrete problems.
From what have analyzed above, focusing on niche market is one of the available way
for small online travel agencies such as Yaochufa. But it should mark the fact that no
matter what strategies they adopt, it must be in accordance with the practical
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condition.
5.2 Create a Consumption Festival
Since the hotel room price given to the OTA companies is based on the sales in slack
season, OTA companies should think of ways to increase sales volume in particular
months. Besides traditional promotion on the vocations, OTA companies can also
create their own festival for big promotion. As for Yaochufa, it’s wise to make alliance
with other companies, which share related services (such as car renting companies
and restaurants) to create greater synergy effect of promotion and attract more
customers in the slack season. This strategy will cultivate consumption customs
among the consumers and save more cost of advertising in the slack seasons as time
passes by.
5.3 Brand Image Promotion
During the start-up stage, the brand image of one company consists of its brand equity,
brand recognition and brand loyalty, it should be given priority to build brand equity
for Yaochufa in the competitive environment. OTA market boasts great opportunities,
accompany with the fierce competition, which poses a big challenge to Yaochufa to
attract and maintain its customers. The company should not only maintain the existed
customers, but also should dig the potential tourists. As we have mentioned, since the
young generation is the main target group, new information should be tailored for
them and sent to them in a user friendly way. Cost –efficiency has been a critical
factor for customers when they were making choices. In most cases, the brand image
is developed through advertising or campaigns, and it could be authenticated by
customers’ first hand experiences. That is the reason why Yaochufa should pay
57
attention to the product details and service quality. When the brand recognition is built,
the brand image will be planted in consumers’ minds and then the brand loyalty
would be shaped.
5.4 Expand business by financing
There are some unspoken rules in OTA industries, which is companies with more
capital, speak louder than the others. Fierce competition and brutal price war aroused
by the significant capital investment forces the startups to seek abundant financial
support before they step on the OTA stage. Since OTA industry has already become a
red ocean, there are few firms with customer loyalty. Only products with lower price,
high quality and value added services could attract the attention of massive users. In
this situation, large amount of capital is an indispensable part of success in the OTA
industry. To be more precise, online and offline promotion is one of the major expense.
Increasing the media exposure and advertising reach, combining the self-promotion
function of internet firm (by maintaining active relationship with customers through
wechat, weibo, customer services) and emphasizing the brand awareness constantly is
the key element requiring money to tell the existence of Yaochufa. Second,
confronting with a fierce competition, for small-sized OTA companies like Yaochufa,
enough financial support is the only way to survive in the price war. It does not mean
that Yaochufa should compete with others only on price, but means that Yaochufa
should get financing as much as they can for resource integration，so that they can
improve their added values services, develop their competitive advantages in niche
market, win the hearts of the customers, gain more market share etc. in the long run.
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5.5 Get more resources through multi-channel
Resources are one of the most significant elements in the success of OTA companies.
It is sensible for Yaochufa to fight for more resources apart from cooperating with
hotels and traditional travelling agents. To be more detailed, one way is to buy out
certain amount of hotel rooms so that Yaochufa can have enough hotel rooms or
tickets to provide to its customers in its booking services. Another way is to share
resources with the other OTA firms as a contingency plan in case that it has some
emergencies such as running out of resources because of the increase booking orders
in tour busy season. In particular, Yaochufa should sign cooperate contracts with some
of its competitors to guarantee a certain amount of resources can be borrow from
them. The third way is to explore the less sizzling resources and avoid competition on
limited resources especially when the popular resources are mostly occupied by giant
OTAs.
6. Conclusion
6.1 Utilize the Big Data to Approach Customization
The results of our survey show that 91% of the respondents would like to have
customized services. Meanwhile, 31% of the respondents are willing to combine
independent travel with some OTA services while traveling. It’s clear that the
consumers have strong potential demands for customized services. However,
according to the comments of our interviewee, customization services is costly and
require very well organized management system as well as large quantity of consumer
data. Since even the OTA giants don’t have too many resources to build up a
customization service system, it’s clearly not a good strategy for small companies to
follow the trend. Nevertheless, if Yaochufa keep on focusing on specific market, it’s
possible for it to gain a lot of data from the target consumers and to have a deeper
understanding of their purchasing behaviors. Utilizing the big data, Yaochufa can
predict the proper services in advance and make the services more fit to the
consumers’ needs.
6.2 Transfer the Traffic to the Mobile Terminals
Nowadays, the Chinese Internet users are transferring from PC to mobile terminals
rapidly. Along with the establishments of thousands of companies, O2O business has
become a key part of the whole Internet industry. In Government Work Report (2015),
China's Premier Li keqiang points out that a growing number of traditional industries
and services will be added to the Internet industry in the future. With the strong
market trend and government support, the prosperity of mobile Internet industry is
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around the corner.
By using LBS (location based services) and other mobile functions, OTA companies
can gain more detailed information of the consumers, such as their location,
consumption time and phone numbers. This database will transfer into valuable
resource for customization and marketing strategy development.
6.3 Focus on overall cost-leadership
Yaochufa is still at the start-up stage, and it’s rather difficult for it to differentiate itself
from other big companies when focusing on doing pari-urban businesses. Admittedly,
differentiation is not a proper strategy for Yaochufa at present stage, so it’s preferable
for them to utilize the advantages of the resources they have, to provide standard
products and services for its sensitive customers. The OTA industry was built on the
basis of Price, the fierce competition among the companies are focusing on the price
war, that is the reason why Yaochufa should explore the specific niche markets to gain
market share. Only when cost-leadership is built, can they reach the price leadership,
customers are easily attracted by the low price when making choices, after the brand
recognition has been built, Yaochufa could be the first option for those existed
customers and they would recommend it to others; Yaochufa can benefit a lot from the
high-volume orders, therefore to expand its market share. This approach will assist it
in attaining the market leader position.
6.4 Increase income and decrease expenditure
Gathering and utilize money efficiently and effectively is critical to the development
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of small OTA companies. At the beginning, priority should not be given to net profit,
but to product upgrading, increasing number of registered users and percentage of
market share, and building brand recognition. Once the foundation is set firmly at the
first stage, profit making will be easier with brand impacts and customers’ word of
mouth.
Besides, according to the analysis above, cost of human resources is one of the
biggest costs in most of OTA firms, and Yaochufa is not exempt. 24 hours customer
service, order confirmation, wechat operating, all these require large portion of human
capital input. How to increase cost efficiency will be the big problem Yaochufa faces
with in the future. One possible solution is to provide better UE (User Experience)
through integrated service chain supported by upfront investment and encourage users
to share their experience on some famous social media to form public praise. As a
consequence, Yaochufa can save the money in promotion in the future by Word of
Mouth Marketing.
6.5 Strengthen market position by consolidating
relationships with both upstream and downstream
As an online intermediary, the success of Yaochufa mostly relies on the ability to
match its resources with the customers. As a consequence, Yaochufa cannot pay too
much attention on the relationship between the suppliers and the buyers.
As the price war between OTA affected the margin of suppliers, the relationship
between suppliers and OTA are tense than ever. However, since OTA can bring
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customers in the off-season and help the suppliers keeping their profits by adjust the
price properly at different stages, OTA, especially peri-urban travels OTA like
Yaochufa, whose customers’ purchase habit is irrelevant to the seasons，is more likely
to become close business partners of the tourism product suppliers. Yaochufa can also
take actions to consolidate their relationship by paying the deposit in advance or get
insurance company involved to reduce the risk resulting from customers skipping to
another OTA.
In order to keep a high retention rate with customers, some actions should also be
taken by Yaochufa. For example, besides meeting divers needs from customers,
coupon, discount, rebates for sharing information on social media or inviting friends
to register as Yaochufa members should also be provided to customers. Through this
kind of endeavor, Yaochufa can not only win more users, but also easily find out the
customers’ comments and remarks of the product and service. Moreover, the
feedbacks are of great importance of the product upgrading, which is another
indispensible part of the improvement of user experience. A better relationship with
customers is more likely to form if OTA is good at making adjustments according to
customers’ requirement. In addition, Yaochufa can also benefit from Word of Mouth
Marketing of the high frequency of showing the keywords “Yaochufa”on social media，
and be more likely to form its own brand recognition.
6.6 Value-Added Service
As has been discussed, the business chain of “Value-Added Service” is the future of
OTA industry. Originated from the telecommunications industry, this term refers to
approaches that complement but a core service offering from a company “but are not
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as vital, necessary or important” (Shirlene. 2015).
Adapted to OTA industry, this business pattern can be used to a new level. To have the
strongest competitiveness, the OTA company can sign contracts with travel-related
companies, including airlines, other transportations, insurance, scenic spot tickets and
hotels. By doing this, they can attract most downstream customers. Meanwhile, the
large traffic of customer can be brought to the upstream companies so that they can
offer lower price.
Only when a OTA company get hold of both sides of resources, can it become a
powerful enough player in this fierce market.
Exhibit 7 Value Chain of OTA
Industry
7. Limitation and Future Research
7.1 Limitations
Since this study involves both qualitative and quantitative methods of research, the
results may vary, as the interviewee and the sample both embody a certain level of
uncertainty.
For qualitative study, we interviewed a high-ranking management member of
Yaochufa, Mr. Wu Shupeng. Yet being the solo interviewer in this study, his personal
view may have the risk of being incomprehensive. We have also sent interview
invitations to other management members of Yaochufa, as well as top managers of its
rival companies, and industry magnates. Mr. Wu, however, was the best resource we
can reach. Fortunately, Mr. Wu has vast working experience for this industry and was
a valuable interviewee who was able to answer our questions. We are grateful for his
time.
For quantitative study, we have collected 271 questionnaires from various distribution
channels, including social media platforms (Wechat, Weibo) and website
(sojump.com). Among the respondents, 187 were the user of OTA services while
others hadn’t used OTA services yet. This sample contains a level of randomness, thus
may not able to fully represent the target users of OTA services.
In addition, Yaochufa, currently, is a strart-up company on its financing stage.
Therefore, their financial data cannot be disclosed. Due to this reason, this study has
experienced difficulties collecting first hand financial data from OTA companies. This
obstruction has impeded us from analyze their financial model and status from a
65
deeper perspective.
Furthermore, OTA market, with is nature of being an online business, is changing
rapidly. In this turbulence stage, the five forces analysis we have conducted can also
be changing accordingly. Therefore, in further studies, we suggest to carefully
examine the changes of both external and internal market environment, using the
latest situation as references.
8. Appendices
8.1 Transcript of the Interview with Mr. Wu Pengshu
Interview Information
Date: 2015-02-14
Time: 10:00
Address: Yaochufa Head Quarter, Guangzhou
Interviewee: Mr. Wu Pengshu
Interviewer: Lin Yimin, Lincoln
Video shooting: Xu Yunke, Catrina
Language used: Mandarin
Transcript in Chinese Version
要出发市场部总监吴鹏书之访问稿
问：酒店房源分布是何种情况？
答：酒店房源有 1/4 前台销售，1/4 作为包房销售，1/2 直接代理给 OTA，OTA
总共可以拿到 3/4 左右。此外，因为传统旅行社现在也被 OTA 当成采购渠道，
所以占比很低，而 OTA 则总共可以占到 85%左右。
问：在您看来，OTA 于酒店的关系及未来发展是怎样？
答：一般来说，酒店存在淡旺季，尤其是景区酒店。对于酒店来说，重要任务就
是在淡季时候保证收入可以支撑其成本。所以对于酒店来说，越早知道其在某一
时间段内的销量，对其控制收支是越好的。OTA 对于酒店的核心价值在于帮助其
清晰地预见未来某一时段内的销量有多少，方便酒店调整余下房间价格从而达到
收入目标。
一般来说，酒店给 OTA 的底价取决 OTA 能给其在淡季带来的客流量（也有部分
酒店统一底价开放给 OTA 销售）。酒店业务是 OTA 的核心收入，因此酒店每个月
的计划都会影响到 OTA 的收入。
随着酒店业务的成熟，OTA 行业在 2014 年进入了一个快速发展时期。大部分是
不同公司实际上是在复制现有的模式，争夺资源。预计未来几年，OTA 主要会是
在现有基础上延伸出更加精细化的业务，比如开通提前支付接下来某月随便一天
的房间的业务。目的是更方便酒店预知客流、提前收益，以及方便酒店制定接下
来的计划。
酒店和 OTA 是相互依赖、相互竞争的关系。目前主要是依赖关系。酒店对于 OTA
的价值和筹码在于其手中有房源（货源），可以从根本上左右 OTA 带给用户的体
验（比如 OTA 平台上显示有房，但酒店就是不放房）。而 OTA 对于酒店的价值和
筹码则在于其手中的房源信息和客源（买家资源）。虽然OTA能让酒店带来客流，
但其行业的紧张竞争也绑架了酒店房价。在这种情况下，部分酒店开始联合起来
构建新的平台，但目前尚未构成实质威胁。此前 7 天曾经尝试拒绝对 OTA 开房
房源，结果导致业绩明显下降。
（点评：酒店代理给 OTA 房源其实就是参照 transaction theory，因为成本低于
利润所以就 outsourcing，但如果 OTA 对酒店造成了巨大的价格挤压，酒店可能
就会另起门户。）
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问：如何提升用户体验？
答：入住率、退款率、无房率硬性指标来监控用户体验。要提升用户体验，有几
种手段：
1. 包房：买断一定房量
2. 协调资源：和别的平台交换资源
3. 降低退款率。组织架构上，有两个部门确保降低退款率。话务（确认前期数
据准确，如核实客户信息）；跟单（后期特殊情况处理）。
问：如何开拓新市场？
答：不同地区酒店性质不同；比如北上广深主要是商务酒店，云南海南主要是旅
游酒店，在资源有限的情况下，会选择竞争相对香烧的酒店资源。比如某些一线
城市商务酒店的竞争很激烈，但是周边旅游景区的竞争相对较少，就会选择后者
为切入点。不同城市切入点是不一样的模式不能照搬。
问：如何提升业务量？
答：互联网是“马太效应”的放大器，一般来说越畅销的产品，搜索量和未来销
量多会越大。因此在非自有平台推广时，产品主要是推 2~3 个“爆款”。具体产
品的选择由 BD 部门衡量底价、时间段、酒店位置等因素决定。
在自有平台方面，则会加上更多的促销活动，增加客户粘性，比如“立减”、“返
券”、“积分”，刺激消费。在淡季的时候加大促销力度，旺季则促销力度较小。
但是促销活动都要在酒店政策框架内（比如有些酒店不允许使用减价）。
在官方微信号商会有用户互动，会进行用户调查。但主要的用户反馈来自于每个
月份的客户预订数据，这些数据可以用于制定接下来的营销策略。
问：客户定制化是否可行？
答：自由打包对业务数据要求很高，容易造成成本价难以控制或资源浪费。一方
面没有 economy of scale。另一方面因为不同产品的底价和售价不同，客户自行
绑定的套餐很难达到最优价格，会导致客户流失到别的有打包产品的平台。因此，
现阶段主要是抓 critical mass。
问：如何在“赔钱抢地盘”的环境下生存？
答：在现阶段，首先要确保有足够的资金储备参与竞争，同时要确保数业务数据
的增长，这样才能筹得更多的钱投入新一轮竞争。由于当前 OTA 行业的竞争非
常激烈，为了保持价格优势，即使主导企业也无法拉开毛利率差距。对于创业型
OTA 企业来说，最看重的不是毛利率，而是销售量、注册用户数、订单笔数、市
场覆盖率的增长。从此前时间的情况来看，当前的模式是有盈利的可能的。
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8.2 Survey Sample Questions
网上旅行社用户倾向性调查
Survey Title: Online Travel Agency User Preference Survey
调查背景：我们是香港浸会大学传媒管理硕士课程的学生，现正进行一项有关网
上旅行社的意见调查，以了解网络用户在使用网上旅行社时的用户习惯及倾向。
非常感谢您能抽空完成这份问卷。您的宝贵意见对我们的研究十分重要。而有关
研究的结果只用于学术发表，您的资料将绝对保密并不做个别分析。
Background: We are a group of HKBU Masters students majored in Media
Management and we are conducting a questionnaire on Online Travel Agency. We
would like to evaluate the online users’ habits and preferences while they are using
the Online Travel Agency services. We would really appreciate if you could fill in the
questionnaire and provide us useful feedbacks. Your opinions are most valuable to us.
All information recorded in this questionnaire will only be used for academic
purposes and they will remain completely anonymous and confidential.
访问员：
Interviewer:
访问日期及时间：
Interview Date and Time
1. 性别 Sex
A. 男
Male
B. 女
Female
2. 年龄 Age
A. 10~20
B. 20~30
C. 30~40
D. 40~50
E. 50~
3. 月收入（若为学生则为生活费）
Monthly income (cost of living if you are a student)
A. 1000~5000
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B. 5000~10000
C. 10000~15000
D. 15000~20000
E. 20000 以上
4. 是否曾经通过旅游网站或旅游 App 购买旅游产品？
Have you ever bought tourism products through travel websites or travel
App?
A. 是
Yes, I have.
B. 否
No, I have not.
5. 通过旅游网站或 App 最常购买的是哪 3 类商品（多选）？
In the following options, which three are your most commonly purchased
commodities (multiple choice)?
A. 飞机票
Flight Tickets
B. 火车票
Train Tickets
C. 酒店预订
Hotel Reservations
D. 景点门票
Attraction Tickets
E. 旅游套餐
Travel Packages
F. 租车
Car Rental Service
G. 其他
Other
6. 相比于传统旅行社，你是否更愿意选择旅游网站和旅游 App？（1 为不
愿意，5 为非常愿意，依次递增）
Comparing to traditional travel agencies, do you prefer travel websites and
travel App? (1 is not, 5 is very willing to, in ascending order)
A. 1
B. 2
C. 3
D. 4
E. 5
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7. 关于旅游网站和旅游 App，你最看重的 3 个要素是什么？（多选）
With regard to tourism sites and tourist App, which three elements do you
value most?
A. 便捷度
Convenience
B. 服务
Services
C. 价格
Prices
D. 线上活动吸引力（如秒杀等）
The Attractiveness of Online Activities (eg. Spike, etc)
E. 产品丰富度
Product Variety
F. 可靠度
Reliability
8. 平均每年旅行（非商务出行）多少次？
How many times do you travel (non-business) annually?
A. 5 次以内
<5times
B. 5~10 次
5~10 times
C. 10 次以上
>10 times
9. 一般会选择什么出游方式的旅游方式？
Which way of traveling do you prefer?
A. 跟团游
Travel with the group
B. 自由行
Self-service traveling
10. 每年在出国游上的花费是多少？
How much do you spend on oversea traveling every year?
A. ~5000
B. 5000~10000
C. 10000~15000
D. 15000~20000
E. 20000~
11. 每年在国内游上的花费是多少？
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How much do you spend on domestic traveling every year?
A. ~5000
B. 5000~10000
C. 10000~15000
D. 15000~20000
E. 20000~
12. 你在平时周末旅游意愿是否强烈？（1 为没有意愿，5 为非常强烈，依
次递增）
Is your willingness to travel on usual weekends strong? (1 is no will, 5 is very
strong, in ascending order)
A. 1
B. 2
C. 3
D. 4
E. 5
13. 如果周末旅游，你会倾向于选择去哪里？
If there is a weekend tour, where will you tend to go?
A. 所在城市内部
Inside the city
B. 所在城市郊区
The city outskirts
C. 周边城市
Surrounding cities
D. 较远的城市
Distant cities
14. 如果旅游网站能够提供让您自由搭配的旅游项目组合，您的选择意愿如
何？（1 为没有意愿，5 为非常强烈，依次递增）
If the travel websites offers the personal travel portfolio service, are you
willing to pay for it? (1 is no will, 5 is very strong, in ascending order)
A. 1
B. 2
C. 3
D. 4
E. 5
15. 在选择酒店时，您最看重的 3 个要素是？（多选）
When choosing a hotel, which three elements do you value most? (Multiple
choice)
74
A. 价格
Price
B. 环境
Environment
C. 便捷度/交通
Convinces/Transportation
D. 服务
Service
E. 预定时间可调整
An Adjustable Timetable
问卷调查完成
The End
Thanks for your time!
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