A common search engine emerged when internet information swelled. The growing volume of tourism product information and online bookings has led to vertical search engines in the tourism industry. This model, while meeting the marketing and extension needs of tourism providers, also provides consumers with price matching for a wide range of online tourism products, forms a business model for professional online supermarkets and attracts a large pool of online tourism consumption needs. Vertical search engines use their own traffic and user advantages to attract an increasing number of users to the marketing platform, especially for small and medium-sized tourism product operators, to present low-cost products. Vertical search engines bring life to the entire online tourism industry. For the ota giant, however, the vertical search engine click-pay model is squeezing the profitability of the ota high commission model. While at this stage ota remains the largest tourist online booking entry point, the vertical search engine, represented by the cool news, has exceeded the number of people on the website and the use of the sticky ota website. A game of subversion and subversion is playing quietly in the online tourism market。
Inventory 1: vertical search engines cover more people and sticky than traditional reservation sites
Eri monitoring data show that in the first 10 months of 2011 the number of people covered by the tourism vertical search engine was ahead of other types of tourism websites. Vertical search engines have a more significant advantage in the number of people covered by air travel services. Air ticket service coverage has been relatively stable, with monthly movements relatively flat after peaks in january. The future advantage of vertical search engines in the search of tickets will be further enhanced by the fact that fare prices vary considerably from one channel to another and users will not lose in demand for ticket relative functions。
In terms of the number of visits, in the first 10 months of 2011 there was a significant advantage in the number of visitors to the tourism vertical search engine, with 70-80 per cent of visits contributing to the vertical search of the website, with the ota website accounting for about 20 per cent of traffic. Owing to the variety of tickets provided by vertical search engines and the cost-saving function, user dependency will increase。
In the first 10 months of 2011, there was a growing competition among users over the number of monthly hotel service coverage. The advantages of vertical search engines in hotel services are not significant compared to air ticket services. The analysis showed a steady increase in vertical search engine coverage, peaking in the third quarter. The number of people covered by the traditional tourism booking site (ota) has been stable; there has been a slight increase in the number of direct-selling sites, although the increase has not been as rapid as the vertical search site。
In the first 10 months of 2011, the travel vertical search engine is following up on the hotel's direct sales website. In the first 10 months, hotel direct-selling sites were connected for seven days and vertically searched for sites with a share of 22 per cent and 17 per cent of monthly visits, respectively, in the first and second places, exceeding 16 per cent of trips. In the future, the number of visits to hotel services will continue to increase, as will the number of visits to hotel sites and vertical searches。
Inventory two: vertical search engine users are young and price-oriented that's right
The user base of the vertical search engine is somewhat different from the traditional tourism website. The price-for-price function of vertical search engines attracts price-sensitive users to find higher-priced products on their websites; tens of thousands of vacation routes available online for bookings attract the attention of recreational tourists, while non-traditional tourism websites order only air tickets and hotel passengers; and the continuous roll-out of online marketing activities, such as group purchases, stabbings, etc., is favoured by more young internet users. In summary, the users of vertical search engines are young; have some purchasing power, value for money; and are characterized by users of leisure tourism。
According to erie monitoring data, in october 2011, 2. 277 million people were covered by the network and 1. 220 million people were covered by the network, a combination of 3. 3 million users. Reconsolidated users account for only 14 per cent of the users of the network and 27 per cent of the users of the network. There are significant differences between the two groups of users of the website. In addition to age and income differences, the vertical search engine user base is characterized by, first, where the vertical search engine goes is dominated by recreational tourism users, while traditional booking sites, such as travel, focus more on business tourism users. Second, vertical search engines are more attractive to self-help tourists. The time when travel agents used to arrange trips under their exclusive authority is making a transition to travel information, booking tickets, hotels, booking meals, renting cars and processing visas. The one-stop, full-dimensional search service of the vertical search engine caters to the needs of self-help tourists。
The age structure of the vertical search engine user group is young. In the case of vertical search engines and traditional booking of web links, according to erie data, the age of users is concentrated in 19-30 years. Compared to travel, there are more users under the age of 18 and between the ages of 19 and 24. The proportion of users over 25 years of age is higher than the number of people travelling. Rejuvenation, faster acceptance of new things and the habit of making their own itineraries are features that are more visible to users of vertical search engines。
The income structure of the vertical search engine user group is low. According to erie, the monthly income of internet users is concentrated at $1,000-$5,000, of which $2,000-$3,000, or 24. 9 per cent, is the largest. Compared to the internet, the proportion of users who go below $2,000 and have no income is higher. In contrast, the share of income segments with a monthly income of more than $2,000 is lower than that of travel. There is a certain capacity for consumption and a value-for-money focus is another important feature of vertical search engine users。
Inventory iii: lower discounts, product choice and related product recommendations are the three main advantages of vertical search engines
According to data from the 2011 survey of travelers ' behaviour and attitudes in china, recently released by the iri consulting, online tourism booking users continued to be the preferred source of reference for tourism professionals in 2011, followed by direct vendor sales. The tourist search engine is becoming an entry point. In addition, new channels, such as the group purchase website and twitter, erupted in 2011。
Online tourism booking users use tourism vertical searches mainly for tourism products and their prices. Vertical tourism searches have become an important entry point for tourism users in the online booking process. According to the erie consultancy, more online tourism users will use the tourism vertical search function in the future, for the following reasons: first, the relatively high price of tourism products and the preference of more price-sensitive users for the use of tourism vertical searches; second, the growing number of tourism products and the diversity of forms of tourism that users can choose from among a wider range of products through the use of tourism vertical searches; and third, the ever-exploring tourism search engine and the resulting increase in user experience, which will result in more users making reservations using vertical searches。
Erie research data show that the main reasons why travellers were booked through the vertical search engine in 2011 were lower discounts, larger quantities of products and recommendations for related tourism products. These three points are the core competitiveness of vertical search engines。
However, in the horizontal comparison of the low discounts, the skirmishes of the foreign military buy-out site exceeded the vertical search engine at a low price. Vertical search engines are somewhat lower in the number of products than tourism professional websites and travel review websites. On the “facilitate booking process”, the vertical search engine does not match the tourism professional website and the direct marketing website。
The vertical search engine, compared to the tourism professional website, provides information on a large volume of tourism products, in which there is an inevitable mix of fish dragons and a small amount of false information, thus affecting the credibility of the platform. It is not difficult to explain the fact that the “high profile, good reputation” in the study is significantly superior to the vertical search engine. Vertical search engines also need to be further upgraded in terms of “level of customer service” and “additional incentives and credits”。
