Project 1

One to one marketing is marketing that treats each customer in a unique way. It has become one of the greatest benefits of E-commerce since companies can enable the ability to match products and services with individual customers. This ability includes the ideas of personalization or customization of products and services in a make it your way fashion towards customers. Although companies may have had one to one marketing strategic programs implemented in previous years, they weren’t exposed to the advances of today’s technologies which allow a more beneficial one to one relationship to be built between customer and company. New marketing models have had to be developed to support this new marketing cycle of relationship building. This new model proposed by Garner Inc., an information technology consultant company views the relationship as a two way street and the process can start at any place in the cycle. Usually though, it starts with the customer receiving marketing exposure then decides how to respond to the marketing exposure. When a sale is made, customer information is collected and then placed into a database. (Nelson, S 1996) This comprehensive insight into this personalized marketing process shows the advancements that the field of one to one marketing has made with the advent of the Internet. One of the biggest factors in the one to one marketing is that it enables companies to foster a great communicative relationship and understand each customer needs and buying habits. This in turn allows companies to enhance and frequently customize their future marketing efforts with the information gathered through the one to one marketing initiatives. One company who has utilized the one to one marketing strategy is the online travel agency Expedia.

Expedia.com is one of the internet-based travel agencies that have sprung up over the last few years. Here, the user is an inseparable part of the service. It operates much like a traditional agency in that it functions as a middleman through which consumers can book a variety of travel-related services. Expedia.com allows you to make hotel, rental car, and flight reservations. The growth of the online travel marketplace is no longer furious, but marketing to Internet customers still remain intense. Internet travel marketing has spawned a multitude of online marketing tactics designed to reach specific customers and facilitate the online travel booking experience. Travel and hospitality suppliers are employing a broad array of online marketing programs and are increasingly spending time and money into new initiatives each year. In comparison to 2004, 74% of respondents are spending more on Web site design and functionality, 73% are increasing spending on email marketing, and 64% are spending more on search engine optimization. (New York University and PhoCusWright Inc., 2005) With this large basis of attention given to customers, specific strategies must be put into place for Expedia to continue to be a leader in the marketplace.

One of the main strategies employed by the company is the personalization idea within one to one marketing. Personalization is the matching of services, products and advertising content to individuals. In the online travel agency business, they adopt this strategy to fit their product and advertisements towards the user’s profile. On Expedia, users must log into the website to complete any transaction. This logging in actions lends to the personalization process. When customers create their user profiles, they disclose certain information that Expedia can use to track buying habits, analyze user preferences, behaviors and demographics. At the top of the page when a user logs in, they can access both present and past itineraries, account information and customer support tailored to their needs and trends that have been collected while they may have explored the website. Although a customer must be logged in to complete the transaction, they can still browse the site for information without having to log in. When selecting travel arrangements, the customer is prompted to indicate certain information such as date of travel, airport destinations that one plans to travel to and from, as well as age range of traveling passengers. Even though the customer discloses this information, one is prompted by a second page asking the type of flight (roundtrip/one-way), the flexibility of travel plans and whether additional requirements such as hotel and car rental is required. These additional fields assist in the personalized process while on the site since the company tries to specifically hone in on your travel arrangements to suit your needs. This also may trigger things that the customer may not have thought of while planning their trip. . Users can book flights, hotels, rental cars and combinations of them. The site engine works very well and meets the standards of usability that consumers have come to expect. There are features like the ability to sort by length of flight, lowest fare or number of stops. Today, those are necessities; their absence would be missed since sometimes customers may only decide that they would want to have readily access to a car and opt to include the car rental option. When the customer is finally satisfied with the information they have given the database, they receive a multitude of airlines and times to fly. During the check out process, the customer is prompted to log in, and all the information that is collected from the itinerary detailed for future travel is compiled with previous trips and Expedia can better enhance the personalized process for the next time the user visits. All the information collected can be useful towards generating that perfect personalized world for each customer.

Adding value, Expedia.com offers specialized services for the business traveler. One tool, Travel Arranger, allows a user to delegate shopping for the perfect flight, hotel, and rental car to a coworker or friend. Another tool, Repeat a Trip, makes it easier for frequent travelers to book the same flight, hotel, and rental car as on a previous trip. Both offer convenience and value to the business traveler and a strong reason for returning to the site. In addition, a toolbox of sorts titled, Traveler Tools, appears in the Business section. It is free and includes links to Flight Status, Airport Information, Fare Tracker, Currency Converter, Driving Directions, Weather and Passport Information. To aid the traveler, it contains an extensive collection of maps and information on a variety of travel destinations. The collection is not some dull text-based list. It offers sophisticated virtual tours of attractions that are very helpful in trip planning. These simple tools add towards enhanced customer experience since the site provides a simplistic approach to both business and personal travel planning. Convenience is becoming one of the most sort after benefit by customers and having a site that offers that one stop shop experience draws more traffic to their site daily.

Although Expedia is one of the forefront companies in the online travel agencies, many new companies have been striving towards establishing themselves in the market as well. The current situation in Electronic Tourism is a competitive market, whereby each website is vying to keep and draw customers. However, smart companies have learned something from the past two tech recessions is to invest aggressively when the chips are down to build sustainable advantage and grab market share from the competition. One company taking that strategy to heart is Expedia Inc., which has invested heavily in technology to help build itself into the leader in online travel. This internet pioneer is also investing in its own technology infrastructure, standardizing on PeopleSoft Enterprise Financial Management across its worldwide operations to support its aggressive expansion and double-digit revenue growth. (Oracle, 2005) Expedia has integrated the use of technology in their financial systems and has used this as the main weapon towards their main competitive advantage over the other travel industries. In the ruthless online travel agency business, Expedia has seemingly remained within the evoked sets of customers which indicate that their proactive approach towards Electronic Tourism has worked. The have utilized the technology tool as a new intermediary for their business by bypassing traditional mechanisms for booking flight, and optimizing the technology adopted to remain a forerunner in the online travel agency websites.

This company’s success story is a remarkable one. From being spun off Microsoft and no longer have access to the financial stability and software tools that Microsoft offers, into being on one the highest revenue generating sites for online traveling. Expedia uses the lure of free services, like passport information, the weather and the currency calculator, to name a few, as a means of attracting users and offering them something of value to keep them interested. These simple tools that support the notion of convenience give the website indirect added value. Online travel services have become a multi-billion dollar industry, and one of the leading categories of Internet commerce, and it continues to grow annually. The number of successful travel sites declined from a record high of 1,000 in 2000 to only several hundred by the early years of the twenty-first century's first decade. By the middle years of the decade, mergers and acquisitions had created a handful of popular sites that dominated the industry. Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, and Priceline were some of the largest. However, Expedia separated from the pack and emerged as the clear leader in 2003 with its strong presence in hotel reservations and business travel markets. (Gale, 2007) The inclusion of the corporate travel options that specifically targets business has given Expedia the slight edge over the other online travel sites. In an article in Travel Agent Magazine, Mitch Robinson, marketing manager for Expedia, estimated the potential market for corporate services at $25 billion. With figures of this great proportion, Expedia can boast about being the market leader in the industry.

Expedia, Inc. ranked as the largest online travel service in 2006, with 25 million visitors per month and 120,000 user-generated reviews of hotels. By late 1999, almost 900,000 customers had used the company's Web site, making travel reservations worth about $700 million, according to Tribune Business News. In addition to offering online reservations and ticket sales, Expedia enabled users to share information and travel experiences with its chat rooms and obtain maps. The following year, Expedia posted sales of $134.9 million, an increase of nearly 250 percent over 1999, and posted a net loss of $118.3 million. By 2002, the company was back on the fast track, posting unprecedented sales and profits. Much of its success was attributed to the company's expansion into hotel reservations and business travel. In August 2005, sales totaled $2.1 billion, with net income of $228.7 million (up almost 40% from 2004). (Gale, 2007) Such impressive numbers has certainly showed that the company has fully optimized the use of one to one marketing to its fullest potential and the company still has room for growth. From online financial websites like Yahoo Finance and SEC filings, financial analysts give Expedia an A rating, and indicate that they are a sound investment for its investors but has an appeal that is likely to attract Capital Gain-oriented investors because of its continued market growth in such an intense market. Expedia has been grown substantially since its break off with Microsoft and has shown that they did not need a large conglomerate industry to aid in its successes. Other sites, in other industries, can learn from this one.