Innovations In Travel Websites Go Beyond Selling And Marketing, Essay. (70 Characters)

Innovations in the Travel websites beyond selling and marketing products and services to sustain in a competitive environment.

Tourism refers to the travel for the purpose of business, recreation or leisure. It can be defined as the system of traveling and staying in a place outside the known environment of an individual for various purposes and for not more than a consecutive year. Tourism is beneficial for a country or place because it is responsible for bringing in huge income in exchange of goods and services which accounts for the 30% of the global export of services and 6% of the total export of goods and services. There are three factors, namely, internal, external and national factors associated with the tourism system. The external factors include those that recognize the destination competitiveness, influence of the competitors, security, image, distance and the international barriers and economy. The national factors include the structure of government, GDP, economy, culture and society of the two countries in which the tourism business take place. The individual factors include those that affect the individual’s preference of a destination, for instance, time taken to travel, income, regulations, images and personal choice. The upcoming and innovative products in tourism include golf tourism, medical tourism, education tourism, sports tourism, domestic tourism, tea tourism, luxury trains, eco tourism and wedding. The challenges that can pose a threat for tourism include regulatory issues, lack of proper infrastructure, security, human resources, taxation, service levels and lack of sufficient marketing and promotion (Carlisle et al., 2013). The managers in the supervision of tourism industry use strategies like product development in the form of customized services, specific location oriented packages and low cost of packages. Use of web and e- commerce is also popular with the increasing users of internet. The managers create, draw and ease sporting, entertaining, cultural activities and other major events for the sake of tourists.   

In this report the researcher will look into the overview of the tourism system in Singapore with special focus on the company CTC Travel. According to Lin et al., 2014 the analysis of the tourism company in Singapore will be supported with relevant concepts of the system. They are efficient in operating specialized China tours. CTC is the ideal choice for tourists who are planning to travel in China. Since its establishment in the year 1990, it has always been focused to improve their services and provide the beautiful tours to various places in China which include Beijing, Tulou, Chengde, Tianjin, Chaoshan, Jiangxi, Zhangzhou, Huanglong, Jiuzhaigou, Guangdong and so on. They are also able to offer a broad range of customized tours that involves the MICE tours, golden age tours, corporate tours, Muslim tours, self drive tours, student tours, language tours, educational tours and cultural tours. Their knowledgeable and friendly tour guides are so helpful and companionable that the customers never failed to mention their services in their feedback (Carson, Carson & Hodge, 2014). This full service agency has interesting tour packages, reasonable tour prices and an excellent professional service which is appealing to the customers. Their tour destinations vary from America, Australia, Bhutan, Cambodia and Canada to China, Egypt, Europe, Greece, Hong Kong, India and many more.  

As per Liu, Liao & Chen, 2013, tourism websites are designed in a beautiful way by keeping the practical destinations in mind and understand the challenges that might come in the way, the time constraints, resources and the complication that might be faced in the marketing of the destination. CTC travel has to bring about innovations in their travel websites with a developed technology and functionality that will meet up to the expectations of the customers and inspire them to visit the places. They can achieve best results in their websites designing by meeting with the necessary digital requirements. The process of their creative design will be able to pull out the prime assets that will be helpful in promoting and working with the creation of website that will properly focus on the best parts of the destinations. Their superb technology will be able to make the website user- friendly, realistic and filled with essential features that will help the tourists to plan accordingly and which in turn will help in the promotion of the products, places, events and services of the destination. Tourism websites are all about inspiring the visitors about the destination and pulling them in those places by luring them with attractive offers (Cornelissen, 2017). The key features of a tourism website include responsive design, product display and searches, featured products, itinerary planner, integrated dynamic mapping, nearest landmarks, events calendar and social media integration. According tpo Mariani et al., 2014, all these facilities provided with the travel and tourism websites are beneficial for providing the best experience to the users who will turn into visitors. The featured products and advanced searches help in planning an easy and hassle free tour for the tourists. The social media integration in the websites provides the ability to drive awareness and traffic by implanting social media feeds and interaction buttons.

Advantages and Disadvantages

McKercher & Koh, 2017 argued that the advantages in this industry include earning of foreign exchanges which contributes to government revenues. Tourism helps in creating business opportunities which should be clarified in the tourism website because it serves as a catalyst for the country’s development. Tourism also holds a higher rank compared to other businesses which are spread worldwide therefore it is an absolute necessary for the travel website innovation of the company CTC travel. When the huge amount of income is generated from the field of tourism it facilitates the quality of life in the rural parts of the country. With the experience of foreign culture the international relations between the countries can also be enhanced. The local residents get the scope for employment in the tourism sector which helps in poverty reduction (Couture et al., 2015).

According to Peng, Song & Crouch, 2014, along with the advantages, disadvantages also exist. Lack of infrastructure and sufficient planning makes it unbearable for the local communities. The difference between the cultures and principles of the native population and that of the tourists coincide to give rise to a conflict in the destination area. The governments become aware of the tourist presence in the area and start to give more importance to them than the local people. The increasing pollution due to the tourist activities takes a toll on the environment of the place. Although tourism provides employment to the local people of the area but it is only meant for a specific time period and for the rest of the year the local people are almost neglected.

Thus, according to Smith, 2014, it can be mentioned that in the travel website of the company the advantages and disadvantages of the tourism industry should be explained in a subtle way. It should be explained in such a way that the tourists can understand the value of the destination they are going to visit and respect the local culture and environment. The do’s and don’ts of the specific places should be stated in a bold and clear way so that it does not refrain the tourists from visiting the place (Espiner & Becken, 2014).

As per Pereira, de Fátima Salgueiro & Rita, 2016, the idea of a travel website is to provide a portfolio of the specific destinations so that any visitor who intends to visit the country can have a look in the website and book rooms or search for the nearby places and other available facilities. The website needs to be real and authentic about the deal that is offered by the company CTC travel and thus money can be gained from the website. It is a common trend to earn revenue by means of an online enterprise. Without earning an income it is not easy for the maintenance of a large company tourism website. Therefore the essential part is to make an aggressive marketing through diversified channels for easy monetization (Shen et al., 2015).  

1. What is a tourism website? Why is it important?
2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of tourism websites?
3. What is the economic gain from a tourism website?

Economic Impact

In the past few years, the qualitative and quantitative approaches of research in the tourism analysis have become popular. The reason behind this can involve many factors. The most significant reason being the dependence on the tourism destinations has expanded on a global scale and emergence of more resources have been contributing to the data collection procedure. The approaches that are used by the tourism researchers are largely informed by the improvement in the statistical analysis in all disciplines (Gibbs & Gretzel, 2015).

Qualitative research refers to the enquiries which are applied in a set of qualitative methods to explore in detail, interpret and understand the particular subject of study. Qualitative research in the field of tourism is influenced from the cultural and social perspective. The main aim of this research is to find out and seek for the meaning and to grow an understanding of collecting information and generating new descriptions (Chia, 2015). Qualitative research is associated to a high level of reflectivity and sensitivity to power affairs and uncertainty. Qualitative research is a well- established approach for the researching phenomenon. Its application in the field of tourism and travel is taking place in the recent years. The popularity of qualitative research in the field of travel and tourism is gaining momentum gradually. This is because qualitative research has the ability to provide rich and in- depth knowledge from different points of view along with a stress on the understanding as to how the tourism related phenomenon and experiences can be beneficial. In the subject of research, the qualitative type refers to the use of unstructured and unreliable data sources and the methods used for collecting data. The methods that are used for data collection include observation, research interviews, surveys, documents and more such similar kind of things (Gong, 2017). It is the theoretical form of a research topic and includes the research procedure in detail. It helps in understanding the research questions. The different steps that are involved while conducting a qualitative research are- preparation of the research subject; selecting a particular question and focusing on it for the ease of the study; making a literature review; evaluation of the processes that are needed for the qualitative research; taking into consideration the sample size; research methodology; data analysis.

The most significant fact is that the destinations related to tourism has grown and developed on a global scale and therefore more resources have been utilized for the collection of quantitative data and the maintenance of tourism data sets. This has motivated those researchers who were interested in the quantitative analysis of data to keep the tourism industry in their agenda of preferred research subject. Also, the stakeholders of the tourism industry which include the destination managers, governments look out for better decisions by implementing developed policies and assessing the existing ones in order to be attentive towards the outcome of the quantitative research. This type of research puts stress on the objective measurements and the different kinds of statistical, mathematical and numerical analysis of the information that is gathered through the polls created or the survey or research questionnaire (Halkier, Kozak & Svensson, 2014). The different steps involved in the process of quantitative research include- identification of the research problem; reviewing the literature of the research; analyzing the theoretical framework, methodology; discussion of the results; conclusion. There is a need in the tourism research procedure to facilitate and implement methods of knowing and researching not only on the western point of view of the world but also getting associated with the cross- cultural research teams which have a focused view and are situated temporarily. The quantitative research particularly highlights the evaluation and application of the different methods which have developed a control over the formalization controllability, value freedom and repeatability. These characteristics are the common traits for the research approaches which add to the direction of numerical determination or the measurement of the process. The type of numerical determination or quantitative analysis is limited to certain fundamental concept (Heerschap et al., 2014).

While conducting a research on the innovation of tourism websites for CTC travels it is a normal fact that there will be certain limitations (Phua & Miller, 2014). For the researcher it is extremely important to put effort for reducing the risk of limitations throughout the whole process of research and acknowledge the limitations at the end in the conclusion chapter. The limitations that were involved in this particular research include- formulation of research aims and objectives.  The broad aim for the research goal should be specified so that the focus can be put on a particular subject. In this particular subject the innovation in travel websites the focus can be put on the most important element such as the new content which will be introduced in the innovated website. There has to be a choice in the data collection methods and along with those an added method of data collection will increase the opportunity for detailed analysis on the subject. For instance, in this study if the website designing is included in the research subject along with the website content then there would be a better scope for the researcher to develop the website which will be beneficial for the company CTC travels (Kim & Canina, 2015).  Implementation of the data collection method and scope of discussions are also considered as the limitations in the process of research. This is because a new researcher will not have much experience of data collection previously which will be posed as a limitation in his research work.

Research Questions

Ethics have the power to change the previous considerations of preferences and actions. This branch of philosophy is associated with the potential of decision making and addressing the right and the wrong. It is very important to take into considerations the major ethical issues which can come up while conducting a research. Informed consent is one such way which has the right of the respondents is protected. This means that the answers that are given by the respondents should be kept confidential and cannot be disclosed without the individual’s consent. Another ethical issue is voluntary participation which refers to the fact that the people are not forced to take part in the survey but they come in their own will. The people also have the right to withdraw their participation at any moment they feel. This withdrawal of participation should not harm them or their career in the future or have any negative impact on them. It should be strictly maintained that no harm either physically or mentally should come upon the participants in any way (Kirá?ová & Pavlí?eka, 2015). Anonymity and confidentiality are the other two factors which are also part of ethical issues that are of major significance.

Content analysis in a research refers to the methods used for making replicable and authentic inferences by identifying the elements given in the information. The successful evaluation of the elements helps in providing qualitative data which are further convertible to quantitative data. For the given subject of research on the innovation of travel website, the researcher will look for the specific elements in the provided answers of the respondents (Lai, Li & Harrill, 2013). The elements can be the demands of the customers that they look for while searching for any destination. It might be the price chart of all the nearby Chinese restaurants. These are the specific characteristics which will be useful for the long term sustenance of the services provided. Another factor that the tourists mostly look out for are the local popular objects which are famous as well as can be kept as a memoir. The tourism website of CTC travels can be developed in such a way that they list out the popular handy elements of the destination area so that it becomes easy for the visitors to get an idea about what to shop for and from where (Wuthipunuangchai, 2015).

This widely used qualitative research technique applies three distinguished approaches of conventional, directed and summative. These three approaches are essential to extract data from the gathered information and then analyze them accordingly. Thus, by using the three approaches the researcher will be able to gain insight about the in- depth components which will benefit in the innovation of the travel websites. If the researcher is successful in attaining success then the company CTC travel will have an innovated tourism website beyond the marketing and selling of their product and services for the long- term sustenance (Lew & Cheer, 2017).

Methodology

Conclusion

So it can be concluded from the assignment that for the innovation in the tourism website, CTC travel has to take into account a lot of elements essential for their long term sustenance. The researcher has to conduct a survey which will answer the specific research questions. The solutions of the questions can be found out by conducting a survey in the form of questionnaire which will be sent through mail to the target group of respondents. The responses will help the researcher to get an idea about the market demand of the people from the CTC travels company. There should be no discrepancy with the questionnaire on the part of the research and he should do the research in an ethical way. There might be research limitations but he should mention that. It is essential for the company to keep an account of the fact that the innovation in their products and services will keep them at a competitive advantageous position as compared to the rivalries. If they can provide the required elements in their websites then that will help the visitors to prefer them over other travel and tourism companies. This is more necessary than providing premium services because it is the attraction in the website which will pull the tourists to visit the destination area.

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