Why the failure rate of online travel website is so high?

See pure Silver Meng Uncle wrote an article "Why the success rate of Internet products so low," wrote a very powerful way. I take the "why online tourism web site failure rate so high" for the title to do some supplement to Uncle Meng.

Why do online travel websites fail so high? If you use a sentence, concise summary is: A good product many, good commercial products are not many. For example, the hornet's nest is a good physique, but did not get through the two veins (commercialization).

(Figure I: Online travel website business model and profit way)

An analysis of online tourism ecological circle

Online Tourism Role Division:

1, travel service Providers 2, travel distributors, 3, travel media; 4, users

Online travel Profit Way:

1. Travel service Provider (revenue) 2, travel Distributor (Commission) 3, Travel media (advertising)

Travel service providers (airlines, hotels, scenic areas, car rental, etc.) fully participate in the market competition, to carry out differentiated marketing strategies.

Distribution: On the one hand, online travel service providers through OTA and wholesalers distribution, distributors get commission and Return Point (CPS);

Direct sales: On the other hand, these service providers also directly obtain orders (ROI) by building their own websites;

Media: In order to get enough orders, OTA and service outlets will seek media for user promotion, media access to advertising fees. (CPT,CPC,CPS)

Users: Users through various channels, online access to convenient booking services, travel consumption.

The trend of online tourism website business

From the analysis of the eco-circle of the online tourism website, the online tourism website starts from the following major directions

1, travel media direction, salute to TripAdvisor: Where to go, cool News Network, to the net, Donkey rating nets, MA Honeycomb, cicada travels, etc.

2, segment the market Ota direction: Iron friends, green mango, pine cone nets, passers-by home network, tonight special hotel and so on

3, Emerging market O2O direction: Ant nets, travel the world, Piggy short rent, love day rent, etc.

The core competencies of online travel websites

The success of an online travel website is measured in three simple questions.

1, where users to?—— access to the user's ability (marketing ability)

2, the user to go there to?—— address the needs of users (product capabilities)

3, the existence of the value of the site?—— Enterprise Services monetization (liquidity)

Why is the failure rate of tourism media entrepreneurship so high?

For example:

According to the latest hitwise data, MA Honeycomb January 2013 has become the country's fourth largest online tourism website. But 2012, the MA Honeycomb revenue 10 million, the main customers from the Airlines, tourism bureau and other brand advertising. The same as the travel media where to go, the user scale of 2.5 times times the size of the MA honeycomb; The core of the problem is that the commercial transformation of the product is too low.

Where do we compare the commercial capabilities of the Hive:

Where to go: Home-Search list-Select Suppliers-Book (1 yuan per click-1.5 yuan) booking Click Conversion rate of at least 20%;

Ma Honeycomb: Home-Raiders-View introduction (Core revenue for brand advertising) more than 90% of the core user traffic is lack of commercialization of the liquidity.

At present, tourism media entrepreneurship has entered the fine operation of the Times, extensive business logic (to do a good product, attract users to use, there are millions of users, and then rely on advertising money) can not save the start-up companies.

The direction of tourism media business must think of several questions:

1, website user size (A) million

Target of commercial user size (100,000, 500,000, 1 million). The site must set a phased user-scale target, and on the basis of commercial exploration. If this indicator level is too small, the overall operation is no reference value.

2, Flow gain input (B1) million

At present, the traffic cost is higher, once the large-scale marketing behavior, will inevitably face the Red Sea market competition. Early-stage traffic for startups is mostly acquired through procurement. The cost of app start-up flow is relatively low. But if you do not prepare the flow to get input, to achieve the user size of the preset target time will be extended, time is also the start-up companies can not afford. The longer the time, the more B2 will be invested.

3, Flow Capacity (x)

Flow liquidity is the key to the success of the commercialization model, if the flow rate of change in the capacity of X is too low, then control the flow to obtain investment scale. The core operating index of the MA Honeycomb and media company is the capacity of liquidity. 1) Click on the advertising media conversion rate, 2 the actual effect of the supplier. If the operational indicators fail to achieve a breakthrough, the outlook is worrying.

4, other fixed investment (B2) million

Fixed input mainly for wages, office, etc.

5. Website operating profit (P)

P=a*x%*30-b1-b2

After large-scale operation, earning money is not a problem, but the scale of profit is the problem. For example, if the majority of the B1 for its own flow, the purchase of flow input (less), the other fixed input (B2) strict control, break-even is not difficult to achieve. If x-percent does not break, to the revenue of 100 million, theoretically increase the flow of more than 3-5 times. This commercial ability capital exit hopeless, so the MA honeycomb refinancing is still no whereabouts is not difficult to understand. Of course, the plight of the honeycomb, but also other tourist media website predicament.

Ma Honeycomb and other online travel media customers are mainly OTA and travel service providers: 1, for tourism providers, OTA has been paid according to the transaction. How can travel service providers make money in the direct sales process? 2, for Ota, OTA online conversion ratio is high; how to let Ota in the launch can also make money. 3, at the same time OTA will also compete with the tourism media entry.

In practice, the causes of death in online travel media are basically the same. It is unable to achieve large-scale revenue, capital chain exhausted and died. Because x index is too ugly, the capital chain shortage of enterprises will reduce B1,B2 investment, small rich is Ann, expansion is dead.

There is a problem to consider: the entrepreneurial students in the tourism media, you want to earn the travel industry advertising fees, you must build a travel media site it?

Some people want to ask, can the honeycomb have x-percent index improvement strategy? Of course, but the good way is to leave the brothers website.