Blog Major E-Commerce and Sales in Tourism 2017/18

Destination Booking Jasmin Kagerbauer, Nico Hollenstein, Gabriel Hinze Intro Mountain Tourism today finds itself in a situation where it doesn’t have another choice than catching up with technology. The industry has always been one of the most dynamic but the 4 th industrial revolution that we are currently living changes the game drastically because it applies to services and the way we purchase them. It is no big news to say that the vast majority of people book their vacations via eTechnologies. (travelweekly, 2012) Smart organisms called OTAs or Metasearch engines saw it coming, took advantage of the situation and simply aggregated the supply on centralized platforms on which customers can now book everything related to their tourism needs. However, there are good and bad sides to everything. While OTAs and such companies provide smaller players such as hotels or DMOs with awareness, bookings and a so-called “billboard effect”, they also charge very ...

Introduction If not stated otherwise, the information for this blog entry was obtained from Mag. (FH) Alexander Fritsch. He is a lecturer at the HTW Chur and Academy of Hotel Excellence Switzerland and has his own company named Tourismuspartner. (Fritsch, 2017) Importance of Reviews on Sales Globalization is why everyone has access to the internet and the information displayed. Moreover, this interactive and participatory web offers up opportunities for everyone to create content and share ideas or knowledge, in the tourism area most likely on social networks such as review sites. (World Tourism Organization and the European Travel Commission, 2014) Such user generated content (UGC) has a strong, direct influence on the online sales in the tourism area as consumers perceive reviews as more creditable and trustworthy than professional ads. Hence, review portals are of utmost significance and as a company it is crucial to know how to monitor and handle both, negative and posi...