Online travel: Another industry that is being changed by the mobile internet

The intermediary transaction SEO diagnoses Taobao guest stationmaster buys the Cloud host technology Hall

After the rise of mobile internet, online tourism can be truly shaped. It is to extend the impact to the user long-term and short-term decision-making, for tourism and tourism after the market to create greater value, but also to promote their own closed-loop towards more complete and mature.

Another industry that is being changed by mobile Internet.

Without a smartphone, Shen Zhuoli may join Oracle with Sun, which is still shuttling around the world every month, spending time on airplanes. He may also, as he did on his first trip to Paris, post every city he first saw as a long travel book, as most travel enthusiasts do.

But smartphones have changed his career and changed his life.

Because of the old museum's outdated button-tone voice guide system, 2009 "11" Eve, he and his partner developed an iphone based guided tour application of the Forbidden City. The new iphone's content presentation, touch and GPS positioning have made the palace a popular feature. At the end of the year, China's travel service provider Wildchina to them with an olive branch. The following year, Shen Zhouli and friends left the original work, set up a company Touchchina, formally joined the online tourism entrepreneurial tide.

Emerging companies (or emerging applications), represented by Touchchina, have become the last wedge in building online travel. "Online travel" is only a concept, visitors just sit in front of the computer, booking flights Hotel, query travel information, organize travel guide. These behaviors can only occur before and after tourism, few companies can be very good to meet their travel in the local "eat and live travel shopping" demand. The emergence of the Touchchina marked the beginning of the "swim" link that had been missing, thanks to the rise of the mobile internet.

September 12, mobile application distribution Platform 91 Wireless release report, pointed out that tourism app in its App store in the weekly download volume exceeded 1.6 million. Mobile phone and tourism combined the power of the first show.

The important feature of the online tourism economy is "closed-loop": After you travel the travel notes share may become other people before the query information, so there will be "before-Yangzhong-swim--the others before the Tour" cycle. The long industrial chain is full of opportunities, even if it people like Shen Zhouli, who have no tourism background, can join in and get good grades. Subversion can appear at any time, no one dares to claim that they are online travel "Giants", all just started.

The change of "before the Tour"

In detail, the behavior of users before travel is divided into 3 stages: deciding where to go, making travel plans and booking specific travel services.

The first stage of business value is limited. Because of the factors that affect the choice of user destination too many, friends recommend, netizens travels, travel agency discount activities, and even a song a movie may stimulate him to make a decision to go somewhere not to go somewhere. The user's demand is too uncertain at this time.

The second and third phases are closely connected, and the second stage appears to be particularly important before the user produces actual consumption. He will have to consider when he plans to do so: what kind of transportation? Which hotel is the destination? They are included in the travel budget for one by one. Who can intercept the user's needs in the second stage, and guide his budget, who can occupy a place in the market. Ctrip, where to go. #p # subtitle #e#

Ctrip CEO fan in the media interview once said, call center put into use, he spent half an hour a day to enter the customer dial a random call, record the operator to answer the wrong place and to rectify, he asked each phone processing time of not more than 180 seconds. A good booking experience and brand building make it an important option for users to travel with Cheng.

Where to go with different ctrip, it does not contact with airlines, hotels, but through the search price model in many sites to search for low-priced products, to attract a large number of price-sensitive users. It is more than Ctrip "by the front", playing the role of distribution of traffic, in order to take a firm foothold in the reservation market.

In fact, air tickets and hotels as a result of standardized products, easy information management, the two have already become the most lucrative before the market revenue business. According to the statistics, the first quarter of this year, China's online tourism market transactions scale of 44 billion yuan, of which the online ticket trading scale of 31.5 billion yuan, accounting for 71.6%, hotel transaction size of 8.89 billion yuan, accounting for 20.2%. Ctrip 2012 second quarter earnings show that its hotel reservation income 410 million, ticket booking income 404 million. Cheng in the earnings meeting, said the hotel per room commission rate of 14%-15%, ticket commission rate between 4%-5%.

But they just meet the needs of the user row and live, and the satisfaction of other requirements is creating more "interception mode."

such as reviews and Raiders. They are instructive to users and thus can affect the allocation of their budgets. However, as China's online tourism development time is too short, the destination merchant's data accumulation is limited, this model has not shown its due value.

Another example is the birth of a planner that is represented by the passenger circle and the first step. As the name suggests, the Planner is the tool that helps users plan all the schedules from transportation to entertainment. It has a lot of commercial imagination because it involves almost every aspect of tourism. But imagine the imagination, reality is reality, the industry's "business value" reporter analysis, the development of the planner is facing the urgent need to solve the problem: it is universal? How many users really spend a lot of time doing detailed planning? Or is it just a dispensable tool?

Before other models mature, the air ticket hotel reservation business will still be the main game of the market before the tour. But it looks like it is a fiercely competitive Red Sea market. One of the players are Ctrip, Art Dragon and other OTA giants and a large number of independent start-up companies, there are chain hotels, airlines and other resources belong to the party. August 2010, Taobao launched the "Taobao travel" platform, means that more agents can face the consumer through it.

Will it be difficult for the newcomers to have a chance?

Foreign price Dynamic packaging services, hotel and ticket prices change in real time, users can choose according to their own use of the lowest price combination. and domestic because of the level of industry information is not high, there is no enterprise can do so, from another point of view, this gives future entrants left a path of development.

The bigger chance comes from smartphones. Its portability support for instant bookings, allowing users to get rid of the shackles of the PC, so tonight Hotel special can borrow "Lastminute" mode into the market, in the 50 percent price after every 6 o'clock in the evening to help hotel sales remaining vacant, app online 3 days that 100,000 downloads; Its GPS positioning allows users to book hotels nearby, so the hotel's talent as the first batch of location-based features of the booking app favored by users, and last year to obtain innovative factory investment.

If a company can be well based on mobile phone data mining, to provide users with personalized booking services, it can reach what height? In the future on mobile phones, there may be companies that subvert the existing booking market in ways we can't imagine.

The pioneer of "traveling"

Three meals a day, what do you eat? Do not want to live in a hotel where should we go? What kind of transportation? What kind of souvenirs do you buy?

Travel is full of surprises and surprises, in the destination of "eating and living travel entertainment shopping" No one can plan ahead. In fact, we often make unplanned decisions, and it's sometimes just a whim to detonate it.

Pre-tourism reservation market due to the obvious economic interests of concern, the travel of the changeable and trivial needs have not been met. Some analysts believe that the frequency of tourism is too low, a person travel two times a year, but only two consumption cycles, and demand diversification leads to consumption is difficult to concentrate, each point can only earn a penny.

Is that true?

Shanda Capital investment director Wei according to the people's consumption behavior pattern analysis that the tourist before departure always is preoccupied with the budget, but once arrives the destination, the consumption is "out of control" tendency. They will be stimulated by various factors to produce a lot of unplanned purchases, the current market situation is the travel agency between them and the merchant as a guide role, and to earn a considerable profit. And in the self-help market, no one has been able to meet the needs of tourists, such as their shopping guide is not very "money way"?

The frequency is low, the dispersion is insufficient to become in the travel market profit the resistance, in the self-service tour or the higher high-end vacation travel, people often is more willing to spend, but this means the higher customer unit price.

In addition to the fuzzy understanding of the market value, the previous tourism user demand is also lack of efficient, convenient solution tools, this is the travel market has been slow to develop the objective reasons. The advent of smartphones, the rise of mobile internet, has finally found a way to solve this problem. The pioneer of the tour market is becoming the next wave of entrepreneurial boom in mobile internet. No matter big or small companies are lack of corresponding data and resources accumulation, no one in the obvious leading position.

Analyzing the many apps we have, it's not hard to see their commonalities. These applications can be divided into two categories by function: Tools and social classes.

Tools to meet a wide range of user needs (such as information inquiries, ticket purchase, etc.), it is difficult to enumerate. But from a business model perspective, its layering is relatively clear, the implications of business prospects are exciting.

Some tools are close to the product, which means that it is close to the money, in the profit mode it can choose either advertising mode or direct sales model.

Touchchina started out as a guide, but in its latest application, it has added information about destination consumption. In the CEO Shen Zhouli plan, the company's future business model is to cooperate with the merchant, through online comments on the line for its customers, like the tourism field of "public comment." Touchchina does not have any offline resources, advertising mode in this respect will not be too much demanding.

And if the direct sales model will make the profit is much simpler, but requires the enterprise has strong offline resources. Mother Donkey as a ticket online vendors, the website was online in May 2008, the current user over 9 million. Last April, the mother Donkey mobile phone application online, so far download more than 700,000, monthly sales of about 6 million yuan. It does not have to wait for the user to accumulate, from the beginning of the line, can be divided into each transaction income.

Some tools are far from the product, such as scenic weather inquiries, compass and so on. These applications may seem difficult to profit prospects, but combined with the characteristics of mobile Internet and tourism consumption, once its users reach a certain scale, profitability can be unexpected.

Take scenic weather query software For example, if there are 5000 of users through it query Huangshan weather, then it can tell them, Huangshan tomorrow morning there is a sea of clouds, live in a hotel can be more convenient to watch. Users do not feel that this is advertising, and the software can use this to obtain actual advertising revenue. According to this idea, restaurant information, ticket discount information can be reached through it to the user. The user data mining based on mobile phone will greatly improve the advertising revenue ability of this kind of software.

Social applications meet the needs of another dimension in user travel. Before their travels can only at the end of the trip, sitting in front of the computer finishing, now smart phones so that they can walk while writing and sharing, travels automatically generated. They can also communicate with other travel enthusiasts around the LBS function. This kind of application uses the social sharing to stimulate the user to produce the content, when the content and the user accumulates to a certain degree, it and the merchant carries on docking, then forms the commercial circulation. #p # subtitle #e#

But regardless of the type of application, there is a common dilemma: expanding the number of users. No large user, data mining can not be said, the business model is difficult to establish. In Wei's interpretation of "business value" reporters, there are more realistic and specific difficulties behind this conundrum.

First of all, the scenic data is difficult to obtain, location information, historical allusions in the hands of travel agencies, tourism Bureau, scenic spots, most of them have not yet opened to share, Wei that the application of the producers need to learn to deal with these institutions, borrowing force to accumulate data.

Second, the accumulation of content is too slow, resulting in limited user access to useful information, which is also the public comments in the tourism still play an important role in the cause, and its competition information accumulation of vertical tourism application is still very rare.

Again, pure Internet people may be able to design a good app, but lack of scene imagination, difficult to meet the personalized needs of users, such as for tourists with children to recommend suitable attractions, the ability to meet this demand is precisely the advantages of traditional travel agencies. The traditional industry still needs to use the Internet to rely on the original talent, just like the retail dealers still can not leave inventory managers.

The innovation of "post-tourism"

Travel after the end of the action is travel notes and comments to share, it is the end of online tourism closed loop, but also the beginning. Many of the information contained in travels and reviews may be used for your next trip, more valuable may be, which refers to flights, attractions, hotels, restaurants, or even the sale of souvenir stalls or individual feelings, can become other people before the planning, travel experience in the important reference, stimulation, Persuade him to go somewhere to buy some services or merchandise.

In fact, this is the most important business model of the tourism community: content to attract users, accumulate more content, organize the use of content, while attracting more users, while by directing their travel consumption to docking businesses, to divert users or direct sales of goods to earn profits.

The value created by this kind of guidance may be far beyond your imagination. U.S. Tourism review website TripAdvisor estimated that 2011 years of its consumption review data has a business value of 1.7 billion pounds for travelers ' consumption decisions. By December, it was finally able to list on the Nasdaq Independent market.

In China, the MA Honeycomb is one of the representatives of the tourism community. Founder Chen Yu was a Sina employee, and in 2006 he and his friends set up the website in his spare time, which was spread by word of mouth, with more than 100,000 users at the beginning of 2010. So Chen Yu left the original job, set up a company specializing in the operation of the Leech honeycomb. In the next 2 years, the company took venture capital, carried out advertising, so far the user volume of more than 4 million.

Chen Yu to "business value" revealed that the MA Honeycomb this year's advertising sales can be tens of millions, brand advertisers include airlines, tourism bureau and so on. UGC (user production content) has not yet played a role in consumer guidance, it has initially shown revenue capacity.

But in fact, for the Internet Community products, the user accumulation of Ma honeycomb speed is not fast. Former Windmill net product manager Li Xianghao it as "the old tourist community", and author analysis of its access to the user's unfavorable factors: it to travel notes to attract users, but too many pictures, the article is too long, users need to spend a lot of time to organize writing, so the participation threshold is too high; In addition, because the article does not have a fixed template, resulting in the extraction , we need to pay more manpower cost. And in today's fragmented reading, people seem to be increasingly impatient for long, deep reading.

The development of mobile Internet may solve these problems. App Application "On the road" shout out the slogan is "Travel Notes", it allows users to take photos with mobile phone, with a short text instant release, and using GPS positioning function will he traversed the place in the map link up. So the travels automatically generated, users save the trouble of finishing afterwards.

In fact, it is a trend to travel in advance from the tour. Based on this, the use of the social application of the "buzz" is not only to support the instant release of photo text, but also added to the timeline display function, which is another form of travel notes.

Back to the PC-side of the tourism community, it is not impossible to innovate, after all, tourists carrying tens of thousands of dollars of camera travel, he does not want to let the iphone or even thousands of Android machine grab the limelight. The journey then builds communities around these high-quality images, and users can upload their own works, with short words and music, to share them in an aesthetically pleasing way. It has been the user's favor, since February this year on-line, the website that has nearly 100,000 registered users. It can be seen that the change of user habits is leading to the inevitable trend of the tourism community to light.

Looking back, there are two trends that we cannot ignore about the closed-loop economy of online travel:

First of all, regardless of the size of the company, the closed loop should be fully presented to the user. They spare no effort to weaken the information asymmetry between the user and the destination, because the more transparent the information the more convenient the user makes the decision, also means that the more can stimulate him to spend, this is the logic behind.

Just past September, Ctrip at one breath launched Ctrip Wireless, Ctrip Special Hotel, Ctrip tourism, Donkey rating nets, Tieyu 5 app applications, comprehensive coverage of pre-travel booking, tour guide, after the sharing of 3 links; Ma Honeycomb Travel Translator, travel guide, Travel travels, Hum, Tourism Reviews 5 Applications also cover 3 links. The future of large companies in the industry, will certainly not only for a certain link, otherwise it is difficult to give users a closed-loop experience, and now they appear in different forms, only to enter the market point of difference.

Second, more and more companies are becoming aware of the need to move to both ends of the user's short-term and long-term decisions. In the past, everyone's attention was focused on the recent decisions of the pre-tour market users, for example, one months after the booking of air tickets and hotels, while the value of the swim and swim market after the discovery, the impact on user decisions in time is being extended, companies increasingly want to affect his one hours of consumption behavior (short-term decision), or affect his choice of a tourist destination for the next six months (long term decision).

Mobile Internet enables enterprises to extend this at a lower cost, thus covering all the travel behavior of users. This is a new opportunity for online travel, and anyone can grow up to be strong before the market goes into focus.