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By far the most interesting supply chain in hotel industry is the development of the Online Travel Agents (OTA). As the competition is increasing, the OTA’s are continuous looking into ways how to improve business. The first start happened with preferred listings, which resulted in a higher commission charge to the hotels. Hotels could improve their ranking on the website, by paying a higher commission rate. Higher on the list, could results in more bookings.

Recently, OTA’s have been offering free booking engine, or low cost booking engines to use on the hotel’s own website. It will make updating of rates and allocations easier, as you will have to manage one extranet. As hotel’s are focusing on cost control, they should be aware that these models can push more business to the OTA website and results in more and higher commission payments. Alternatively, the hotel could sign up with a channel manager to create a solution to the distribution of all the Extranets. As the OTA has no strong commitment informs of investment, they will not have the real interest to sell you particular hotel, just any which will sign up. More can be learned at our page on Web marketing, how you can effectively market your website.

The latest trend to capture the interest of online shoppers would be to offer the complete package. Expedia, Orbits and Travelocity, have already long lasting relationships with the Airline industry and selling tickets online (even combined with the best hotels deals) As this has proven to be successful in the long haul market, Expedia has teamed up with Air Asia and selling also Air Asia flights in a very strong Asian market.  Also their biggest competitor in Asia, AGODA has entered into a partnership with Cathay Holidays Limited, the travel agency arm of Cathay Pacific Airways, through which Cathay Holidays will distribute agoda.com’s hotel product.

With the deal, travelers booking a ticket through CathayPacific.com will now have access to agoda’s worldwide instantly-confirmable inventory, while Cathay Holidays will be able to provide up-to-the-minute rates and promotions in more than 100 countries.

This will be the only beginning, as OTA’s have a very customer friendly business model, the classical travel agent is currently booking rooms via the OTA and soon they will book tickets as well. This would be the service of a travel agent to those travelers, who have no experience to book their trips on the internet.

The TAT predicts that 2010 becomes more favorable, as long as no major political crisis occurs. The economic situation of individual countries continues to be the major factor influencing the growth of each target market. TAT expects the number of international tourists to grow at around 7 to 10% to approximately 15.0 to 15.5 million in 2010.

When considering economic trends and aviation links to key regions, TAT has identified/will be focusing on three key market groups:

* Group 1: This includes the ASEAN member countries, South Asia, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Iran, Kuwait, and Jordan. International flights between these countries and Thailand are expected to increase in 2010, both on existing routes and new routes coming on line. In every market, a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategy will be used in Europe.

For the ASEAN market, TAT will focus on Thailand as a holiday break destination by reinforcing Thailand’s unique selling points of value and shopping. A quality strategy will be used for the Middle East and South Asia markets. In the Middle East, Thailand will be branded as a destination offering quality, value and variety, as well as focusing on the health market.

* Group 2: The key markets in this group are Oceania, Scandinavia, Germany, Russia and Vietnam. This group includes existing markets where the economic situation is likely to be stable or to decline slightly in 2010, and are not expected to show the same levels of growth seen at the end of 2009. The number of flights to these markets is expected to remain at the current level or decrease slightly during 2010.

* Group 3: This group includes Northeast Asia, the Americas, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). TAT’s goal for this group is to revive a stagnant market base. The number of arrivals from these countries showed the greatest decline during 2009, mainly resulting from a loss of confidence in Thailand as a safe destination, but exacerbated by the severe economic downturn. In 2010, the economic status of these countries should return to normal. Flights, which declined in number during the market slowdown, are now maintaining stable levels.

Marketing Trend for 2010

The Thai economy is showing signs of continuous growth for 2010. In the last quarter of 2009, the Office of the National Economic and Social Development Board predicted the economy would grow at 3 to 4% due to the global economic recovery and the government’s ‘Making Thailand Stronger’ economic stimulus program. Rising consumer confidence will result in increasing domestic tourists. This trend was evident in the Amazing Thailand Amazing Value campaign at the end of 2009, which is continuing into the 2010 tourism season and attracting more operators.

Sales promotion activities will also be used for tourism marketing in 2010. These include the Thai Tourism Festival, Amazing Two Coasts, Amazing lsan Fair and One Night One Price campaigns. Other tourism activities will be tailored to specific lifestyles and interests, such as train tours, tourism for senior citizens, golf tournaments, tourism with pets and creative music festivals. New tourist attractions and activities that reflect the culture and style of a particular region will also be introduced. For 2010, the target for tourism will be 90 million trips, an increase of 3.38%, with income from tourism expected to reach 430,000 million baht, an increase of 5.5%.

Source: Travel Daily News