This is the best team: from Ctrip to Home Inns, Hanting I

Chapter 15
what did the opponent do wrong

01 The distance is opened like this

Everyone thinks that tourism is the industry that is most suitable for combining with e-commerce.The reason is that the tourism industry is less involved in payment and delivery links, and the potential of the Chinese tourism market is very large.As the world's largest industry, tourism accounts for about 10% of GDP.Although it accounts for only 5% in China, its growth rate in China is about double the GDP growth rate, growing at a rate of 20% per year.

Therefore, many people have spotted this market, and many people want to get a share of this market.During the peak period of Internet economic development, in January 2000, my country’s tourism websites had grown to more than 1, including hundreds of tourism portal websites, nearly a hundred reservation company websites, and hundreds of relatively large ones. A website invested and established by a travel agency.

In just a few years, thousands of travel websites have been born in China. Does this phenomenon mean that this industry has been booming?
But the result is that its prosperity is also vigorous, and its death is also sudden!

1998 was the "year of e-commerce", but 2000 became the "year of bankruptcy".In the second half of 2000, China's tourism websites entered the stage of reshuffle, and the tourism websites that once threatened to be the gravediggers of traditional travel agencies had a different fate.Some tourism websites combine with traditional forces and rely on the power of capital to continue to be proud of themselves.After experiencing the baptism of the Internet bubble, some travel websites either died and disappeared from people's field of vision; or adjusted and repositioned their business structures and struggled to survive.

After the "winter" of the Internet, people became more sober. It turns out that the Internet economy is not only a good thing, but also a bubble.The CEO of a travel website once said: The real network economy should be the perfect combination of network technology and traditional economic model, and the development of traditional economy, rather than a pure network technology economy separated from traditional management or modern enterprise model.

This is indeed the case, Ctrip also survived by integrating the traditional industry model with network technology.But surprisingly, Ctrip quickly became the industry leader.

Strange to say!Ctrip is not the discoverer and pioneer of this industry.It is not the first travel website. Before the appearance of Ctrip, there were China Travel Information Network and Huaxia Travel Network; it was not the first travel website to make hotel reservations. The first Internet company to acquire a room reservation center, before Ctrip announced the acquisition of Shangzhixing and Modern Express, eLong had already acquired Paideqin.In addition, it does not have unique resources and advantages. The network companies established by traditional travel agencies have more abundant resources than it has, such as China Youth Online and Yigao Travel.com.

So what made Ctrip the leader in this industry?It is necessary for us to understand the development of Ctrip's competitors in the past two years.

02 Travel websites do not know how to make money

According to the principle of different positioning at different stages, Ctrip's competitors can be divided into four categories.

1. Travel portal websites, such as Huaxia Travel Network and China Travel Information Network; 2. Travel websites run by traditional travel agencies, such as CYTS Online and Yigao Travel Network; 3. Internet companies similar to Ctrip, such as eLong; 4. Traditional reservation centers, such as Shangzhixing and Golden Century, still exist.

During the two years from 1999 to 2000, Ctrip was positioned as a portal website, so there were two main competitors with it: China Travel Information Network and China Travel Network.

China Tourism Information Network was established in June 1997, the founder is Huaqing. In November 6, China Tourism Information Network moved its headquarters from Wuhan to Beijing and established Beijing Shanglv Holiday Network Technology Co., Ltd.Its services include online ticket booking, room reservation, shopping and travel agency business access.However, its strong point is to provide users with information.It is said that the website is very powerful, with rich resources and 1999 pages of information. After logging on to the website, ordinary users can inquire about scenic spots, tourist routes, hotels, travel agencies, entertainment, shopping and transportation all over the country and around the world. Comprehensive information materials.

Huaxia Travel Network was established in October 1997, jointly invested by China International Travel Service, Guangdong Xintai Information Industry Co., Ltd. and Huada Kang Investment Holdings Co., Ltd.The upstream resources of Huaxia.com are also very rich. According to their insiders, Huaxia.com has more than 10 members.

Among these two websites, China Tourism Information Network was established the earliest. It has trained many talents for this industry, and it is nicknamed "the Huangpu Military Academy of tourism websites" by the industry.According to Chu Siming, vice president of the company, their commercial director and chief artist of the website are all working for others.The online city was "fiddled" by their public relations department, and the main force of Ctrip's marketing department was also "seconded" from their company.

Brain drain, will the executives of China Travel Information Network be furious?Unexpectedly, their leaders are very self-cultivated. Chu Siming said in front of the public that the flow of talents on websites is very normal. With so many websites popping up in China within a year, it is very difficult to cultivate them by ourselves.For the internet to succeed, it must maintain this fluidity.Although China Tourism Information Network has lost many people, this will not cause the website to lose blood.Because in an enterprise, the positions are limited, some leave because they don't adapt to the enterprise system, and some leave because they don't get the opportunity. As long as the backbone of the website is still there, the necessary flow can keep the website alive.

A lot of talents have been cultivated, so how is the money earned?Oddly enough, both sites are evasive about specific revenues.

Chu Siming, vice president of China Travel Information Network, said: At present, the largest share of income comes from booking tickets. The turnover in a month is very large, and sometimes it can reach several million in a day.As far as ticket booking is concerned, China Travel Information Network should be the best among travel websites, and the revenue of the website is roughly around 3% for every ticket sold.

But when it came to the question of the specific monthly turnover, Chu Siming stopped talking.

Meng Xuehan, marketing manager of Huaxia.com, introduced that Huaxia.com is mainly engaged in B2B business, and its income comes from two major sources: membership fees and transaction commissions. In addition, it will develop internal management software for travel agencies in the future.However, he also admitted that the membership fee has not been formally collected, and frankly speaking, everyone is still exploring and building.

In fact, at this time, Ctrip is the same, making ends meet.

Why are these sites not making money?Because at this time, the income of travel websites mainly depends on online booking and room booking.The main source of customers is white-collar workers working in foreign companies or large enterprise groups.Because these people often surf the Internet, are willing to use modern technology to serve themselves, have money and like to travel.However, such a target audience is not enough to support a website.

What should I do?
The market does exist!According to statistics from the China Tourism Association, in 1999, the total tourism revenue of China's 110 teams reached 2399 billion yuan, while traditional travel agencies only accounted for about 5% of the total tourism revenue.This means that the rapidly expanding Chinese tourism market leaves a huge space for the development of tourism websites.

So why haven't these sites made money yet?Maybe it has something to do with their marketing strategy.

Liang Jianzhang said that Ctrip.com is not a simple website, but a tourism company that uses the Internet to transform the traditional tourism service model. Their company's goal is not only to compare with websites, but also with traditional tourism companies, and to maintain a leading position in the industry status.

However, Zhang Shuo, manager of the public relations department of Huaxia.com, summed up the positioning of Huaxia.com as a friend of tourists and an assistant in the tourism industry. He believes that tourism websites are not intended to replace traditional tourism enterprises, but to provide an additional channel to make the Internet a traditional enterprise. A bridge to connect with customers.

The position is different, and the way of thinking is different.

Liang Jianzhang believes that there is no [-]% satisfactory product, only [-]% satisfactory service.Service is the best market.Internet companies must make it more convenient than you go to the supermarket to get more repeat customers.Therefore, Liang Jianzhang transplanted Oracle's management system to Ctrip, and established a customer management system to save the information of every customer who has spent here.At the same time, Liang Jianzhang also designed a set of employee evaluation system based on customer evaluation, which determines the employee's income and promotion according to the customer's score for each service.

Zhang Shuo, manager of the public relations department of Huaxia.com, relied on the rich upstream resources of Huaxia.com, but focused on the price.He said that netizens can enjoy a discount of 3-7% when booking a room on Huaxia.com.

Faced with competitors’ suicide-style low-price promotions, Ctrip announced that although Huaxia.com and China Travel Information Network are older, in terms of e-commerce, Ctrip’s pace has surpassed them. For Ctrip , the bigger opponent is not on the site.

After hearing this, Chu Siming of China Travel Information Network gave another explanation: In fact, the investors of Ctrip and China Travel Information Network are not much different. They are all companies such as IDG and Softbank. For them, investing in two different websites in one industry at the same time is just for insurance, and the possibility of recapitalization in the future cannot be ruled out.Therefore, Ctrip and China Travel Information Network are brothers rather than rivals.

Just when the three websites were arguing and there was no result, overseas investors came over. Tom.
.com wants to buy the top two websites, Huaxia.com and China Travel Information.com, and make them strategic partners of Tom.com in China's online tourism industry.

The price quoted by Tom.com was quite attractive, and their preliminary intention was quickly reached, and the bosses of the two websites even took a group photo together.Unexpectedly, before the group photo was developed, a Hong Kong China Travel Service came out on the way and snatched the China Travel Information website from Tom.com with lightning speed.

After China Travel Information Network was acquired by Hong Kong China Travel Service, its fate was ill-fated.First, its founder Huaqing resigned, and later it was acquired by China.com. It is said that the purchase price was 1.2 million yuan.

In this way, China Tourism Information Network has been in the frequent replacement of equity and personnel, and its development is very slow.However, with the merger with CDC, its management is gradually on the right track.Chu Siming said that the money in China.com's pocket is enough to live for 20 years. With such a portal as support, it can spend more time doing business. After the company straightens out its internal relations, it should soon realize profitability.

No matter how nicely Chu Siming said it, the facts are still the same. The China Travel Information Network has been acquired by others, which means that it is dead, and Ctrip has one less competitor.

Strangely, China Travel Information Network does not admit that it was acquired by others, and Huaxia.com also uses very clever words.The spokesperson of Huaxia.com said that Huaxia.com and Tom.com are a cooperative relationship. The two parties jointly funded and established an itravel company in Hong Kong that provides English information for inbound tourists. Korean and Traditional Chinese versions. Tom.com is a relatively well-known website, and the purpose of Huaxia.com is to make use of its overseas influence to realize itself going global.

After Huaxia.com and China Travel Information Network were acquired successively, only Ctrip remained among the "three pillars" of travel websites.At this time, people from Sohu hurried over to discuss the acquisition with Liang Jianzhang. He was worried that Ctrip would be gone.

Liang Jianzhang hadn't expressed his opinion yet, but Zhang Suyang from IDG was beside him desperately trying to persuade them to continue the conversation.In the end, Ji Qi disagreed desperately. He said: Some bosses are successful because they are unwilling to bow to fate; some bosses are successful because others are willing to bow to them.The current situation is, either to be acquired by others, or to acquire others.I think offense is the best defense, and acquiring others is the only way out.

Therefore, when the "winter" of the Internet is approaching, the three largest travel portals have different fates.Ctrip acquired two hotel reservation companies and then transformed into hotel reservations. However, China Travel Information was acquired by China.com, and Huaxia Travel was also severely damaged in the "winter".

03 eLong took many detours

Among all Internet companies, eLong should be the real opponent of Ctrip.

The founder of eLong is Tang Yue.He and Shen Nanpeng have similar life experiences. He was born in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province in 1971. His parents are both university professors. Concordia College of Minnesota to pursue a graduate degree in business.

Since the annual tuition and miscellaneous fees need to be about [-] U.S. dollars, the scholarship given by the school is only [-] to [-] U.S. dollars, which is a difference of [-] to [-] U.S. dollars a year.Therefore, Tang Yue came to the United States two months in advance, because he wanted to work first to earn tuition fees.

After Tang Yue arrived in San Francisco, the person who came to pick him up did not come, and he was stranded at the San Francisco airport.In desperation, he chatted with a girl next to him.While chatting, something unexpected happened. This 20-year-old, not handsome young guy is not only independent, but also very friendly.After the girl who had never met before knew his situation, she decided to take him home to stay at home. Of course, this girl had no intention of being "deviant".

At this time, Tang Yue only had 200 dollars on him, which was given by his mother.So, not long after he arrived at school from San Francisco, he started a part-time work-study life.

When it comes to Tang Yue's part-time job story, it is also quite interesting.Tang Yue first worked in the school cafeteria as a chef's assistant, helping to make hamburgers and doing various chores, including washing vegetables and dishes.

Later, Tang Yue decided to go to Disney to sell tickets.Speaking of which, it was not easy for Tang Yue to get the job offer from Disney.Because Disney has a university plan, each summer vacation selects 1000 students from hundreds of universities in the United States, that is, each university selects only one or two students to participate in Disney's summer vacation activities.Therefore, the probability of being selected is not high.

Tang Yue was the second person in his school to go for an interview. After he answered some inexplicable questions, the interviewer finally asked, "Why do you want to come to Disney?"

Tang Yue thought for a while, and began to tell a story to the examiner: When I was young, I read a report in a Chinese newspaper about a little girl in Sichuan, China who had leukemia, and her greatest wish was to go to Disneyland to see it. one time.At that time, the United Nations had a "dream come true" plan, so she went to Disney as she wished.Later, she passed away not long after returning to China.

Tang Yue paused, then continued: In fact, there are tens of thousands of children like her in China suffering from illness and hunger, and they will never have the opportunity to visit Disneyland in the United States.Therefore, I think I will go back to China to build a Chinese Disneyland and spread American culture.

The examiner smiled and said: "You come to work tomorrow!"

The two-year schooling career is over soon. After graduating from Concordia College in 1993, Tang Yue joined Merrill Lynch, the world's largest investment bank, and was responsible for the research and sales of stocks and securities.Then, he worked for two other American investment companies for a period of time.

Having worked in an American investment bank for five or six years, Tang Yue realized more and more that no matter what happened to him in the United States, he definitely did not belong to the mainstream society in the United States, and had little impact on American society.Therefore, Tang Yue decided to return to China for development.

In May 1999, Tang Yue and three entrepreneurial partners established eLong with a seed fund of US$5 million.In October of that year, the Elong.com website was officially launched.

When Tang Yue started to set up the website, he didn't understand the Internet very well. Everyone said that the Internet is equal to a portal, and Tang Yue also wanted to be a Chinese Yahoo.When he came back, he found that China already had Sohu, Sina and Netease, and they had done a very good job.So, two months later, Tang Yue transferred the company's positioning to a city life website, providing information on eating, drinking, entertainment, basic necessities of life, and transportation in the city.

In order for eLong to grow rapidly, Tang Yue's method is the same as that of the Ctrip team, by acquiring others.

In February 2000, Tang Yue first acquired Xici Hutong.Because Xici Hutong is a well-known community website in Nanjing, with a lot of traffic every day, which met the standards for judging the value of Internet companies at that time.

Two months later, Tang Yue acquired the reservation center Bedelooth.

Speaking of the acquisition of Patel Touche, quite dramatic.Bai Deqin is a small company next to eLong. It does not do online travel, but only orders travel by phone. There are only more than 20 employees.

One day in January 2000, Tang Yue, who was passing by Patel, came across an employee of Patel who was making a Lohoo membership card.Tang Yue took a look and felt that the travel service of Patelqin was related to the urban life service of eLong, so he approached the person in charge of Patelqin and suggested that eLong and Patelqin should cooperate in a joint promotion, and give eLong users free Lohoo card.

(End of this chapter)