E-commerce
...akfast such as Comfort Inn Earls Court, have a portion of their website dedicated to reservations so a potential guest can check room rates and availability online without needing to telephone the business (www.comfortinnearlscourt.co.uk, 2004). E-commerce challenges traditional organizational practices, and opens ups a variety of business opportunities that will help the organization in their continuing performance. There are many advantages when using and e-commerce strategy in the hotel industry such as small hotels – e.g. Comfort Inn Earls Court (Choice Hotels International) – would be able to offer their services and products nationwide, it is an inexpensive way to advertise and market by functioning as low cost, high impact channel of distribution for the business. The number of people using the Internet is increasing dramatically and is expected to growth much further as consumers are gaining confidence in the security of making purchase (Wright, 2000). I would say that other advantage is speed, the technology give us the opportunity to make reservation in any hotelier website such as Hilton within in seconds. Consumers get their booking confirmations instantaneously which make the full process more efficient. The Intercontinental Group Plc website (www.ichotelsgroup.com) offers special discounts to their room nights when you book directly from the website, which means that it also, help you to save costs. From an international hotel’s point of view it can save money in marketing, distribution, personnel, postage and printing costs. Customers have the opportunity to search in a hotel’s website and make a final decision when booking. In terms of marketing the organization must be critically aware of the development of e-commerce and the implications that it may causes. An article from the website Hospitality Net issued on 17th December 2001 showed how the number of visitors to UK decline due to the September 11 issue in USA. It states that the occupancy rates in London during November were 14.6 % lower that in 2001, average room rate dropped by 14.8% and rooms yield fell by 27.3%. Despite to the considerable drop on the mentioned figures, we also want to highlight that there was an increased on the domestic tourism by 4.1%. Hoteliers throughout UK used a combination of marketing techniques such as E-marketing in order to improve the figures and increased the income in the hotel industry. The E-marketing is to promote and make special offers thought the website in order to marketing objectives, which mainly is to increase sales and allow potential customers to be aware of the product. Now electric communications tools are and will continue to be an important factor in the promotional mix. Businesses use e-commerce to develop competitive advantage by providing more useful information, expanding choice, developing new services, streamlining purchasing processes, and lowering costs (Cole, 2000). The Internet also imposes price discipline as customers have access to price and product information from many sources. For example, Choice Hotels International, which is composed of a group of budget hotels, increases its revenue mainly from online bookings. When looking at international marketing, the currency of a particular country may have a bearing. If the company doesn’t have the capabilities to do business in another country or deal in other currencies it could prove very difficult for them and they could lose business because of it (Wright, 2000). The Internet gives hotels such as the Marriott the opportunity to explore new ways of finding consumers by offering various prices for online bookings (www.marriott.com, 2004). This is encouraged as it saves the Marriott from having to have a large number of people to take bookings via the more conventional methods: telephone bookings. When using the Internet the consumer also gets more of an idea of what they are paying for and it allows them to browse different dates, and when they can find the right price. With the use of the Internet the Marriott can also explain what consumers are getting for their money and what benefits each package or type of room might bring. Companies that expand to different countries will have to be sure that the local infrastructure is suitable for them to be able to deliver their product. If the infrastructure is poor it could lead to extra financial burden ...