About Booking Holdings
This essay aims to develop a clear understanding of the international travel markets and critically analyse the market segmentation alongside targeting and positioning the influence of consumer behaviour. The essay has been constructed based on the interview of Glenn Fogel, the Chief Executive Officer of Booking.com. Considering the gathered information on the views of opinions of the pioneer marketing experts in the field of travel and tourism, the essay critically analyses the driving factors for marketing the ideas of the organizations to attract customer attention with significant sales promotional tactics and using the suitable distribution channel (Aman et al., 2019).
Booking Holdings has been a leading provider of online travel and tourism-related services in about more than 220 countries. The company has been noted to have a fair holding of around six primary brands dedicated to facing the consumers namely, Booking.com, Agoda, Priceline, kayak, OpenTable and Rentalcars.com (Booking Holdings, 2022). Glen D. Fogel the prime interview of the research is the Chief Executive Officer of the Booking.com brand who also holds the position of the President and Chief Executive Officer of Booking holdings. As the interview was conducted, the details about his culture and ethnicity have been known alongside recording his opinions as to the main source of data for this research. Glen Fogel has been known to be born in Denver, Colorado, in the United States in the years 1977 and graduated from the Harvard Law School and the University of Pennsylvania which marked his initial steps towards the business industry. Before being elected as the Chief Executive Officer, Fogel has worked under Booking Holdings as the Head of the Worldwide Strategist (Booking Holdings, 2022).
Working in a travel and tourism company, the experience has been quite fulfilling as highlighted by Fogel in the interview, although the job role is quite enduring, handling customers with different preferences can also be tiresome. It has been learnt that travelling is also a personal hobby which he tries to enjoy frequently with his family and close ones. Considering the burden of the responsibility of the job profile, the stressful life led by him does not provide him with enough opportunity to offer his time to his family (Booking Holdings, 2022). Thus, travelling is the most preferred family activity which is planned as frequently as possible. The main motivation behind going to a holiday destination along with his family is to freshen up from the otherwise tiring life and rejuvenate from every kind of stress from his profession. The biggest challenges that have been revealed by Fogel in the interview about selecting a holiday destination is that he prefers the sea, however, his wife and others may have a different preference, so it is a great obstacle to settle at a middle ground for the most suitable travel destination (Haddad, 2019). The present hit of the pandemic has considerably put a quite visible negative impact on the profitability of the travel and tourism industry, the various travel restrictions have not only made the business suffer but also created a significant amount of tension in the industry (Booking Holdings, 2022). However, with the increase in vaccination shots and other medical facilities, Fogel believes that travelling should not be difficult with maintaining proper safety measures. The threat of the covid-pandemic can be regarded to be less vicious than it was at the beginning of 2020, even after that, safety is always highly prioritised by Fogel and also advises the clients to maintain every safety protocol.
Glenn Fogel: CEO of Booking.com
The best accommodation option that is often preferred by Fogel while exploring different places is the homestays and local hotels or other similar residential services. It is believed that being close to the local communities provides an added advantage to the tourists in learning about the host country. According to Ferreira & Sousa (2020), since the whole world has been quite significantly impacted by social media and digital services it can be considered that the social media, social media campaigns can be regarded as one of the best forms of sharing the offerings of the host nation by the different travel and tourism countries. Fogel thinks that Brisbane can be one of the best destinations for the nature-loving clients of Booking Holdings due to the opportunities for experiencing the natural beauty of the regions. As suggested by Amin and Priansah (2019), the most attractive activities that Brisbane can offer the Booking’s customers are the tour of the Sea World which is an aquatic-themed amusement park and the tour of the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. Both these activities can be quite amusing and provide a fulfilling experience to the clients who love to spend time near the sea and animal lovers as well. The company would preferably select the various modes of online campaigns like approaching the top vloggers and influencers to promote attractive videos and spread lucrative pictures in different social media handles of the company with striking discounts and reasonable packages to attract the customers.
As the interview gradually progresses, several essential factors about the influence of consumer behaviour on decision making about travel and tourism have been learnt. It has been learnt that consumers have a considerable impact on the decision making of the travel and tourism industry. It is believed that several factors can stimulate consumer behaviour towards selecting a specific destination for exploration. According to Tassiello and Tillotson (2020), the main factor behind the decision to travel is the expenses, it is often observed that the consumers seek assistance from many agencies to get a hold of the best possible deal in terms of finances. The main purpose of the travel agencies is to ensure that the clients are produced with a strategic package that would earn the trust for the investment. Being a strategist, Fogel believes that prices and services play a major role in influencing consumer behaviour in cases of travelling. It is essential that the companies rely on a great deal of attention in understanding the psyche of the consumers and prepare the budgets according to fit the demands of the clients alongside looking after the profitability of the company (Sánchez-Sánchez et al., 2021).
Tourism is regarded as one of the largest growing industries in the present era which is significantly responsible for facilitating the external economic activities of all the other surrounding industries. Fogel determines in his interview that the opinions of the family and the friends play an important role in influencing the decisions regarding travelling and adventures in several human beings (Kim et al., 2020). Even in his case, he addresses the choices of his family members while selecting destinations for travelling. However, the frequency of going on holidays or spending money on leisure travels significantly depends upon financial conditions and other factors like work-life balance. On the other hand, there are a lot of people who even prefers travelling as a source of income through youth-centric activities like hosting travel vlogs. The travel vloggers can be counted to be one of the fixed customer groups of the company since it is more about the commercial purpose and less about seeking real knowledge, the vloggers often look for places that are either non-famous or yet to be commercially discovered. The travel and tourism industry has been known to be positively contributing to the volume of the inflow of the foreign currencies, introducing strong and innovative management styles alongside developing the infrastructures as well as impacting the socio-economic development for the nations as a whole (Othman et al., 2019).
The Impact of COVID-19 on Travel and Tourism Industry
It has been observed that a number of countries including Austria, Italy and Switzerland which are amongst the most developed western nations are known to be accumulating a huge deal of economic and social welfare from the generated profit rate from the tourism industry. It has been revealed by Fogel in his interview that the socio-cultural impact in the tourism industry is quite frequent and extensive. According to Camilleri (2018), since travelling can be held responsible for the interactions and the exchange of information shared about the difference in cultures and beliefs between the host country and the tourists determines the prevalence of several positive and negative impacts on the communities. Even though, generally, the tourist has been known to showcase their curiosities in learning the different customs, languages and lifestyle of the host countries, in a lot of instances the tourists might not be sensitive to the local customs or the traditions which can considerably affect the sentiments of the local communities. The growth of the travel and tourism industry has been regarded as the most important tool of shaping the future of the living conditions of the local communities through gradual improvement in the infrastructure and exposure to opportunities for earning financial strength (Othman et al., 2019).
Fogel has been quite welcoming and enthusiastic in delivering information about his personal preferences and opinions about travelling which shows that he is a travel enthusiast and likes to explore the languages and local customs of the host countries. The general ways in which the tourists are often seen exploring the travel destinations are going for site seeing as well as conversing with the local people to learn about the historical and cultural significance of the place, these tactics can also be considered to be the personal favourite of the Chief Executive Officer of Bookings.com (Booking.com, 2022). Following the flow of this information, it can be learnt that the conservation of the heritage of the country can be done by encouraging sustainable tourism methods. As mentioned by Fogel in the interview, Dubai amongst the other countries can be considered to be one of the tourist destinations that has notably reaped the benefits that are generated from the positive impact of tourism in developing the socio-cultural aspect of the country. The notable financial investments in the improvement of the service delivery of the country by both the private and the public sectors have played a major role in shaping the infrastructural condition of the county and creating more job opportunities for the local people (Amin & Priansah, 2019).
From the above analysis, it can be concluded that Consumer behaviour is regarded to be one of the most researched areas in the field of tourism for defining the decisions of the tourists in selecting certain destinations with relevance to the prevailing driving factors. It is essential for the travelling companies to plan the promotional strategies in the most lucrative manner to ensure that the services are outlined with an interesting communication objective that is applied in designing the contents of the message are forwarded to the clients with a clear motto. Creativity and innovation can be regarded as the most essential objects that transform basic ideas into trending practices. Booking Holdings has been considered to be one of the most successful organizations to be ranked on the most admired list of the Fortune Wold. Travelling can be regarded as an escaping mechanism from his normal life and the best method to spend quality time with his family by Fogel. Social media is one of the most capable sales promotional tools for the present to reach out to a huge customer base.
References
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Booking Holdings. (2022). History. Booking Holdings. Retrieved 26 January 2022, from
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Booking Holdings. (2022). Leadership. Booking Holdings. Retrieved 26 January 2022, from
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