E-commerce Industry Outlook
Series: Travel Industry

The travel industry has greatly benefited from the growth surge in e-commerce. Direct spending for leisure travel by domestic and international customers totaled $683.1 Billion in year 2016. Across the global online travel reached a total of $564.87 Billion dollars of the total travel market according to a report by Statista.
Broken into categories, mobile travel sales accounted for $65.01 Billion, and desktop travel sales accounted for $115.58 Billion in year 2016. Travel websites accounted for $1.48 Billion in the year 2016. The major travel websites which held the maximum share were Tripadvisor at 13.4%, Hotels.com at 3.9%, Marriott international at 3.7% and Booking.com at 3.6%.
The U.S. Commerce Department expects international travel to the U.S. to continue increasing over the next few years. Visitor volume is expected to increase from 78.6 million in 2017 to 94.1 million by year 2021. Travel industry is even projected to contribute $2.6 Trillion to the US economy and e-commerce is a major factor powering the industry.
Research firm IDC says online airline ticket sales, hotel reservations and car rentals make the travel industry one of the strongest e-commerce markets today.Moreover, popularity of e-commerce in the travel industry and online channels driving a high percentage of revenue into the travel industry makes it necessary for companies to reach out beyond their current e-commerce solutions to attract more customers.

How e-commerce can benefit the Travel Industry?

In the travel industry, travelers are always looking for the best travel options. They want the best deals from the largest number of competitors available. Therefore, it is important for retailers to get the right mix of features for their e-commerce store.

• Customer Management: In ecommerce, the more you know the customer, the better you can sell to them. Every time a customer books a ticket online, makes an enquiry about various travel packages, sends an email, or calls for support, it’s an opportunity to get to know your customer better. Integration with CRM enables you to manage information from multiple sources at a single location and build your business for the future.
• Marketing & Promotion: Our Solution offers you better insights to key customer processes, including consumer buying trends, issues from customers, etc. Once you are aware of their interests, you can easily allure customers with holiday’s deals, hotel reservations, discount coupons for ticket bookings, and other tour packages. This enables you to build customer loyalty and measure customer lifetime value.
• Ratings and review: In the travel industry, customer ratings and reviews play a crucial role. The more relevant and appropriate the reviews on your website are to the potential customer, the greater the influence is on the booking process. In this way, people sell for you by posting their opinions, photos, and videos.

i95Dev Offerings

We at i95Dev offer a complete suite of integrated e-commerce solutions for Microsoft Dynamics GP, NAV, AX, and RMS. Our feature rich, open-source e-commerce solutions allow brands from various industries, including manufacturing, retail, distribution and wholesale trades to sell online in B2B, B2C, and third party market places with full integration between all e-commerce channels.