Online Travel in India – Myth or Reality?

Reading about web 2.0 and how it has pushed online travel with funding available so on & forth, it makes one start wondering on some points such as:

There is a phenomenal growth potential & people have embraced online bookings that have grown by more than 100% etc.
• Yes this is true but what were the bookings earlier & what has the 100% growth been.
• When numbers are bandied about, the top line airline & hotel rates look great but what is the bottom line?

Thousands of airline tickets are being sold every day claim all online sites.
• Back of the envelope calculation show that the number of flights (domestic & international) with their carrying capacity spread over 6 months & all the online players as well as offline travel agents would not aggregate to the Thousands.

Hotel Rooms are being booked online like never before.
• Great and this would be happening with those online who have pre booked or off season…. But surprisingly the hotel industry cries itself hoarse with not enough rooms…..Corporate Houses scream at the Pricing…..Wonder why all 3 cannot work together & make money! Seems to be something wrong somewhere.

Discounts, Cash back make it better?
• Not necessarily, though beneficial & economical Yes.

However the most critical element of distribution & access remains unrecognized or avoided by everyone in the industry. All figures/statistics would lead to the TOP 12 – 18 cities. Whilst the pareto principle may apply, & the marketing buck for reach also needs to be considered, the fact that there are more than 65+ cities towns where online travel is still a distant dream, whilst the Brands are still represented by the so called unbranded companies in ways they deem best.

And the Cream is in the B & C towns!

Anaggh

Guerilla Marketing - Jay Conrad Levinson

I had tried this out on Internet & worked pretty well. Adapted this to Retail & seems to work reasonably, if not equally well. Do not know if there are others who have tried this out in Retail, but welcome comments:

POST SALE

48-72 hours - Thank you note

30 days - Note/Telephone Call. Everything all right. Any Q - feedback - helps solidify

relationship.

90 days - New Product Offering. (Fusion Marketing Partners) Tieins enables them to

increase thier marketing exposure while reducing their marketing cost

6 months - Preview of upcoming sale/offer etc. before others

9 months - Ask for names and references of 3 people

1 year - Anniversary card. celebrating 1 year anniversary of first sale (Discount coupon)

15 months - Questionnaire

18 months - so on

Anaggh

Basic Steps of CRM

Though everyone speaks about CRM, very few practice it. Reason being the person thinking/dreaming about the concept & execution is very different. Some basic steps that have been oft written & debated need to be complied with in order to successfully execute CRM & then manage it further.

1) Establish a formal process to gather information on prioritized customer requirements. Conduct a through evaluation of what's really important to your customers.

2) Identify one person in the organization to be ultimately responsible for the experience of customers around a process or set of processes.

3) Define a cross-organizational strategy for meeting customer needs. Determine all touch points between disciplines that have an impact on the customer relationship.

4) Define processes that will best support that strategy, including integrating various parts of the organization.

5) Identify the teams and employees that must be prepared to support those processes.

6) Before implementing technology that will best support those people and processes, establish a complete, future-state technology architecture.

Please add to these points and look forward to more debates on the basics.

Anaggh