With the development of modern science and information technology, the Internet has brought about the new opportunity for the development of tourism enterprises, and also made network marketing possible. Starting form concrete situation of tourism industry in Shaanxi Province and making a breakthrough in traditional marketing strategies province, this paper suggests the strategy integration of network marketing for the tourism enterprise in Shaanxi Provinc

Feng, Zongxian

Wang, Jianqing

Xue, Weixian

English

AIS Electronic Library (AISeL)

Association for Information Systems AIS Electronic Library (AISeL) ICEB 2001 Proceedings International Conference on Electronic Business (ICEB) Winter 12-19-2001 The Strategy Integration of Network Marketing for the Tourism Enterprises in Shaanxi Province Weixian Xue Zongxian Feng Jianqing Wang Follow this and additional works at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/iceb2001 This material is brought to you by the International Conference on Electronic Business (ICEB) at AIS Electronic Library (AISeL). It has been accepted for inclusion in ICEB 2001 Proceedings by an authorized administrator of AIS Electronic Library (AISeL). For more information, please contact elibrary@aisnet.org. ICEB2001PAPER (1)Title of the paper: The strategy Integration of network marketing for the tourism Enterprises in Shaanxi Province (2)Topic area: Internet Marketing (3)Authors:  Xue Weixian  School of Management  Xi’an Jiaotong University No.28, Xianning West Road, Xian, Shaanxi P. R. China 710048 Tel: 86-029-8559520   E-mail: w.x.xue@263.net  Professor Feng Zongxian International Economy Institue Xi’an Jiaotong University No.28, Xianning West Road, Xian, Shaanxi P. R. China 710048 Tel: 86-029-2667834   E-mail: zxfeng@xjtu.edu.cn  Wang Jianqing School of Management  Xi’an Jiaotong University No.28, Xianning West Road, Xian, Shaanxi P. R. China 710048 Tel: 86-029-2667834    E-mail: wjq2000@263.net    1The strategy Integration of network marketing for the tourism Enterprises in Shaanxi Province Xue Weixian   Feng Zongxian   Wang Jianqing (School of Management, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Shaanxi, Xi’an 710049)  Abstract:  With the development of modern science and information technology, the Internet has brought about the new opportunity for the development of tourism enterprises, and also made network marketing possible. Starting form concrete situation of tourism industry in Shaanxi Province and making a breakthrough in traditional marketing strategies province, this paper suggests the strategy integration of network marketing for the tourism enterprise in Shaanxi Province. Keywords : network marketing, strategy integration, tourism enterprise, Shaanxi Province  The development of the tourism industry must take the tourists as the center so as to provide them with good services at right time, right place and right circumstance, and to satisfy their maximum demand. In traditional marketing strategy, the product price, the ad vocation and marketing channels, the manufacturers’ geographical location and the sales promotion strategies constitution the key items of the enterprise operation, market analysis and marketing strategy because of the limitation of technological means and material foundation (Jiang Xuping, 1998). The network circumstance and e-commerce have thoroughly changed the foundation of traditional marketing strategy. The tourism enterprise can have a better understanding of the tourist’s demand in time and provide them the just-in-time services by relying on the Internet----the over space and time transmission “superconductor” media, while the implementation of network marketing can bring about much direct or latent benefits to the tourism enterprise, such as providing the tourists with more satisfactory services so as to intensify the relations with the tourists and improving the enterprises’ fames, etc. In addition, under the network condition, some other new problems should be involved in marketing strategy, which need to be considered, such as how to prepare homepages and how to establish the e-commerce system so as to facilitate tourists to express their desire for purchase and demands, how to determine to satisfy tourists’ procurement desires and demand costs, how to enable the tourists to be convenient to purchase the commodities and to obtain satisfactory delivery of goods and after service, and how to make the manufacturers and the tourists establish the convenient, fast and friendly channels, etc. As for Shaanxi ----being a large tourism province, some relevant tourism enterprise must conform such a change and work out the strategy integration of the network marketing timely, in such a way that the enterprise competition ability can be ensured and upgraded so as to make the tourism industry become a real growing point in Shaanxi economy.  I. Strategy for market orientation One of very distinctive features of so-called network tour should be that all the exchange between the service provider and the consumers must be realized via network (A Yuan, 2000). The items in the network tour is based on the rich tour service resources; and the concept of “individual tour” can be introduced via the instance on-line service so that the special service will be provided to every tourist. Concretely speaking, the network tour is that tourists use computers to make arrangement of their tour itinerary and to advance their required communication modes and accommodation condition on the network. And then, the website will arrange their itinerary in accordance with their requirements. At present, the popularization of domestic Internet is still low. Although the number of Internet user is on a fast increase, it is still a drop in the ocean relatively in comparison with a large population base in China. Accordingly, the different orientation strategy for Shaanxi Provincial network tour service should be presently worked out in accordance with the different culture and living backgrounds both home and abroad. 1. The fixed orientation for foreign market.  Nowadays, the major tourist resource countries with the tourists entering Shaanxi markets are Japan, U.S. and the developed countries and regions in Europe, where the popularization of Internet is so high that the people have been  2used to look for and to arrange their tour itinerary. 2. The fixed orientation for domestic market.  Within the country, the network tour markets should be oriented in the developed regions along the southeastern coastal (the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtzi River Delta), the neighboring provinces and the central cities within Shaanxi Province. II. Satisfying the demand strategy Since the Internet is characterized by the interactivity and inductivity, the tourists can select the tour products and services or advance the specific requirements for them through Internet and under the guidance of the tourism enterprises, whereas the tourism enterprises can provide the just-in-time services in accordance with the selections and demands by tourists. In this way, the traditional product strategy begins to become inclined and gradually evolves the marketing strategy to meet the needs of the consumer’s demands. 1. Establishing the conception of service idea. The tour products in traditional sense are mostly a kind of service conception, while in the information-oriented society the conception of tour products has changed greatly and evolved into a conception of integrated services and satisfaction of demands, that is, what the tourism enterprises have sold are not only services and material type of products, but a kind of integrated service conception as well. 2. Acceleration of renewal of tour products. Any product has a concept of life-cycle. In the case of network environment, since the producers and consumers can establish the direct connection with each other on Internet, to meet the needs of consumers’ demand is the correct direction of the tour product renewal and development. As far as the tourism enterpris es, the newly-developed tour itinerary is also considered as the new product development. Therefore, when the old products are in the stage of maturity, the enterprises can start to develop a series of new products in next generation. The advent of new products can replace the saturated period and incline phase of the old products so as to make products could always be in vigor and vitality with a long life. III. Pricing strategy for satisfying demands  Price is the most sensitive problem to tour enterprises, tourists and the middlemen. The pricing strategy of traditional products is basically determined in accordance with “production cost + production profit + sales profit + brand coefficient. The manufactures play the guiding role in determining price. Whether the consumers and markets can accept such pricing strategy can be an unknown factor with great risk. The features of free information on the Internet can make the enterprises, tourists and middlemen have a full understanding of the price information of tour products so that the tourism enterprises can also know corresponding production cost in accordance with the different requirements of tour products and services suggested by each tourist. Accordingly, tour products developed with this cost and the risk of product price worked out by this cost are relatively small.  In addition, the network marketing can make the tourism enterprises both deal with the tourists directly without the traditional middlemen and reduce the cost on the product development and sale promotion whereby lowing the product price. Again, largely owing to the openness and inductiveness of Internet and the transparence of tour markets, the tourists can make full comparation of the product price with each other, which requires the tourism enterprises to provide the tourists with their products and service at the prices as low as possible, whereby making the price be favorable not only for the enterprises to gain profits but also for the consumers to satisfy their demands. IV. Strategy for convenient procurement In the marketing strategy of traditional tourism enterprises, there is a strong regional restriction. However, in the case of the network environment, there is no regional concept in the marketing process between the tour products and service supplier and the tour middlemen so that the marketing channels and advocacy strategy have become the e-commerce and trade process, and the tour information exchange and processing have placed the most part of work in  3the original tour operation process. Under such situation, the important problem to be considered in the marketing strategy of the tourism enterprises of Shaanxi Province is that the rich tour information resources on the network should be used not only to attract the tourists but to be convenient for the tourists as well. For this reason, the following aspects should be taken into account:  1. Having a foothold in Xi’an, it is necessary to plan the integral items using the advantages of Xi’an municipality----the cultural ancient capital of the world grade, i.e., the ancient culture, historic sites, cultural relics and scenery spots in Xi’an from the scenery spots to the way and vice versa should be planned in the vertical structure from point, line and surface and around such 6 aspects as eating, living, traveling, visiting, shopping and doing recreation and in combination with historical culture, classic literature quotation and folk custom and custom and practice, etc. and in accordance with the view of tourism guidance science.  2. The tour information special column of Shaanxi province should be set up as the channel mode.   3. The business and trade special column of Shaanxi province should be set up as the channel mode.   4. The tour information service column of Shaanxi province should be set up as the channel mode. V. Strategy for real time communication In the case of network environment, the tourism enterprises can set up the on-line real time communication with the middlemen and the consumers. In marketing strategy, the tourism enterpris es of Shaanxi Province can use this condition to set up the wide information channeling at different levels with various kinds of communities so as to improve operation efficiency and obtain the maximum profit objective.  1. The real time communication fro m within the tourism enterprise. For example, there are 8 branch companies in Shaanxi Provincial Travel Group Corporation to set up their own LAN. As a result, the 8 branch companies have often communicated with each other so as to promote work efficiency and to ensure operation and management qualities and to maintain enterprise vitalities.  2. Exchanges between culture and feelings. The network has provided the maximum convenience for the two-way communication in cultures and feelings between the tourism enterprises and the tourists. As far as the tourism enterprises are concerned, the network has created the good opportunities for the fine images of the enterprises and their products. And at the same time, the tourism enterprises can understand what the consumers are most interested in and begin to conceive new products as well as develop new services and continue to enrich and perfect the images, thus forming their own special enterprise cultures. This process will eventually make the tourists produce confirmation of the tourism enterprises in feelings and show interest in their websites and remember them.  3. The communication with consumers. There are two purposes in communicating with consumers in the process of the enterprise marketing, one is to attract consumers, and the other is to understand the consumers. The tourism enterprises in Shaanxi Province can plan and organize the activities of the tour celebration days and make a large-scale advocacy work on the Internet. Only in this way, can the touris ts be made to participate in the marketing activities of the enterprises; and can the tourists be attracted to seek for some related tour information from Internet. This is helpful to the tourism enterprises for carrying out the analysis and prediction with the visiting circumstance via their websites, for better understanding of the demands by the tourists and for working out the new purposeful and active marketing schemes.  Reference: [1] Jiang Xuping. E-commerce and Network Marketing [M]. Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 1998. 189-193. [2] A Yuan. Does the spring of the time of network tour come [J]. Liaowang Newpaper Weekly, 2000, (6-7): 45-46. [3] Karin Weber and Wesley S. Roehl. Profiling people searching for and purchasing travel products on the World Wide Web. JOURNAL OF TRAVEL RESEARCH, 1999(2)： 291-298 

The Strategy Integration of Network Marketing for the Tourism Enterprises in Shaanxi Province

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The Strategy Integration of Network Marketing for the Tourism Enterprises in Shaanxi Province

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