Looking back over the ten years we have been in business existed I can see that there were two distinct shifts in strategy.

Our first strategy was very simple - transparency. To bring to the web what the whole world of travel agents already knew. Make airline offers bookable 24/7-365 days a year online. That’s been a very simple strategy even though it was very hard to actually achieve. Technology was non-existent. Starting an online travel company that made fares and timetables accessible for everyone was a good sell and worked up until 2001-2002. Internet grew and people were slowly starting to move online to purchase their tickets.

Consumer behaviour shifted in favour for online travel companies. Main drivers were the Sept 11 terror attacks and the emergence of low cost airlines with rotten cheap tickets to a degree that no one could resist bringing up their credit cards.

Our first shift or change of strategy was really pure evolution. Finding tickets online was now commonplace and nothing special. Many competitors decided to go for the portal play and be broader. We decided to go deeper and focus on cheap tickets. Everything in the company now had to be focused on great deals and keep our overheads low. Companies with a low cost focus normally also has the best growth and discipline, we figured.

There’s a delusion about low cost. People might think that you have to be cheap to sell cheap tickets. Au contraire. A company selling low cost products has to be efficient and focused on quality because the mark ups are minimal, so there’s little room for error. The quality is in the details. So in all aspects; technology, processes, customer service etc we need to be persistent in getting better to be able to keep the promise of a low price.

The third shift in our strategy, and the most remarkable is the one we are going through now  - The shift towards great service. The Internet has changed consumer’s service level expectancy. Service is now luck or chance. We decided to do it different. Service must at all things be our core. We believe that people are willing to pay extra for great service and if they aren’t we will still get the tickets at lowest possible price but with a little less service. This is by far the most stimulating phase Travelstart ever experienced, it has energized everyone.

And will this strategy pay off? Yes, you bet – big time. People love service always did and always will.

Comments

I totally agree that the internet caused a huge shift in the way people travel and organize their flights. I think your points about being cheap but at the same time keeping quality is realistic.