Consumer Behaviour 2011

Table of Contents
Question.................................................................................................................. 2 Source of Data ........................................................................................................ 3 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 4 History of Information and communication Technology in Mauritius........................ 5 Arrival of tourist from 2004 to 2010 ......................................................................... 7 Customers buying Process..................................................................................... 9 How ICT is affecting consumer behaviour............................................................. 11 The impact of the web site .................................................................................... 12 Conclusion and recommendation .......................................................................... 13 References ............................................................................................................ 14 Annexe: ................................................................................................................. 15
Interview with Sharonne Maulette, the sales Managers at La Palmeraie..................................... 15 Report for the statistic of their website.......................................................................................... 15

Question

Consumer Behaviour 2011

Information and Communication Technology is acquiring a broad and ubiquitous importance in Mauritius. It is impacting on the diverse range of industries/sectors with different pace and momentum. You are to write a discussion paper on how the growing influence of ICT is affecting consumer behaviour in any industry/sector of your choice. In your preparation phase, you should use various relevant and credible primary and secondary sources of data.

Task One: Using a table, list the various sources of data you used to produce your discussion paper. You need to write brief notes on the reliability and credibility of these sources. [15 marks]

Task Two: Write a discussion paper on the impact and influence of ICT on consumer behaviour in an industry/sector of your choice. You should also recommend how an organization within y

Source of Data
Sources of Data 1 Interviewed of the Sharonne Maulette, the sales Managers of La Palemaraie.

Consumer Behaviour 2011

Comments She has given information about her company, but she had sure present the set of result of her organization in an optimistic way.

Statistics Report from the web Master 2 of La Palmaraie

It is an external web agency that has done these statistics via Google analytic, The report must be reliable, if the numbers of the statistic do not reflect on the turnover of the company. Certainly, the hotel will seek for another agency to do their monthly report for their web site. Information on the web site must be true, because, the law prohibit company to give misleading information. This report must be reliable since it was an university who has done this report for another country. It was purely academic. These statistics must reflect whats happening in Mauritius, it must reflect the reality.

3 Website of La Palmeraie

4 Report regarding the aspects of the consumer buyer behaviour for budget hotels in Ireland. 5 Statistic from the central Statistics Office

6 Government report: The ICT Sector in Mauritius

Since it is a government report, the author will present the information by exaggerating a little on what the government has done in the ICT sector. The government will never allow to publish information which might be used against them

Consumer Behaviour 2011

Introduction
Information and communication technology (ICT) consist of handling issues regarding data, ways of communication, audio, and video, transmission and network devices in order to control and manage changes in the world of technology. ICT has helped us to improve our lifestyle as well as the way business is done. According to Viviane Reding, a member of the European Commission responsible for information society ICT . is responsible for around half of productivity growth in modern economies. It drives improved efficiency and better services and products across the entirety of the private and the public sectors. Organisations are implementing (ICT) in order to facilitate transactions such as commercial, accounting With ICT, business is more profitable and is done with more efficiency. Fortunately or unfortunately, in the world of technology everything keeps changing. Researchers want to provide a more rapid and smaller device, which shows that there is always innovation. With this modernisation, consumers behaviour keeps innovating and nowadays marketers have noticed that consumers buying behaviour is changing rapidly compared to years before. Thats why we see the rapid evolution in the way business is done. ICT has a great impact on businesses, if one provides innovative services and products, others are compelled to follow the pace in order not to be out of the game. Managers in all organisations are always trying to identify new opportunities to satisfy consumers behaviour. With the rapid evolution in the convergence of ICT, Mauritius did not really have another choice other than to adapt itself to this evolution. Lets have a look back to the past to know the history of ICT in our Island.

History of Information and communication Technology in Mauritius

Consumer Behaviour 2011

In 1883, seven years after the telephone was invented; the basic telephony was introduced for the first time in Mauritius. The initial phone line was installed between Rduit and Port-Louis, the Government House. After nearly one century, in 1988, the state owned the department of telecommunication, afterwards it became the Mauritius telecommunication services, and which finally become the Mauritius telecom when the National and the International activities merged. In 1996, Emtel Ltd introduced the mobile telephony, and enjoyed a monopolistic situation for almost seven before Cellplus (now known as Orange), entered the market. Recently another competitor, Mahanagar Telephone Mauritius Lltd (MTML), joined the other two leading companies but the main competition for the time being remains between Emtel and Orange. Changes and innovations continued to occur in the Information and communication Technology sector, which encouraged the government to create a Ministry of Information and Telecommunication in 1997. Its main role is to formulate and implement policies regarding the development of the ICT sector. In 2000, the Electronic Transaction Act was introduced in order to promote E-Business and help establishing uniformity of rules, regulation and measures apropos the authentication and integrity of electronic records. Then in 2003, the Cybercrime Act was implemented in Mauritius not only to protect data, computer and other technological devices but also to prevent electronic Fraud. The explosive growth in the ICT sector made things change more and more rapidly, now we have the possibilities to settle different types of transactions online; today Mauritians have the possibility to fill in the income tax form online which was not possible a few years ago. A century ago, changes took time to occur, because during that period, the only means of travelling was the sea travel, which was time consuming to move from one place to another. Now with internet, media and all the facilities we have, everything is at our fingerprints. Because the lifestyle is no more the same, like in the past. Demand has now changed. All sectors, are implementing ICT to their business, in 5

order to satisfy consumers needs. Managers in Mauritius have realised that there are many opportunities while adopting the ICT. That is why we can now see, in all sectors, computers are being used for almost everything. New software is used to ease tasks, and organisations and companies want to make themselves more accessible and well known to the rest of the world via ICT. Even in the tourism sector, they have adapted themselves to this rapid innovative technology. The Tourism sector is a very promising area, where there is a very good prospect for the future. In order to meet this growing demand, companies in this sector are continuously changing their way of working and adjusting themselves to the changing global environment.

Consumer Behaviour 2011

Arrival of tourist from 2004 to 2010

Consumer Behaviour 2011

No of tourist
1000000 950000 900000 850000 800000 750000 700000 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

Tourists

Fig 1:*Statistics from the website of Central Statistics office

As shown in this graph, the arrival of tourists has constantly increased, from 2008. There was an external factor which explained the decrease of tourists arrival in Mauritius between 2007 and 2008. It was due to the economic crisis which affected both local and international economy. Since 2009, the number of tourists has been constantly increasing. The tourism sector has created many employments with the various needs as leisure, parties, and comfort of tourists. But the most important need of all travellers is accommodation (shelter) which is their basic physiological need. But those who have higher expectations will choose high class hotels, thus creating a greater demand in this area. In order to satisfy this demand, hotels have not stopped innovating. Nowadays, customers are looking for quality and rapid services. As a result, to provide the best to their customers, hotels are using different types of softwares and hardwares. Hogatex and Amadeus are softwares that are used in Mauritians Hotels. These, help them to: 7

Facilitates daily operations of the hotel such as information of clients and prices being updated on a regular basis. Give visibility of each client, this information can be used for loyalty programs and it allows the hotel to provide a more personalised service. Since data about the existing clients is recorded, it helps employees to know the preferences of their customers.

Consumer Behaviour 2011

It improved processes; the uniformity needed allow a better standardisation of all functionality throughout the whole hotel.

Most hotels use this kind of system as with this system you can retrieve all information in a matter of seconds. In addition, there is more the need of keeping paper records, all data are kept on the system of all guest files. With the type of structure, statistics and forecast can easily been done. Since the rates of room are put into the system while the reservation, the accounting department just need to print the invoice and send to the client. In order to provide a sense of security to clients, CCTV cameras are installed everywhere in hotels. And magnetic keys are used instead of the traditional key. However, in the Hotel Industry, they segmented themselves using combination of price, services and facilities. Hotels play with these combinations in order to differentiation themselves with their competitor. Choosing a hotel is not the most important purchase for a customer but it is significant one since they are taking certain risk, bearing in mind that some tourists are coming in Mauritius for the first time. The hotel room will be their only home for their period of stay. It is important fulfil their expectation and demand. Booking for a hotel is a high involvement purchase as there is a financial risk, psychological risk (the quality of the room) and physiological risk; all these factors increase the involvement of the purchase. Obviously, the level of involvement for this purchase varies from one individual to another depending on their social status. Those from a lower social status will be more highly involved, even if they are choosing a Budget hotel. It is judicious to analyse the different stages of the buying process since, there are various alternatives that varies from the price, quality and facilities which have a great 8

influence on their decision to choose where to get accommodation with facilities they are going to pay.

Consumer Behaviour 2011

Customers buying Process

Fig 1: Buying process According to a research done in Ireland in 2008 by Ioana Cristina Colbu and Adrian Liviu Scutariu for the journal of Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, the following buying process occurs when choosing a budget hotel.

Problem awareness is usually quite direct. Those who organised their predefine journey will either arrange for their accommodation before travelling and those who are less predictable will arrange for the hotel booking as they arrived destination.

Information Search will include the internal and external sources.

Consumer Behaviour 2011

Internal sources compromise past experiences; customer will be more loyal to a hotel where they had stayed before. The one who will select the budget hotel will be more influenced by the physiological, safety and social motives whereas the customer who will opt for luxury hotel will be motivated by their self-actualisation and ego. There are other factors such as age, economic situation, family lifecycle and career status that can influence the decision maker External sources are composed of marketing stimuli and environmental influence. The marketing stimuli are composed industry and brand knowledge, attitudes absorbed or learned by a person through the media. When the customer begins to look for information, these factors will consciously or subconsciously influence him. At this moment, some people will even respond to advertisement for accommodation. As for the environment influence, it consists of not personal source such as family, colleagues and friend. But also travel agent and recognised opinion leader. Whereas for customers who are going to book on the spot, they will most probably ask for information from local people, tourist office. Evaluation of alternatives is one of the most significant steps in the buying process, it is essential for marketers to understand how a buyer is going to evaluate and choose to purchase a good or a service. For customers that are evaluating alternative, the dominant component for booking a hotel would probably be the price for the one who is choosing a Budget Hotel. The local of the Hotel and the cleanliness of the room are also important factors. But if previously an individual went in a specific hotel and had enjoyed their stay, this will possibly be a more dominant motivator that a cheaper hotel since past experience tends to reassure the customer. Purchase will more likely be influence by their personal source. It is mainly because they trust these people. Yet the price remains the more important factor that influences the booking of a hotel. They will not be able to pay for a particular hotel if they do not have the purchase power.

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Post purchase evaluation is the last step of the buying process and it is at this stage that the customer will say whether they satisfy with the accommodation or not. It is the final chance that the marketers have to influence the customer so that they do not hold conflicting ideas of the hotel.

Consumer Behaviour 2011

How ICT is affecting consumer behaviour

In order to discuss the influence of ICT on consumer behaviour, lets take for example, the hotel La Palmeraie. This hotel which was inaugurated in 2005 offers accommodation and other services like spa and restaurant. They have 60 rooms and propose to their customers three different categories of rooms; Superior Room, Deluxe Beachfront Room and Junior Suites. As most hotels in Mauritius, they implemented software and hardware in order to answer to queries of all their customers more rapidly. Since their customers are foreigner, they wanted to be present on the web so that potential client can have information on their hotel while choosing among the alternatives. That is why the management created a web site in 2009. On the website, they give all information about the hotel: Geographical situation Type of room with photos. The different services they proposed in the hotel: Restaurant Bar Spa Sport and leisure activities Small Shop Photo Gallery Contact details

The client has even the possibility to do a virtual tour of the hotel, get quotation for their stay and they can do their reservation and payment online.

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The impact of the web site

Consumer Behaviour 2011

Fig 1: number of visitors browsing the website1

Fig 2: number of foreign visitors browsing the website2

These graphs demonstrate that people does look for information online, the number of visitors has been increasing from March 2010 to January 2011. According to Sharonne Maulette, the sales Manager of La Palmeraie, since last year, 500 clients have done their reservation online. And since the creation of the website, more and more people are calling the hotel directly to do their reservation on the phone.
1&2

From the webmaster report

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Consumer Behaviour 2011

Conclusion and recommendation
More and more companies are implementing ICT to their business in order to response more rapidly to consumer queries. In Mauritius as well as abroad, customers are buying online. EBay is an example of the success of ICT. Nowadays, people are no more afraid of doing online payment since there is a high level of security online to prevent hacking. The success of the website of La Palmeraie shows that consumers are reacting positively to these changes. In fact, it is consumers that are pushing company to implement ICT to their business. Lifestyle has changed over these few decades and the consumer does not want to waste time. ICT helps business to deliver goods and services more rapidly In order, to increase the number of customers, La Palmeraie can give to client who advises the hotel special discount. Therefore, people will recommend more and more the hotel. La Palmeraie can collect more information (preferences) about the client via their website in order to propose a more personalised service tourists coming in their Hotels.

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References

Consumer Behaviour 2011

Mauritius telecom [Online] Available: http://www.mauritiustelecom.com/about_us/milestones.htm [10 April 2011] The ICT Sector in Mauritius [Online] Available: http://www.gov.mu/portal/goc/ncb/file/ictview.pdf [12 April 2011] The electronic transactions act 2000 [Online] Available: http://www.gov.mu/portal/goc/ncb/file/eta.pdf [12 April 2011] The computer misuse and Cybercrime Act 2003 [Online] Available: http://www.gov.mu/portal/goc/telecomit/files/cyber.pdf [12 April 2011] Arrival of Tourist in Mauritius [Online] Available: www.gov.mu/portal/sites/ncb/cso/service.htm [12 April 2011] Ioana Cristina COLBU and Adrian Liviu SCUTARIU, Aspects regarding the Consumer buyer Behaviour for budget hotels in Ireland [Online] Available: anale.feaa.uaic.ro/anale/resurse/020_M05_Colbu_Scutariu.pdf [20 April 2011]

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Annexed:

Consumer Behaviour 2011

Interview with Sharonne Maulette, the sales Managers at La Palmeraie Report for the statistic of their website

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