Abstract
E-commerce is an important instrument in most businesses today. E-commerce is utilized by these businesses to either sell their products and services, acquire product and services or to advertise them together with some other customer feed backing. Only a small percentage of businesses are still engage in a complete “brick and mortar” type of business. However, some have introduced the use of technology and e-commerce in their businesses but have not utilized its full potential to the company’s advantage. One such company is the Hampton Inn Jacksonville. This paper gives explores the possibility of employing a business model for the inn that utilizes e-commerce to be able to keep pace with the current trends especially in the hotel industry. The paper also layouts the benefits the company will realize when utilizing e-commerce. Finally, the paper discusses technological specifications that the hotel needs in implementing its e-commerce based business model.
Hampton Inn Jacksonville
This paper looks into the details of a modest hotel named Hampton Inn Jacksonville located in Jacksonville, Illinois. It is an independent hotel situated in a small town where hotel selections are few. This small hotel is on the touristic path and attracts visitors to the area especially since the hotel is situated near the tourist spot of Lake Jacsonville. Its location is also perfect since there are a number of restaurants and shops within walking distance from the Inn. The services of the hotel are also commendable and acceptable. Despite the amount of customers the hotel gets and its reputation of being one of the best hotels in the place, involvement in e-commerce has been limited to listings in online yellow pages.
Since Hampton Inn Jacksonville is situated in a small community, the life of the hotel depends on loyal customers and new customers who knew about the hotel either through word of mouth or through googlemaps.com. Reservations and inquiries are either done manually or through telephone calls. Although there is an existing system for the hotel, it involves a separate system for accounting, employee and booking which are all stand-alone systems. Checking for available rooms and reservations is a tedious task on the part of the customer because the only way is through calls and actual visitation of the hotel, when in fact, reservations and inquiries could have been made online with less hassle on the part of the customer and also the side of the hotel management as well.
A business which provides up - to – date and good services also attracts and sustains more of its customers. A business model that is capable of online reservation and inquiry is a must for the hotel. Additional features could be an online system that is capable of recording customer data and information, employee information and scheduling and marketing.
Specifically the technology solution needed by the hotel is an online hotel reservation system which is capable of viewing available rooms, making reservations viewing room rates and updates realtime. The website should be interactive in such a way that customers should be able to make real time inquiries, check for available promos if there are, and give feedback on the services the hotel has. It should also provide a description of the rooms and the services of the hotel and a backgrounder especially on the location. If the hotel is planning to provide Loyalty rewards to its customers, the system must be able to same customer information nad let the users check for their accumulated Loyalty Points if there is a possibility of redeeming. Customers should be identified by the use of a unique ID. In terms of employee satisfaction, the system must have an automated payroll and accounting system capability to ensure that wages and benefits of employees are on time. Aside from this, since shifting is a must for a company like these, employees must be able to check their schedules online. To protect the system from unnecessary access, the system must have definite level of access.
Basically, the website to be created is a business to consumer since it targets the improvement of the customer satisfaction (E-Commerce Web, 2008). However, aside from this, website could also be used at a marketing and advertising tool to attract more customers for both the hotel and the tourist spots in the locality. It will act as a broadcast media to provide information of its services and location using tools such as IM, email, blogs or banner ads (Rappa, 2010).
Advantages of implementing the proposed e-commerce utilization for the hotel include the possibility of increasing their customers, since their advertisement would have worldwide coverage. Possible customers will have the chance to view the services the hotel offers and their rates at instant and make online inquiries with immediate responses. In addition to having worldwide advertisement coverage, the hotels character will improve as its customer services are at par with other hotels. Additionally, the hotel will then be in a position of growth and expansion in other parts of the world. The website will offer various roles to the hotel like marketing its services and products, a means of communicating with its customers and providing information on how to get to the hotel and customer support services. Since, online communication is very popular among businesses today, providing feedback capabilities and customer support in the website would also be very beneficial to the hotel since these can be used to improve their customer satisfaction.
Major software, hardware and communication components needed by the hotel to implement the technological solutions described above include acquisition of additional computers that will be used by the front-desk in answering inquiries and reservations by customers. Additionally, a computer may be needed by the management if there is no existing computer that is capable of connecting to the internet.
With regards to the software major hardware, software and communications components needed by hotel needed to implement the technological solutions outlined above, the following list will be needed. For the domain name and the web space needed by the hotel, they can purchase these through godaddy.com. A web designer will also be needed for the design of the website and later on an IT expert to serve as its webmaster. The website must be updated regularly for it to remain credible. Since, there is a requirement for several of the hotel’s computers to be connected to the internet, the use of wireless network (WiFi) could be more beneficial to the hotel rather than using a cabled network. Routers will be needed.
Although embracing e-commerce is costly at first, the long term benefits are will produce a Return of Investment (ROI) for the hotel. Fewer employees will be hired since there is less manual work to be done, customers will have real time answers to inquiries and ease of reservation thus improving customer satisfaction and loyal customers will be rewarded accordingly. Applying this solution would surely increase the holding power of the Hampton Inn Jacksonville.
References
E-Commerce Web. (2008). Ecommerce Business Models for your E-Business. Retrieved on
September 11, 2011 from
http://www.ecommerce-web-hosting-guide.com/ecommerce-business-models.html
Rappa, M. (2010). Business models on the web. Retrieved on September 11, 2011 from
http://digitalenterprise.org/models/models.html
