The main objective of Costa Cruises is to increase the percentage of the electronic channel towards the offline channel,
Published: 15 Nov 2005
The main objective of Costa Cruises is to increase the percentage of the electronic channel towards the offline channel, according to Daniele Mancini, director of e-Business, Costa Cruises.
"We will succeed in decreasing our costs and increasing our net revenue only if we adopt this strategy. It is our plan to take up this opportunity exploiting all electronic channels," says Mancini.
Mancini shared info on operations of the company with EyeforTravel.com's Ritesh Gupta ahead of Travel Distribution Technology 2005 scheduled to take place in London this month. Excerpts:
How do you assess progress made by your company this year?
In the E-Business and E-Distribution areas Costa Crociere progressed further this year. We accomplished several projects on line in order to decrease our products distribution costs and in order to boost sales.
What major initiatives have you taken this year as far distribution is concerned? How they have been different from what you have done in the past?
We have taken two major initiatives in the distribution area this year:
- B2C website: it includes an online booking engine. End users can directly purchase Costa cruises by credit card.
- B2B website: specific for Travel Agencies. It is possible to book online and to get all information regarding Costa cruises (Work Flow management).
- Web Affiliation Programme: Costa Crociere developed an Internet system that allows selected partners to include Costa catalogue/booking engine in their internal reservation system or website (B2B/B2C). This programme is totally customizable by T.A. and target group as T.A. network, and it is based on Microsoft Webservices.
How has your company made judicious use of own website for online booking and revenues?
This year we have made our online booking engine available to end users in different markets, like U.S., U.K., Scandinavia etc. We have launched a completely new website, based on Microsoft Platform (MSIB 2.0), which resulting from several usability tests. Now it is ready to be utilized in more than thirteen languages.
What do you think are the current challenges for you in expanding bookings or revenues through traditional selling channels? How has your dependency on traditional distribution channels shaped up?
For Costa Crociere it has always been essential to work with the traditional sales channel, therefore it will continue in this direction.
As support to Travel Agencies, Costa Crociere especially launched the Web Affiliation Programme in order to let Travel Agencies take advantage of the Net. All Travel Agencies can adhere to this programme, even the minor ones. Our booking engine can be embedded in their own websites and customized following the white label concept (font, colours, texts, etc.).
Consumers can use Travel Agencies websites to make options in the Costa booking engine and have to confirm them by contacting the Travel Agent.
How do you assess the emergence of new online channels such as meta-search engines?
Meta-search engines are considered the most important tools to bring in new customers. Costa re-analysed all its websites in order to reach the first positions of the most important search engines of the world.
It is essential to have the right key words, meta tags and contents in every website version (per market). In this way our websites will be reached more easily through the natural search (search engine
optimization).
How do you think improved interoperability cut your distribution costs?
It is important to provide the opportunity to open, modify and confirm a booking in every distribution channel (online and offline). Our distribution costs will decrease in a significant way only if we follow this objective.
How do you assess mobile platform as an option for distribution? What advancements has it made this year?
A cruise holiday is a more complex and expensive product in comparison to hotels and low cost airlines. Therefore we are concentrating on other platforms more than the mobile one.
Technological developments are allowing travel companies to exchange information with greater ease and at reduced costs. What factors according to you are enabling direct connectivity?
Costa strongly believes in the advantages brought by technological developments. We are trying to spread out price and availability of our cruises to a larger number of partners. Therefore we have invested in an e-Business platform in order to easily connect all our partners (Xml-Webservices).
What do you think are challenges going forward from distribution perspective?
The more e-players like OTA or websites increase in number and importance, the more Costa will have to invest in technology to have them connected. In all markets the most important T.A.s will continue to grow at a different speed, but I strongly believe that there is room enough for offline T.A.s as well. They will have to take advantage of the Net specializing in some niche targets and creating an electronic relationship (E-CRM) with their customers.
What are your plans? What's on your agenda?
Our main objective is to increase the percentage of the electronic channel towards the offline channel. We will succeed in decreasing our costs and increasing our net revenue only if we adopt this strategy. It is our Plan to take up this opportunity exploiting all electronic channels.
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