The survey5 of 700 business travelers found that the economic downturn over the last five years has changed their business trip behavior. More restrictive travel policies of the company have made business travelers incisive at bargain hunting. It is found that a great value of the trip is the most important factor when booking a hotel. Nowadays, business travelers have more control power over their plan thanks to the sharply increase number of online travel reviews and social media, nearly 70 percent say they will choose the saver travel options to avoid raising outstanding expense to their company. 61 percent say they would follow a travel agency brand on social media in order to learn about travel deals. Fortunately, 85 percent of travelers feel their business travel more enjoyable than five years ago. In conclusion, business travelers become more focus in the concept of value and making smarter travel choices for their company.
3.2. Market Size
From the fact that the South East Asia is one of the regions those has a continual great response from investors around the world. Growing in the same trend, Thailand is one of the top destinations to do the business in this region. We use the total available market (TAM), served available market, and target market to calculate the size of the hotel market size as below:
TAM (total addressable market): Number of travelers in arrive Bangkok which is equal to 15,438,415 persons per year.
5 Economy has changed business travel behavior.
www.successfulmeetings.com//news/research-and-white-papers/economy-has-changed-business-travel-behavior, -survey-shows/
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Table 5: The Number of Thai and Foreigner Visitor Who Travel to Bangkok6
2007 2010 2011 2012 2013 Average
Thai 24,325,088 26,861,095 28,867,346 30,269,692 31,988,047 29,496,545 Foreigner 11,628,458 11,361,808 14,895,656 16,915,339 18,580,855 15,438,415 All 35,953,546 38,222,903 43,763,002 47,185,031 50,568,902 44,934,960
Figure 23: The Number of International Visitor Arrival to Bangkok in 2010-2013
The data from the same resource, Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) intelligence center, we research deeply into the profile of arrival travelers categorized by the purpose of travelling. The average percentage of visitors who come for the business purpose is 9.36 percent therefore; we can estimate the SAM as below:
SAM (served available market): Number of business travelers in Bangkok which is equal to 1,445,036 persons per year
6 http://intelligencecenter.tat.or.th:8080/apex/f?p=1:22:0::NO:::
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Table 6: The Profile of Arrival Travelers Categorized by Purposes of Travelling7
2012 2013 2014 Average 2012-2014
Value %Share Value Value Value %Share Value %Share
Holiday 19,215,090 85.96% 23,240,400 87.55% 9,854,336 85.89% 17,436,609 86.64%
Business* 2,138,588 9.57% 2,270,168 8.55% 1,073,759 9.36% 1,827,505 9.36%
Incentive 36,058 0.16% 70,741 0.27% 51,965 0.45% 52,921 0.26%
Other 964,167 4.31% 965,416 3.64% 492,821 4.30% 807,468 4.01%
Total 22,353,903 100% 26,546,725 100% 11,472,881 100 % 20,124,503 100%
* Business includes Business, Convention, Meeting, and Exhibition
Figure 24: The Average Profile of Arrival Travelers Categorized by the Purpose of Travelling
The information from the TAT Intelligence Center shows the average of purpose of travelling for foreigner travelers who come to Thailand during year 2012-2014 that 9.36 percent of the overall tourists who visit Thailand came for business trip, while there are 86.64 percent came for leisure trip and 4 percent came for other purpose such as incentives, shopping, visit relatives
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http://intelligencecenter.tat.or.th:8080/apex/f?p=1:7:0::NO:::http://intelligencecenter.tat.or.th:8080/apex/f?p=1:7:
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and medical treatment.
Then we inspected into the accommodation for these visitors to see the result of our target market. There is 83.1 percent of travelers choose to stay in a hotel. The rest of accommodations are guest house and hostel (4.9 percent), stay with friend or relative (6.8 percent), and service apartment or bungalow (7.2 percent). The full table of ‘Table the of tourists behavior in detail year 2013’ is shown in the appendix 5 table the of tourists behavior in detail year 2013. Thus the number of target market will be:
Target market: Number of Business Travelers in this segmentation who will choose a
hotel to be a place to stay during their business trip is 1,200,825 persons per year, or there will be businessmen around 3,336 persons per day find a hotel to stay in Bangkok.
3.3. Customer Segmentation
According to iHotel Marketer8 categorized purpose of business trip as; business and trading negotiation, participating the meeting or seminar, participating in the exhibition and expo, coming to service and visit customers, working aboard on normal duty, finding new customers and explore the new market. Therefore, we target our customers in several types as below:
1. Trading negotiation, meeting, servicing and visiting customers, or finding new customers and exploring the new market. If they are new investors or are now seeking new customers, it would be convenience for them to use our hotel one stop service; advance booking hotel, renting a car with the driver and a capable translator. They also can use hotel amenities;
8 Categorized the purpose of business trip
http://www.ihotelmarketer.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=184:business-market
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onsite mobile phone and meeting room to make appointment calls with their customers who are going to visit with our provided translator.
2. Participating the seminar or exhibition: with the best location where connect to the main exhibition center; we are ready to service business travelers, both exhibitors and participants. This type of guest will stay around one week depend on the length of the exhibition.
3. Working aboard on normal duty: this group of clients always comes for a short trip meeting with a few specific destinations. Approximate length of visit is a week or more, and they have a schedule and know places to go, these customers probably need a car service.
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