This is the final presentation of eTourismBook Project of VL at Stanford University entrepreneurship course of 2012. All rights to the contents are reserved with SPH Consultancy & eServices Pvt. Ltd. who have sponsored this project.

1. Sixth Outline Level
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eTourismBook
An Integrated Tourism Platform
 Research  Plan  Engage  Share

2. Agenda
Final Presentation
1 To introduce the Product
2 Need Analysis
✓ 3 Product Highlights
4 Team
5 Business Model
6 Risks
7 Funding

3. What is the Problem Being addressed?
Hassled Tourist
•
Information on all aspects of the tourism life cycle not
available at one place
•
Travelers are moving away from mass tourism to
independent travel and demand authentic and
memorable experiences. No support designed for them.
•
Internet makes the task of Destination research easier
but the related information is not easily available and
accessible.
The Tourist Cycle

4. What is the Problem Being addressed?
Tourism Service Providers – Losing Importance

The fragmentation of the tourism value chain
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Tourism Small & Medium Enterprises are not able to promote
their services to the tourists.

Concept of Value add has new definition but the tourism
ecosystem has not fully woken to it
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The role and value of Tour Operators has nearly vanished but
there is no substitute for their BUNDLING TASK in new
paradigm
The Tourism Value Chain

5. What Needs to be Done?
To improve tourism ecosystem
Integrated approach
An integrated approach which looks at the
SOLUTION
1 tourism sector as a whole; taking all the
elements of its chain of value into consideration.
Knowledge-driven System
There should be knowledge-driven improvement
2
of the productivity of businesses and destinations.
Network Effect
The constituent elements must influence productivity either
directly or indirectly; they must move to a common platform
3
where they can interrelate around a system of
networks.
An Integrated
Tourism
Integrated approach
Platform
4
Knowledge and its transfer must be the motor of the
network, which self-organises and self-develops on
the basis of the contributions of its members.

6. The Product
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We plan to develop an integrated platform for tourism learning and
delivery – eTourismbook
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E denotes the electronic nature of the information and knowledgebase
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Tourism – denotes the authentic tourism offering, in terms of pre tour,
at the attraction and post tour for tourism destinations
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Book – denotes the Booking aspect of the Tourism and related
products and services and also the learning aspect
An Integrated Tourism Platform
 Research  Plan  Engage  Share

7. An Integrated Tourism Platform
The Team
 Research  Plan  Engage  Share
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The project and product is the outcome of the personal frustration of the team leader of the project
to find solution to booking authentic tourism experiences during her avid travel to many countries
and cities in India.
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Dolly Bhasin formed a company 3 yrs back to address this issue and offer a unique preposition by
making the shortcoming as an opportunity.
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Despite having an established consulting practice and 25 years of experience in ICT; she took a
sabbatical and did a Masters in Tourism and Travel from Univ. of Nottingham under a scholarship
programme under two scholarships – Mastercard and UoN.
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Her main objective to join this programme was to try and develop a solution framework for the
Tourism Challenge through an entrepreneurial approach.
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The current team composition is as follows:
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Dolly Bhasin – The Gang Leader – A Serial Entrepreneur
•
Sreenath Chinta – The solution architect – A Tech hand working in USA
•
Rajesh Nair – The Biz Developer- A consultant with a consulting firm
•
Apurve Gupta – Developer – Engineering Student
•
Fakher Oueslati– Developer – Engineering Student
•
Akanksha Angurala– Content Gathering – Engineering Student

8. Sixth Outline Level
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 Product Block Diagram
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9. Basic Concept
Facilitate the Tourists
Research Plan Engage
1 The Research for the tourist is aided by 2 The travel tools in form of Trip 3 - Higher Level of
content aggregation. Multiple content planner to itinerary builder and Engagement
sources are used to fetch and present the maps, guides will be made - Participatory Tourism
relevant data which is of value to the available. - Learning Local Culture
traveller. - Engaging in Benefit to
Also would be digital products Locals (Volunterurism)
Tourism Service Providers will provide like Apps and downloadable - Local Experts
the content in the form of usable and guides, maps, etc. engagement
transactionable content (easily
monitisable) and will be facilitated by tools
within the platform for creating, uploading
and distributing the same.
Share
FACEBOOK
BLOGS

10. Sixth Outline Level
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PLAN 
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Plan Workflow on
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Select Tour Type Get Maps Get Expert Advice Your Customized
and Destination and Directions & Destination Guide Tour Itinerary
Your footnote

11. Sales an Marketing Strategy

12. Content
Strategy
For eTourismbook
Mobile Apps
Video Emails
Consolidate Content and Distribute content through
Value added Publishing
Web Blogs.

13. Risks
1. TECHNICAL 2. FINANCIAL
- Semantic Web 
- Limited Revenue steams
- Ecommerce in Web 3.0 in begining
- Content Aggregation
1. TECHNICAL
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2.Huge R & D costs
- FINANCIAL
- Mobile Web Cloud 
- Huge Development
- API framework Costs
- XML Integration 
- Huge Deployment Costs
3. PEOPLE 4. MARKET
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- Getting the right talent
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- Market Acceptance
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- retaining the right
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- Market adoption
talent
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- Managing cohesion with
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- Diverse skills needed
too many stakeholders
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3. PEOPLE burn
- High Salary 
4. MARKET
- Critical mass for
sustenance

14. Mitigating Technical Risks
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The Technical Challenges are being met by
aligning with Tech leaders in some domains
 Google for Search and Maps, etc. (Discussed and agreed)
 IBM for Cloud (Partnership signed)
 Knowledge Frameworks being explored (see next slide)
 SEMANTIC Web (participating in W3C forums)
 Partnering with Lead Academic Institutes
 Aligning with emerging trends (see next 3 slides)

15. SOME TECHNICAL TRENDS WHICH HELP US

17. MOBILE CLOUD COMPUTING
•
60% of the population of the
world in developing countries
do not have access to web
•
Mobile penetration in
MOBILE CLOUD Developing world in better
COMPUTING •
Most information is in text
(English) format while users
are not all English speaking or
literate.
SOLUTION: Mobile (Web) Cloud Computing

18. Expected Improved Tourism Value chain
The key to creating value is co-produced offerings that mobilise customers,
and the only true source of competitive advantage is the ability to
conceive the entire value-creating system and make it work
Source: http://www.eduwilliam.com

19. Funding
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The Project has many Research and New Model components, so very
high R&D costs and experimentation is involved
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We would try to raise externalfunding quite early; as there is
substantial fund requirements.
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We are also exploring to bring in Partners from the Tourism Industry
who are specialists in the 5 target markets to generate high revenues,
with lesser marketing efforts and Dollars.
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Suitable grants from Sustainable Tourism Development and UN bodies
will also be explored
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Phase wise developent would need funding as follows.
 Proof of Concept and Validation – Promoters & Funds from FFF
 Minimal Viable Product – Angel funds or Partners
 Core Product – Seed Fund
 GoTo Market – Venture Capital

20. References
• http://www.slideshare.net/HatemMahmoud/web-30-the-semantic-web
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W3C Semantic Web and Tourism Case studies
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Dissertation on “Capacity Building for Indian Tourism using ICT
Enabled Mechanisms” by Dolly Bhasin, University of Nottingham
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http://www.eduwilliam.com/