Dr. Natasa Christodoulidou discusses the transition from traditional to digital marketing in tourism, emphasizing the importance of targeting emerging markets like China and utilizing e-marketing strategies. The document outlines the evolution of communication and advertising platforms and the impact of online travel intermediaries and meta search engines on the travel industry. It concludes with the call to leverage e-marketing for customer acquisition and retention as competition grows among travel suppliers and agents.

1. Traditional Marketing Becomes
Digital
By
Dr. Natasa Christodoulidou, Ph.D.
California State University
nchristodoulidou@csudh.edu
E-Tourism Forum 2009

2. Background
• Born in Nicosia
• Moved to the US in 1992
• Received B.Sc., M.Acc., MBA and Ph.D.
• Worked for various companies in the United
States
• Currently a faculty member at CSUDH in
Marketing and keynote speaker for conferences
around the world
• Resides in Las Vegas, Nevada

3. Our world is changing!
• Let us take a few minutes to watch the following
video.
• Sony played this video at their executive
conference this year. Caution: It may leave you a
little breathless.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL9Wu2kWwSY

4. SO WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?
• China will soon become the #1 English Speaking
Country in the world
• China should be a target for promoting tourism
and travel in the English language
• Top 10 demand jobs did not exist in 2004
• This shows that we don’t know what type of
professionals we want to attract in our tourism
and travel market
• Text messaging
• Total number of messages sent and received every
day exceeds the total population of earth
• 1 out of 8 couples in the United States last year met
online
• Advertising space
• There are over 200 million users in My Space
• Potential advertising and exposure

5. Reaching your audience
• To reach 50 million customers it took:
• The Radio – 38 years
• TV – 13 years
• Internet – 4 years
• Facebook – 2 years
• So this question leads us to the bigger one which is
how do we reach our audience for the Cyprus
Market?

6. Travel Intermediaries
• An online travel intermediary is an online travel
agent that sells direct bookings with hotels,
airlines, car rentals, etc.
• Examples:
• Expedia.com
• Travelocity.com
• Orbitz.com
• Hotels.com
• Studentuniverse.com

7. Travel Meta Sites
• Travel meta search engines are a new
generation of travel search engines
• Examples:
• TravelAxe.com
• SideStep.com
• Cheapflights.com
• Kayak.com
• Opportunity or threat to online travel agencies
(OTAs)?

8. Metasite example

9. Popular Travel Meta Search Players
Sidestep Kayak
• Most established player • Fastest growing in space
• Side-by-side comparisons • Goal to be comprehensive (all
• Downloadable toolbar of the earth’s hotels)
• Partnership with • Multi-city itineraries
Amazon.com • Kayak Network marketing and
• Established relationships advertising service
with leading hotel • Buzz (history of user searches)
companies • AOL/Pinpoint Travel alliances
• Flight plus hotel (dynamic • Consumer-contributed content
package) searches • Integration with AOL Instant
• Search by activities Messenger
• Affiliate and co-branded
programs

10. Electronic Travel Distribution Pyramid
Adapted from Brewer, Christodoulidou, and Rothenberger
?
E-Meta Travel Sites
E-Travel Sites
Traditional Sales Channels, GDS,
Group Sales, Consolidators
Travel Products
(hotel rooms, airline seats, rental cars etc.)

11. Looking at Travel Meta Search from a Hotelier’s
Perspective
PROS CONS
• Another way to increase reach • Semi-direct model
and visibility, especially with
increased relationships forming • Increases threat of
between meta search engines commoditization with added
and popular Internet portals focus on price and comparison-
shopping
• Opportunity to attract
unbranded customers • Distorts look-to-book ratios
• Alternative to GDSs, GNEs, • May have adverse impacts to
and OTAs, shifting power to RevPar
brands (i.e., customers trading down)
• Book direct allows brand to • May influence customers to
build, own, and manage book with competitors and
customer relationship third-party sites
• Potentially cheaper
distribution option (depending • Segment is still immature and
upon contract terms) evolving
• Segment is gaining interest • Still unclear if meta search is
and some traction producing incremental
• Opportunities to up-sell bookings or just redirecting
customers when they arrive at bookings
brand site • Consumers continue to shop
multiple sites/services
(upwards of 5 on average)

12. Summary
• Use the power of E-Marketing to:
• Attract new customer markets
• Enhancing existing ones
• Customer retention
• Travel suppliers, Online Travel Agents, and Meta
Search Engines will be fighting for control of the
distribution process and ultimately the consumer
• For more, on the details the customer side, please
attend tomorrow’s presentation!

13. Thank You
Follow-up questions or presentation requests can be
emailed to (business cards also available):
nchristodoulidou@csudh.edu
Las Vegas Mobile number: +1 702 292 3952
Nicosia Mobile number: +99 55 49 49