6. Results
6.3 Escape Tour Travels
-This company has garnered many different types of products for customers to choose from. This allows them to have a better spread on sales and attract more customers.
-They have different goals each year to attain that management determines through collaboration with their suppliers. This action can be hard to predict by competitors.
Medium
Misleading the Competition
-This company does induce some signaling actions to mislead or intimidate their competitors.
Low
6.3 Escape Tour Travels
The third company interviewed, called Escape Tour Travels, is a very new company that has just entered the travel industry and has been able to create growth year over year. This company was established in May of 2011, beginning with a staff of two. The owner after a few months of working together with her partner quickly decided that changing to a sole proprietorship company was better for the company and the partner parted ways; the company was re-registered as a sole proprietorship in September of 2011. This company is based in San Francisco, California and
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offers packaged tours to different regions of Ukraine. This company, although only in business for three years has had to be proactive in adapting to the hypercompetitive market.
This company does not have a physical store front; the owner does not feel there is a need for a physical store front as customers are satisfied with the virtual interface and generally conduct sales transactions through telephone or over the internet. The business began with a simple website set up with a toll free number listed to promote packaged tours to Ukraine. This company originally used paid public advertisements online to promote her business and gain an online presence. However, one year after establishing her first website, the owner restructured the website and added new features to allow customers to make purchases directly online. She had mentioned that after creating this new service, her customer base increased significantly.
This company being a new entrant, built alliances with more established companies in the beginning to help sustain itself against competitors who may attack any advantages the company has. They created alliances with tour companies in Ukraine and banks in Ukraine to set up a framework of stability for customers traveling in that country. As the company mainly sells packaged tours to Ukraine, it has become highly specialized in gaining access to different types of tours and specializes in information on traveling in Ukraine as well. This has been the main differentiator for the company in comparison to its competitors.
The owner had also mentioned multiple occasions where the company had to be flexible and also quick to adapt to changes in the customer demand. Right after her first customer experience, the owner realized that she needed to find a resource for booking airline tickets quickly. Within two
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months, she was able to find a collaborator in this sector and quickly provide this service to her customers. She partnered with an agent who are wholesalers of airline tickets and quickly resolved the issue. Although registering for a license to sell airline tickets online was costly for a new business, the company was pressured to meet this customer demand to reach status quo in comparison to her competitors. Then in 2013, the owner of the company saw that the use of paid public advertisements online was proving to be costly and needed to adapt a new way of promotion to stay competitive and gain an advantage in the market. She stopped working with paid publish advertisements online and started to promote her business herself through free channels. The company quickly established a Facebook account, Google Plus account, and Twitter account to promote the products and services. The company also created a YouTube account to create short videos to serve as commercials online to attract new customers. These social media outlets also showcase the company’s competency in specialized information on the region they are promoting travel.
This company was also able to find new ways to gain advantages quickly in this line of business.
In 2013, the company partnered with a dating service and marriage agency called Dreams connections to gain access to a new market. The company’s customer base grew rapidly as Dream connections referred single males interested in touring Ukraine while going on dates to find a Ukrainian wife to this company. This move created an even more specialized segment for the company to capitalize on. The company found a way to differentiate themselves even further to maintain their advantage against competitors. This move also helped the company bouy against sudden environmental changes in the market. During the recent events with the instability
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in Ukraine, customers have been turning away from traveling to Ukraine which hurts sales greatly for this company. However, having established a new customer channel through the dating service, the company gained a cache of return customers; males who have Ukrainian girlfriends in Ukraine. These customers still use the company services to book visiting trips to Ukraine to visit girlfriends or continue to find a match. As the customer base is mostly males looking for females, they are less likely to be deterred by the political instability in the country currently.
Recently, the company saw opportunities in helping customers find hotels in less well known areas in Ukraine. Customer demand to explore smaller cities in Ukraine became more and more evident. The company partnered with a large well known firm, booking.com, to establish a new service on the website. Now customers who are interested in exploring smaller cities in Ukraine can directly access the booking.com database through Escape Tour Travels’ website. By creating a link with a well known site with a vast database, the company furthers the appearance of specialized knowledge and ensures trustworthy qualities.
As the company is still fairly young, there is still only one staff member, the owner making all the decisions for the company. This however, has been the main advantage in keeping the company flexible to changes in the market. The owner also maintains search engine optimization for her website which shows high ability for the company to adapt to technological opportunities.
This company has maintained its focus on its advantage in specialized information and expertise
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on traveling in Ukraine while still being able to expand its scope in business and gain new market sectors to stay competitive in the hypercompetitive setting of the travel industry.
Table 3: Escape Tour Travels Performances in the Four Dimensions
Dimensions Evaluation Score
Focus on Developing New Advantages
-The company seeks new opportunities to gain new advantages.
-Escape Tour Travels also adds new services and utilizes social media to promote the company online presence.
-Escape Tour Travels quickly dropped their original strategy of using paid public advertisement when it no longer gave significant returns on investment.
-This company also assumed partnerships with established companies in different sectors to attain new services to provide convenience to customers and differentiate their services.
High
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-The company updates its social media accounts weekly to keep customers well informed and interested.
-The company creates new promotions every month to attract new customers and maintain return customer interests.
-The company continuously adds new services to cater to customer demand.
High
Being Unpredictable
-The speed in which this company has been able to move has helped it gain several temporary advantages against its competitors.
-The flexibility of the company to quickly attain necessary new channels of distribution can be seemingly unpredictable to competitors.
Medium
Misleading the Competition
-There does not seem to be any apparent strategy where this company uses this tactic.
Low