Analysis of Customer Decision making Variables and Digital

marketing of the website

(Internship Project Report)

Submitted in Partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of

POST GRADUATE DIPLOMA IN MANAGEMENT (PGDM)

Submitted to

SIES COLLEGE OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES

Nerul, Navi Mumbai

Submitted by
Shweta S. Bajpai
Roll No- 093
Specialization - Marketing
2015-17

i
ii
iii
 Declaration

I, Ms. Shweta S. Bajpai, studying in the first year of POST GRADUATE DIPLOMA IN MANAGEMENT
(PGDM) at SIES College of Management Studies, Nerul, Navi Mumbai, hereby declare that I have completed
the Internship Project titled “Analysis of Customer Decision making Variables and Digital marketing of the
website” as a part of the course requirements for POST GRADUATE DIPLOMA IN MANAGEMENT
(PGDM) Program.

I also declare that the work undertaken by me is original and has not been copied from any sources. I further
declare that the information presented in this project is true and original knowledge and has not been
submitted to SIESCOMS or any other Institute for any other examination.

Signature of the Student Date: 28/07/2016

Name of the Student: Shweta S. Bajpai

Roll No.: 093

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Certificate by Company

v
 Certificate by Faculty Project Guide

This is to certify that Ms. Shweta S. Bajpai, studying in the first year of POST GRADUATE DIPLOMA IN
MANAGEMENT (PGDM) at SIES College of Management Studies, Nerul, Navi Mumbai, has completed the
Summer Internship Project titled “Analysis of Customer Decision making Variables and Digital marketing
of the website” as a part of the course requirements for Post Graduate Diploma in Management Program.

Signature of the Faculty Guide

Name: Prof. Deepa Dhonde
Date: 15/07/2016
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 Acknowledgements

I wish to thank MyDreamHoliday for giving me an opportunity to study the report on “Analysis of Customer
Decision making Variables and Digital marketing of the website”. It has been a great experience working
with the company.

I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to Mr. Eashwar Iyer who gave this
wonderful opportunity to undergo summer training and guided me in gathering information for this project and
without her continuous cooperation the project would not have been completed.

I will like to thank DR. A.K. Sengupta (MENTOR AND DIRECTOR, SIESCOMS) for providing this
opportunity to do internship as a part of the curriculum.

I am deeply indebted to Prof. Deepa Dhonde and also my internal guide for her valuable guidence and
constant inspiration which helped me in giving a right pathway for the competing the project.

I am especially thankful and deeply express my gratitude to my faculty member PROF. Parag Amin (DEAN-
Marketing) for her extended support and guidance.

I take this opportunity to thank to all my friends and all those who are directly and indirectly concerned with the
project.

Shweta S. Bajpai

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viii
 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Holiday seekers are divided on what are the most important factors when using booking sites. Many of holiday
seekers were split between price, selection, ability to specify detail, ease of use and ability to book multiple
parts of their holiday in one place as the key features when using booking sites. 63% Holiday seekers don’t
consider price to be the most important factor when booking. [1]

What Travel Businesses should ask is instead of competing on price, how we tap into the 63% of people for
whom something else is the key to the booking experience.

Booking sites are not delivering what holiday seekers want from the booking experience. Less than half of the
last booking sites used delivered what consumers considered to be their most important factors. There is a clear
gap between the booking experience holiday seekers want and the one they are receiving.

This gap represents an opportunity to savvy booking sites.

How do I take advantage of The Gap by delivering more of what’s important to holiday seekers?

And hence we decided to first identify features important to holiday seekers and put them up on our website.

We already had on advantage of being a package holiday website. This advantage is generally greatest,
unsurprisingly, in the ability to book more in one place and the additional protection available.

More control - ability to do more advanced searching or filtering of results, greater number and variety of
results, more information on the options shown The opportunity to book more parts of the holiday (flights,
hotels, transfers, food and drinks etc.) Recommendations on which holiday to book based on your travel history
and the highest rated holidays of 'people like you' etc. were the attributes important to consumer.

So the project started with important realization that Package holidays are not dead. Indeed they are delivering
more of what holiday seekers want than other holiday types – how can these advantages be amplified?

My project involved the creating and communicating part of marketing definition. A detailed study of tourism
market in India and understanding of market through customer’s lens lead me to understand the benefits and
advantages our product had; and that we lacked in providing the experience.

It was followed by qualitative research in form of customer development interviews, analysis and then
execution; making important changes in order to up the user experience on website. Later my project involved
enhancing the landing page in order to improve customer retention by providing things essential to travelers in
different stages of travel starting with wanderer to explorers to customers with all kinds of required knowledge,
the ones ready to make the decision.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Ch. No. Particulars Page No.

1 Introduction 1
1.1 Company Overview 1
1.2 Background of the project and some brief on the title of the project 2
1.3 Objectives 3
1.4 Scope of the project 6
1.5 Purpose and Significance of the Project 6
1.6 Limitations of the Project 6
2 Review of Literature 8
3 Methodology 12
Objective 1: Understanding the tourism business
3.1 12
3.2 Objective 2: Calculate Brand Health 16
Objective 3: Customer Development Interviews, Analysis and Execution
3.3 19
Objective 4: Landing page suggestions
3.4 25
Objective 5: Make a FAQ
3.5 29
Objective 6: Social media Marketing Strategy
3.6 32
Objective 7 : Content creation!
3.7 33
Conclusion
4 35
Recommendation
5 36
References
37

CHAPTER 1
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 INTRODUCTION

COMPANY PROFILE

MyDreamHoliday is an online travel marketplace and their website MydreamHoliday.in is operated by

Tranquility Online Pvt. Ltd. It specializes in International and domestic tour and Cruise Holidays.

It was originally established as Tranquility Online Pvt. Ltd as a Private incorporated on 13 December 2011 and
the website went live in May 2012. It has its base in Mumbai and head office at Oshiwara.

The company has partnered with over 75+ Global and Indian Travel Brands. Company website facilitates you to
Search, Compare and Book Tours From Offline Travel Brands, Instant Booking and Proprietary Rating and
Recommender.

MyDreamHoliday was Asia’s only cruise OTA and provides with a wide choice of more than 1200 cruise
sailings of a number of renowned brands.

Key attributes of services provided by MyDreamHoliday are:

 It’s simpler, faster and transparent way to plan and book personalized holidays.
 An intuitive and comprehensive way to ‘Build your Holiday’.
 Crossed 1000 happy travelers since going live from May-12 and counting!
 Over 750 destinations, 80 cities and 19 countries to pick from – adding more every passing week!
 Amongst the select few in India to offer international cruise holidays.
 Strong travel experience and industry relationships.
 Excellent online knowledge to ensure smooth holiday planning.

The company employs latest in the travel technology and provides with real time prices, online booking and
instant confirmation.The management has decided on a road map for the future, where MyDreamHoliday will
offer its clients an integrated one stop solution for their Leisure Travel needs – Fixed Departure Tours and
Cruise Holidays.

Key Management:

KRISHNAGOPAL RAJENDRAKUMAR BIYANI Director

EASHWAR RAMACHANDRAN IYER Director
PALLAVI SACHIN BID Director
MEENAKSHI RAMACHANDRAN Director

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Background of the project and some brief on the title of the project

I met with Mr. Eashwar Iyer, my corporate guide, for the first time on 14th April, 2016 and I was told I will be
involved in marketing of the website.As I was interning with a company that specialized in tours, the first thing
I did was a comprehensive study of many things that tourism industry consisted of.

According to the World Tourism Organization:

“Tourism comprises the activities of the person traveling and staying in the places outside their usual
environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purpose”.

Following is a simple structure of tourism industry.

REGIONAL AND NATIONAL

LOCAL TOURISM TOURISM
TOURISM INDUSTRY ORGANIZATIONS
ORGANISATIONS

COMPONENTS

Lodging Transportation Sight Seeing and Public/private Travel trade

services organization
Experiences
 Hotels  Rail organizations
 Motels  Air  Travel
 Health
 Resorts  Road Agency
 Insurance
 Other  Sea/water
 Banking  Tour
Types of
 Finance operators
Accommodati
 Training and
on development
 Tourism and
hotels

My project shaped slowly along the way. The first task assigned to me, was the most important basic step, to
understand tourism industry as a customer.
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I was supposed to plan a holiday and try booking it with different tour operators. I had to basically go through
the endless cycle of endless cycle involving planning, discussing, negotiating and haggling.

I visited a total of 16 tour operators operating offline and online. Following table entails my experience of
booking with different tour operators.

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 Type Cost effective choice Itenearies

43 packages. Itenraries are better.

Focussed Include stuff that's
expensive as differentiation: rarely to be seen in
Group compared to Indian culture, adventure, Indian tour operators'
Tour Radar Holiday tours. nature itenararies.
Iteneraries are typical,
limited . Transfer in
personalized 4 packages; private car. Sight
Sky Wings Holiays Holiday Cheaper than all focussed on Luury seeing with group
Itenary is common.
Covering same tourist
Group / more expensive 1 package.for a spots. Could be hectic
Kesari Holidays Personalized than most group of 40 also

Covers very few places.

No itenerary covers the
national park or hiking
Most Reasonable so to Adam's peak or the
Make my trip Group far. 4 packages tea plantations
Customized
(7N/8D cost went up to 85
incorporating Thousand Plus ; the
Kitulagala, operator said she
Ella, camping could commit to
in Yala and camping in national
Make my trip (over Hot air ark then later I am able to cover most
the phone) balloon) backed out 1; since customized things I'd like to see
Tourcrafetrs
(Marketplace)They sent me a few references as per my prferences. All tour operators they have are Indian ones.
Refences from tourcrafters
rather expensive
personal for what they re
Travel dil se tours offering
41 K including
group / airfare, breakfast
Hello travel customized and sight seeing
rather expensive
for the
accomodation and few decent tours. Not
tourthey are focussed on nature or
We are Holidays Group providing 6 packages adventure.

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After this detailed analysis, my project started shaping up.

Marketing as we know is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering,
and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. My project
pertained to creating and communicating.

My project at large was to identify, everything we could do to enhance the customer experience and how do we
communicate the value we hold to offer customer. Also I was to suggest various digital marketing strategies we
could use.

Objectives:

1. Understanding the tourism business

2. Calculate Brand Health
3. Customer Development Interviews, Analysis and Execution
4. Landing page suggestions
5. Make a FAQ
6. Social media Marketing Strategy
7. Content creation!

Scope of the project:

1. In- depth knowledge of Tourism Industry.

2. In- depth knowledge of Customer expectations and deliverables on an e- commerce website related to
tourism.
3. Understanding of how to conduct Customer Development Interview and make interpretations.
4. Knowledge of various methods of digital marketing of a tourism website.

Purpose and Significance of the Project:

MyDreamHoliday had the product. After the market survey and relative comparison with other players in the
market, I identified, we had a product and that product was good and of value. But there were a lot of
hindrances and the customer was not able to see the value being offered to them. My job was to make the
experience rich, simple and engaging.

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The significance of this project was it aimed to organically increase the website value by enhancing customer
experience while on the website.

Limitations of the Project:

One limitation of the project was, as it was a summer internship, I had only three months to work on something
as significant as business development. Limited time limits your capacity to draw and implement long term
strategies in terms of acquisition and implementation.  Business Development is a function that is varied,
complex, and exciting; the interplay between Strategy, Sales, and Relationship Management informs the
potential for a company’s growth path. If I had been working with company for longer, I would have had time
to work my full potential.

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 Chapter 2

Review of Literature

Digital is the primary source of travel inspiration: 65% of leisure travelers are inspired by online sources, most
notably through social/video sites and search, while 42% of travelers are inspired to travel by YouTube content.

At the onset of planning, travelers increasingly turn to search first: The most notable year-on-year increases in
travelers starting with search were exhibited with car rentals and accommodations. Travelers use a variety of
search terms (both branded and nonbranded) throughout the research process.

The research phase is a clear branding opportunity for marketers: A majority of leisure and business bookers
consider multiple brands when researching (regardless of category).

Mobile is critical at all stages and influences booking decisions: Smartphones are used throughout the travel
process, including for inspiration during “snackable moments.” Nearly half of those who use their smartphone
for leisure travel inspiration ultimately book through another method/device. Only 23% of those who encounter
a non-mobile-optimized site actually push through to complete their activity.

TV viewing habits continue to fragment, and video is key for inspiration and planning: One in three travelers
(38%) watch television outside of live programming; when given the option, most fast-forward through
commercials. Conversely, 66% of travelers watch online travel videos when they’re thinking about taking a trip,
and 65% watch when they’re choosing a destination

Family trip planners are up for grabs: Half of travelers are not set on a destination at the onset of planning. 45%
plan to travel more with family in the coming year and often take children’s preferences into account. [2]

Holiday seekers are divided on what are the most important factors when using booking sites.

Many of holiday seekers were split between price, selection, ability to specify detail, ease of use and ability to
book multiple parts of their holiday in one place as the key features when using booking sites. 63% Holiday
seekers don’t consider price to be the most important factor when booking.

xvii
What Travel Businesses should ask is instead of competing on price, how we tap into the 63% of people for
whom something else is the key to the booking experience.

Booking sites are not delivering what holiday seekers want from the booking experience. Less than half of the
last booking sites used delivered what consumers considered to be their most important factors. There is a clear
gap between the booking experience holiday seekers want and the one they are receiving.

This gap represents an opportunity to savvy booking sites.

How do I take advantage of The Gap by delivering more of what’s important to holiday seekers?

And hence we decided to first identify features important to holiday seekers and put them up on our website.

We already had on advantage of being a package holiday website. This advantage is generally greatest,
unsurprisingly, in the ability to book more in one place and the additional protection available.

Tourism facts from UNTWO 2016 edition:

▪ An ever-increasing number of destinations worldwide have opened up to, and invested in tourism, turning
it into a key driver of socio-economic progress through the creation of jobs and enterprises, export
revenues, and infrastructure development.

▪ Over the past six decades, tourism has experienced continued expansion and diversify to become one of
the largest and fastest-growing economic sectors in the world. Many new destinations have emerged in
addition to the traditional favorites of Europe and North America.

▪ Tourism has boasted virtually uninterrupted growth over time, despite occasional shocks, demonstrating
the sector’s strength and resilience. International tourist arrivals have increased from 25 million globally in
1950 to 278 million in 1980, 674 million in 2000, and 1186 million in 2015.

▪ Likewise, international tourism receipts earned by destinations worldwide have surged from US$ 2 billion
in 1950 to US$ 104 billion in 1980,

US$ 495 billion in 2000, and US$ 1260 billion in 2015.

▪ Tourism is a major category of international trade in services. In addition to receipts earned in destinations,
international tourism also generated

US$ 211 billion in exports through international passenger transport services rendered to non-residents in 2015,
bringing the total value of tourism exports up to US$ 1.5 trillion, or US$ 4 billion a day on average.

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 ▪ International tourism now represents 7% of the world’s exports in goods and services, up from 6% in
2014, as tourism has grown faster than world trade over the past four years.

▪ As a worldwide export category, tourism ranks third after fuels and chemicals and ahead of food and
automotive products. In many developing countries, tourism ranks as the first sector.[3]

International tourist arrivals

(million) Change (%)

Rank Series 2014 2015* 14/13 15*/14

1 France TF 83.7 84.5 0.1 0.9

2 United States TF 75.0 77.5 7.2 3.3

3 Spain TF 64.9 68.2 7.0 5.0

4 China TF 55.6 56.9 -0.1 2.3

5 Italy TF 48.6 50.7 1.8 4.4

6 Turkey TF 39.8 .. 5,3 ..

7 Germany TCE 33.0 35.0 4.6 6.0

8 United Kingdom TF 32.6 34.4 5.0 5.6

9 Mexico TF 29.3 32.1 21.5 9.4

10 Russian Federation TF 29.8 31.3 5.3 5.0

[3]

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 ▪

International tourism in 2015

608 million (51%)

Americas 451 US$ bn (36%)
Europe
193
million (16%)Asia
and the Pacific
304279 million (24%)
US$ bn (24%)418 US$ bn (33%)
Africa
53
million (5%)
33 Middle East
US$ bn (3%) 53 million (4%)
54 US$ bn (4%)

International tourist arrivals: 1186 million

International tourism receipts: US$ 1260 billion

▪ [3]

Chapter 3

METHODOLOGY

First objective of my project was to do a detailed competitor analysis.

Competitor analysis in marketing and strategic management is an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of
current and potential competitors. This analysis provides both an offensive and defensive strategic context to
identify opportunities and threats.

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For competitive analysis I needed to identify the attributes to make comparison upon.

These were the attributes that were important to a customer while he makes various decisions pertaining to book
a tour online.

After much consideration, me and my mentor agreed upon that a qualitative research must be conducted to get
to know various attributes that mattered whilst the customer made the decision.

These attributes, we decided to call them Customer Decision Making Variables.

This task translated into my next objective. The objective to conduct qualitative research through Customer
Development Interviews. Since this was the first part of my research, I shall call it first objective.

Objective 1: Customer Development Interviews

Research here was primary and secondary.

Secondary research was to understand how to conduct a Customer Development Interview and how to make
interpretations.

For this I read many articles and watched many YouTube videos to understand the process of conducting an
interview and making interpretations. I leant a lot of ways and rules and a lot about attitude while conducting
the interview. Below I will list a few things I feel are most important.

First I learnt there are many stages of conducting a Customer Development Interview and in my project I was at
the early development stage. My focus was going to be on learning a user’s behavior and mindset, and/or
getting direct feedback or usability insights on a product. An important point to note here is to put “behavior
and mindset” first in your discussion flow. During this part, don’t let the interviewee go too deep in terms of
suggesting features, but keep them focused on if they have a problem, how they think about the problem space,
and if and how they have tried to solve it in past.

If you want to get feedback on a product, whether on paper or digital, do this after digging into behavior and
mindset.

Second, get psyched to hear things you don’t want to hear

If you don’t do this, you might find yourself selling or convincing, or even hearing what you want to hear. This
is called “confirmation bias” and we are all very susceptible to it.  Your initial goal should be learning.

xxi
You might, however, run an experiment where you test the market, test pricing, and do try to close a sale, but
keep this part of the conversation separate. As with product feedback, keep this out of the behavior/mindset
portion of the discussion.

Third, people are trained not to call your baby ugly. You need to make them feel safe to do this. Ask them up-
front to be brutally honest, and that this is the very best way they can help you. If they seem confused, explain
that the worst thing that could happen is to build something people didn’t care about.

Fourth, ask open ended questions. Sometimes it is hard not to ask a yes/no question, but always follow up with
an open-ended question like “why?” or “tell me more about that experience.”

Fifth, focus on actual behavior, not speculative or abstract feelings. The truth is people are not very good at
predicting their actions, knowing what they want, or knowing their true goals. Your job is not to ask the person
for the solution. It is your job to figure out the best solution, and then validate that your solution is actually
right.

People love to talk about features and solutions. When you are in learning mode, don’t let that dominate the
conversation.  Try to keep things factual. Get them to tell you stories about how they previously experienced a
problem, if they tried to solve it (or why not), and what happened.  Get them to tell you stories about using other
products that are in the same domain space. You do want to dive into their emotions, but you can trust a
discussion of historical emotions much more than one speculating “what ifs”.

Sixth, don’t rush to fill the “space” when the customer pauses, because they might be thinking or have more to
say. Make sure you are learning, not selling!

Ninth, very important, was to dig deep. Keep asking “Whys”, until you reach to the bottom of the problem.

Tenth, make notes; so you can refer to them later. But you must be quick while doing so and listen intently at
the same time. For me this was tough as I was a beginner. Hence, I recorded most of my interviewees with prior
permission.

Last and most important was to ask for introductions. I didn’t have many leads in the target audience and
references were a good way of getting leads.[4]

Below I will list the steps of conducting the interview:

Customer Segmentation

Depending on how you obtained the interview/how much background you have on the person, you may need to
make sure they are within your customer segment, and/or understand more about their demographic.

xxii
  What do you do professionally?

 Who handles holiday booking process at your home?

 How much time do you spend on planning a holiday?

Problem Discovery

Questions to validate your hypothesis about a problem, or to learn about problems.

 What’s the hardest part of planning holiday?

 What are some unmet needs you have?

 What product do you wish you had that doesn’t exist yet?

 What tasks take up the most time in your planning?

 What could be done to improve your experience with [process/role]?

Problem Validation

If your customer did not talk about the problem you wanted to address, use the below questions to begin
validating/invalidating that your customer has the problem you think they have. In addition, it’s often not
enough to just solve a problem, sometimes it also needs to be one that people are highly motivated to solve.

 Do you find it hard to [process/problem]?

 How important is [value you’re delivering] to you?

 Tell me about the last time you [process you’re improving] 

 How motivated are you to solve/improve [problem/process]?

 If you had a solution to this problem, what would it mean to you/how would it affect you?

Product Discovery

Questions to help generate ideas or to validate your idea. The below questions are intentionally very open-
ended. By asking yes or no questions specifically related to your product, customers may feel inclined to agree
with you or not be critical. By asking more open ended questions, you can be more confident that they’re giving

xxiii
you honest input. If in response to the questions below, your customers tell you they’re looking for similar to
what you have in mind, you might be on to something.

 What do you think could be done to help you with [problem]?

 What would your ideal solution to this problem look like?

 What’s the hardest part about [process you’re improving]?

 What are you currently doing to solve this problem/get this value?

 What do you like and dislike about [competing website or solution]?

Website Validation

Questions to validate/invalidate your idea.

 What do you think of this website?  This question is intentionally vague. Listen to whether they talk
about wanting to use the website or how it could be improved. Given how vague the question is, the
former is positive, while the latter may be a sign that improvement is needed.

 Would this website solve your problem?

 How likely are you/would you be to tell your friends about this website?

 Would you ever use this website?

 Would you be willing to start using this right away?

Website Optimization

Questions to help you improve your idea or website.

 What could be done to improve this website?

 What would make you want to tell your friends about this website?

 What’s most appealing to you about this website?

 What might improve your experience using the website?

 What motivates you to continue using this website?

 What’s the hardest part about using this website?

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  What features do you wish the website had?

Conducting the interview

I interviewed 26 regular, leisure travelers who had take at least one international holiday in the previous year.
Out of which 6 were Couples. Each interview lasted about an hour.

I got wealth of information through these interviews. People listed their challenges and turn-offs during the
process. My job was to make interpretations through patterns.

Results of Interview:

The list of parameters or attributes important to customers we found out are as follows:

1. Control (Suggested very important by 18 subjects)

2. Trust (Suggested very important by 20 subjects)

3. Price (All of them were price sensitive. Yet they ranked control and trust above Price)

4. Customer Service (critically essential to all. But comes after all factors mentioned above are in place)

5. Visual and Information Content

6. Recommendations (All subjects said recommendations made them feel more confident and all of them said it
would be better if they received recommendations. Somewhere, deep down travelers would like to think the
companies they are travelling with are experts in the holiday domain.)

6. Subjective details (suggested by repeat travelers)

7. Meals (big concern for vegetarians and elderly)

Objective 2: Analysis and Execution

This was another critical part of my project.

Once I knew the parameters that mattered, I had to put them out here on the websitel use them to enhance user
experience and hence came into picture, the execution part.

xxv
For instance, when user told me what frustrated them was that they did not know entire names or correct
spellings of the destination and that the search won’t return anything unless they put in the correct name. This
lead to an important change we had to make – predictive search.

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xxvii
Objective 3: Next part of project was to do competitor analysis.

For this I selected 10 tour operators out of 16 that I had been planning a holiday with.

Each operator was given a rating for each attribute – 5 being the best and 1 being the worst.

xxviii
For example: If a tour operator provided control for Search in the fullest manner I gave them a 5 rating and if
they did not give any control I rated them 1.

Rating was mostly comparative.

Following is a table that shows a detailed Competition analysis and Brand Health.

Control
Over Search Over planning Holiday Generated on

Rank Operators advanced search upgrade Average Past User Reviews

options Filters dates s flexibility Control on other websites
weight attached 0.2
1 Make my trip 4 4 5 4 5 4.4 3
2 Tour Radar 5 4 4 2 1 3.2 4
3 Travel Triangle 5 5 5 5 5 5 3
4 SOTC 4 2 1 1 3 2.2 3
5 iTraveller 1 2 5 5 4 3.4 2
6 Cox and Kings 4 2 1 2 2 2.2 2
7 Kesari Holidays 1 1 1 1 1 1 3
8 Veena World 4 2 1 2 2 2.2 1
9 We are Holidays 3 1 1 2 1 1.6 2
10 Sky Wings Holiays 1 1 3 2 3 2 1
11 My Dream Holiday 1 2 4 2 2 2.2 1
Holiday Recommender Cities updrades NA

Weighted average was taken for all parameters.

All Tour operators were listed on left hand side and were rated for each parameter.

5 being the highest and 1 being the lowest. Weight attached was based on ratio of users mentioning the attribute
important during the interview.

xxix
Average of weighted average was taken which came out to 2.83.

Then all weighted averages were calculated as percentage of average of weighted average.

And thus I calculated brand health.

xxx
xxxi
xxxii
Additional filters were added to enhave the search. It simplified the searching procedure.

xxxiii
Company could already provide flexibility of dates already as it had many operators and many tours for the
same destination. It was just not advertised. We put this cute calendar icon to indicate flexible tours.

xxxiv
Objective 4: To make landing page suggestions.

Methodology: For this I had to take inputs from analysis of data obtained from Customer Development
interview. This gave me many ideas as to what we can do to improve our landing page.

Secondly, I made a list of best selling OTAs and studied their websites minutely to understand the way they are
able to provide better experience than ours.

Following are the landing page Suggestions I had made to the company; many of which will be incorporated
soon into the website.

A save for later button to increase usability for the wanderers and have them come back.

Also provide an option to users to provide best time to call; this increases User Independence and usability.

xxxv
Provide a map next to the itinerary. A live map indicating travel distance and time. The map may be integrated
with Google maps.

Also show Cheapest Flights available.

A different color for final call to action – check price! Von Restorff Effect!

xxxvi
View Details would be an embedded link taking to a page connected to trip advisor , so user can see the details.

Result : Increased user retention.

Provide Distance of hotel from website.

Additional information so user can make better decision.

Increases reliability feel of the website.

xxxvii
I started making a blog / Content as the last part of my project.

It was laid out in the following manner:

I had to create content pages for the following:

3 Countries;

Each Country – 5 Cities

Each City - Top 10 Attractions and top 3 Neighborhoods

Info : Best time to go, Taxi/train service, where to eat, what to do with much more!

My suggestion here was to make every city name an embedded link, so that user can have all information handy
and will not have to go to another website or page. This will increase user retention.

OBJECTIVE 5 : MAKE A FAQ (FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS)

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During my primary research I got to understand a very important thing.

There were many doubts in people’s mind as this concept of tour marketplace was new and the many tour
operators were International.

Upon much thought we came up with idea of writing an FAQ that will answer all the doubts in people’s minds,
so they feel more comfortable and at peace.

Below I am putting up the FAQ I had generated for the company!

Q1. Who are we and what do we do?

Q2. Why book with us?
We bring to you the following:
1. Great tours.
2. Largest assortment of fixed departure tours.
3. International Operators
Here on our website, so you can book in Indian currency, with the trust of a local vendor(Us!).
Q. What is great about our tours?
Ans. Our tours are designed by specialists. We call them specialist because, either they are big
players in the travel market or they are local to the destinations, who know the ins and outs of the
region.
Now, we will all agree no outsider can show your city better than you!
What about the big players! They have the resources to understand locale.
Since many of our operators are international, you can tour with people from all over the world.
(Added Bonus!) After all, what is a holiday without some experiences?
Q. What do we mean by the largest assortment?
Ans. We have tours, international and national:
1. Range from weekend getaways to 2-3 week long holidays;
2. Are kid friendly, adult friendly, for couples and much more;
3. Are fast paced, medium paced, slow paced;
4. For the same location we got adventure tours and tours where you can lie in the hammock till
cocktail hours.
5. We got tours for the ones on a budget to the ones looking for extravagance.

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Q. What is so great about International operators?

Ans. International standards while travelling.

Q. Since your tour operator is international with no office in India, Can you trust us with your booking?

Ans. Yes your money is safe with MyDreamHoliday. We only pay the tour operator only after your tour
has departed.

Q. What is special about tour operators we are working with?

Our tour operators are international renowned brands or operators local to the destination city. The
tours they design are curated to provide you with international travel standards and quality, with utmost
authenticity. Also they are trusted, verified and best at what they do.

Q. You want to make end to end bookings. What about flights?

Once you have selected the tour you wish to book, we will send you flight listings that suit your
requirement or you can compare and book flights with our flying partner, SkyScanner!

Q. Do you need a travel insurance? Where can you get one?

A comprehensive travel insurance is always a good idea and can be taken out at the time of booking.
Please contact us for more information or visit this page XYZ for a free quote with our insurance
partners.

OR

We do not offer Travel Insurance. You may contact us and we will help you get one. However, we
strongly recommend the purchase of Travel Insurance.

Q. What are the different modes of payment for booking a trip with us?

We have multiple payment options to give you a seamless booking experience:

 Debit/ Credit Cards

 Net Banking

Q. Is it safe to use my debit/credit card on MyDreamHoliday?

Ans. Yes, we have a Site secure lock!**

Q. Can I book customized tours on MyDreamHoliday?

Ans. No, we do not have provision for customized tours currently. We provide with a lot of options from
many different operators to choose from and hence, our customers always tend to find something aligned
with their requirements.

Q. What about your passport and VISA requirements?

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Q. What should you do if you want to book for more than x number of people?

Q. Who can you contact if something goes wrong/amiss whilst on the trip?

Ans. You will be provided with local number you can call up in case of any emergencies once you land.
Also, you can get in touch with us here, back home.

Q. What about meals on the tour?

Ans. The meals are not inclusive unless otherwise specified.

Q. What are the accommodation options and can those be changed?

Ans. The accommodation is mostly in hotels and the name and details of hotels are mentioned on the tour
page. We also provide a link to Tripadvisor page of the hotel, where you can check user reviews and
feedbacks.

Change of accommodation option is generally not provisioned but you may check with us, if there is a
possibility we shall let you know.

Q. Can I opt out of certain activities?

Ans. Yes, if the activities are mentioned in the inclusions or if they are optional, you may choose to skip
them.

Q. What about activities and sightseeing whilst on the tour? Are their costs included in the tour costs?

Ans. Sightseeing and activities are not included in the tour cost unless otherwise specified. The cost
however, of any activities and sights is mentioned on the website.

Q. What if my tour is cancelled?

Q. What is the cancellation policy and what are the cancellation charges?

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OBJECTIVE 6 : SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING STRATEGY

 Ever Month, Post a travel picture , tag MyDreamHoliday, the winner is the one with most likes and
gets a Rs.500 Star Bucks coupon.

By tagging the agency, the posts go into the MyDreamHoliday 's stream, and company gets free
publicity in customers' social media, reaching their network of friends and providing exposure to hundreds and
thousands of prospects in a relevant way.

Photographs will build a sense of community on a site, encouraging repeat visits and inspiring new customers.

 Blog ideas:
Things to do
Live like local
Top list: To make it easier for you to navigate through an abundance of places and offers, we have
gathered all our top lists in one place. Here you can find tips from experts on everything from places to
go and things to do, to where to eat and what to see.
Top Ten Places
Top Ten offbeat places
Top Taste teasers
Top restaurants
Top tourist attractions
Top Duty free Airports

 User Scrapbook! On website.

 Affiliate Marketing ! - Partner with Wedding planners, event planners.

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Objective 7: CONTENT CREATION

Content creation was another part of my job where I was required to create information holding pages with lots
of information about destination.

It was laid out in the following manner:

I had to create content pages for the following:

3 Countries;

Each Country – 5 Cities

Each City - Top 10 Attractions and top 3 Neighborhoods

Info : Best time to go, Taxi/train service, where to eat, what to do with much more!

Below I am putting pictures of some of content work I did for the company.

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 CHAPTER 4.

CONCLUSION

Tourism is an ever booming industry, especially now, with advent in technology; when both access and reach
have increased, consumer is more informed than ever. Now, is the time to optimize on this opportunity, Travel
marketplace, a new concept has the ability to do so; to sell to an informed and intelligent consumer.

Tourism as a sector has been growing tremendously. Governments are investing a lot now in tourism. Leave
alone destinations, many new forms of holidays have come up. Tour operators have now started to explore the
area of holiday experiences and such. This gives a large pool of opportunities to an online travel marketplace
like MyDreamHoliday.

The idea of booking vacations, tickets, hotels, and rental cars online might have seemed a crazy idea when
Microsoft (MSFT) launched Expedia (EXPE) in 1996. Almost two decades later, OTAs (online travel agencies)
like Expedia, Priceline (PCLN), and TripAdvisor (TRIP) are generating huge revenue with gross reservations
crossing the $35 billion mark. Priceline forms 2.77% of the Consumer Discretionary Select Sector SPDR ( XLY).
[5]

Given the right experience, seamless and simple, they can easily tap into growing urban market. They must
however work on increasing awareness.

I had amazing time learning at MyDreamHoliday. Being a small company I was involved in important things
like market research and website enhancement. I was also given a wonderful opportunity to do content building.
I got to know a lot about how tourism as a sector functions, how a consumer makes decisions while booking a
holiday with the company and different areas that can be tapped into, in order to get more customers onboard.
There are many touch points starting from visuals (what a customer sees on the website starting from
destination pictures to the layout to the font), information provided, convenience, control, price and so on. The
main I learnt was that marketing starts right at building of the product. Because that’s where the value
proposition of the product is defined and that is the way to organically grow your customer base, which works
in the long run.

About the company I feel my mentor, Mr. Eashwar has a great vision for the company and he is an informed
and intelligent man. He knows how he wants to take his company to its goal. He helped me immensely by
helping me shape my thoughts during the entire course of internship.

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 CHAPETR 5

RECOMMENDATION

 With the consumer becoming informed and the growing competition, both have changed; the
opportunity and the challenge. The company has good product to offer but it is still in developing stage.
They have a lot of potential yet to be explored.
 Social media is now playing an even larger role in driving traffic towards online travel sites. As more
people use mobiles and wearable technologies, the companies would need to focus on building better
apps. As a result, the need for better digital advertising, stronger big data analytics, and social media
marketing is growing rapidly.
 Company could invest in good market research. They are still in building stage and incorporating new
changes for them is easy. Building a product that customers want will be worth the investment.
 Company has a list of good tour operators they are partners with. There are however, some operators,
with bad reviews online, that company is partners with. They must be selective and incorporate only
good tour operators with good records online.
 Being in travel industry, they can try and get more social; become active on blog and YouTube.
 Focus on ease of use. Make site simpler to use and try to give more details.
 Try to get more user reviews.
 An opportunity to speak to a human about your holiday - for help or advice.
 Additional protection for your holiday (insurance, guarantees, cleat ATOL, coverage etc.

7 % average
 The ability to provide more data on consumer in exchange for better holiday recommendations or deals
now and in the future.
 Provide Assistance in paying for the holiday (payment terms, short term loans, credit -splitting among
the holiday group etc.)
 Provide share ability - ability to share the holiday options with others or collaborate on the decision.

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 REFERENCES

1.ATCORE Insights,2016, Future of booking; ATCORE Technology Ltd;

http://www.atcoretec.com/images/downloads/ATCORE_E-book1_FutureOfBooking_FINAL.pdf; accessed on
14/05/2016.

2. Google Travel Study, June 2014, The 2014 Traveler’sRoad to Decision; Ipsos MediaCT;
https://storage.googleapis.com/think/docs/2014-travelers-road-to-decision_research_studies.pdf; accessed
07/05/16.

3. UNWTO Tourism Highlights, 2016 edition; UNWTO e-library; http://mkt.unwto.org/publication/unwto-

tourism-highlights-2016-edition; accessed on 22/05/2016.

Websites:

4. https://blog.kissmetrics.com/26-customer-development-resources/

5. http://marketrealist.com/2015/08/online-travel-agencies-future-industry-outlook/

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