Management
Tripadvisor.com is an established travel portal that is popular among travelers all over the world. The website is famous for its customer reviews that form the basis of travel related decisions of millions of people all over the world. The resource based view of the firm emphasizes on the importance of resources as a source of competitive advantage for the firm.
An internal analysis provides a comparative view of the capabilities of a firm including the identification of the strengths and weaknesses and their comparison with those of the competitors . The internal analysis of Trip Advisor may help the company in determining if its resources and capabilities ae a source of competitive advantage and also establish strategies to exploit the sources of completive advantage.
Resources are the tangible and intangible assets of a firm . The strength of Trip advisor lies in its tangible and intangible assets that include the website, domain, servers, software, employees, management, and company infrastructure.
The resources for Trip Advisor can be categorized as follows:
Financial Resources
- Cash
- Retained Earnings
Physical Resources
- Servers
Human Resources
Skills and abilities of employees
Organizational Resources
- Reporting Structures
- Relationships between employees
- Technology
- Website Platform
- Apps
- Website Content
- Business Listings
- More than 260 million monthly visitors
- 60 million members
- Over 190 million reviews and opinions
- 45 sites in 28 languages
- 24 travel media websies
- www.airfarewatchdog.com, www.bookingbuddy.com, www.cruisecritic.com, www.everytrail.com, www.familyvacationcritic.com, www.flipkey.com, www.gateguru.com, www.holidaylettings.co.uk, www.holidaywatchdog.com, www.independenttraveler.com, www.jetsetter.com, www.lafourchette.com, www.niumba.com, www.onetime.com, www.oyster.com, www.seatguru.com, www.smartertravel.com, www.tingo.com, www.travelpod.com, www.tripbod.com, www.vacationhomerentals.com, www.viator.com, www.virtualtourist.com, and www.kuxun.cn.
Capabilities are a sub-set of resources that enable the firm to take advantage of other resources . The below sections discuss the concept in great detail based on VRIO analysis of Tripadvisor.com.
VRIO is an internal analysis tool in management and involves four important questions on Value, Rarity, Imitability and Organization. According to the VRIO framework if a firm has resources that are valuable, rare, difficult and costly to imitate and the firm is well organized to exploit these resources, the firm is then expected to enjoy a sustained competitive advantage .
Trip advisor was established in the year 2000 in order to guide the traveler in different parts of the world to plan and enjoy a perfect trip .
The value of trip advisor lies in the unique customer generates reviews that are uploaded on the website on a daily basis. The website provides qualitative review of various travel related segments such as hotels, destinations, restaurants and travel service providers. The travelers from all over the world review hotels, restaurants and destinations according to their own experiences and also provide a rating of the top hotels in the region. The company provides great value to the travelers through trusted travel advice from real travelers and many travel choices and planning features such as booking tools . The company has launched personalized recommendations services on the website such as ‘Just for You’ service for hotel recommendations that are based on user browsing history and feedback .
The company has initiated many measures such as the Meta search feature on the website that allows the customers to view and compare the prices of various travel accommodations. The company has also redesigned its mobile apps to offer convenience to the travelers. The company has added Facebook friend connect to apps that has increased the app downloads by 150 percent in the year 2013 . The company has also shifted its Vacations rental business to Free to list model to work with more property dealers .
The rarity of trip advisor services lies in the fact that the website has been a leader in online travel related reviews and such a huge popularity of the website seems unachievable by any other brand. The high brand value and brand recognition is yet to be achieved by any other travel brand in the internet segment. The branded sites at Tripadvisor together make it the largest travel community in the world that has reached 315 million unique monthly visitors and more than 190 million reviews that cover 4.4 million accommodations, restaurants and attractions . The website operates in 45 different countries. The unique customer content reviews and community of core tripadvisor platform make tripadvisor as one of the unique travel websites in the world. Tripadvisor has completed the acquisition of Viator Company which is a resource for researching and booking travel destinations across the world. Viator features more than 20000 bookable tours and attractions, and has more than 600, 000 reviews, photos and videos submitted by travelers (TheBostonGlobe).
The main competitors of Tripadvisor include search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing, social media websites and large online portals such as Travelocity and traditional travel agents. The competition is based on travel reviews, attracting target customers and advertisers in the online space. The competitors may try to use similar website platforms and software to build the virtual architecture, but it is impossible for the competitors to imitate the website user engagement model easily. The costs required to set up an infrastructure with servers to take the load of such a high website traffic can be a costly affair for competitors. Tripadvisor has the largest breadth of content in the travel segment. The company has a robust network of travel websites that make it the largest travel community that offers trusted advice to travelers and an interactive platform that is created by users and driven by users.
The trip advisor has a well-organized organizational structure including a clearly defined website model and an umbrella of services for business partners and travelers. The management team at trip advisor include the following professionals:
Summary
Tripadvisor is the largest online travel website in the world that has the highest inflow of unique online visitors along with a robust content driven by user reviews and feedback on travel related segmesnts. The unique capabilities of the website lie in creating the largest network of travel websites that translate content in various languages making it convenient for travelers to access the website content. The main competitors for the website include search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, travel websites such as Expedia and traditional travel agents. The customers tend to be divided and are attracted towards the competitors die to discounts and other marketing strategies. The website also compares with competitors for online advertisement revenue. The organizational set up is well planned and the company has a well-defined management team that ensure that the company devises and practices innovative strategies for future growth. Tripadvisor has also acquired many travel related website companies that add to the company strength. Tripadvisor has completed the acquisition of Viator Company which is a resource for researching and booking travel destinations across the world. Viator features more than 20000 bookable tours and attractions, and has more than 600, 000 reviews, photos and videos submitted by travelers (TheBostonGlobe).
Works Cited
Barney, Jay B. and William S. Hesterly. Strategic Management and Competitive Advantage. NJ: Prentice Hall, 2012. Power Point Presentation.
TheBostonGlobe. TripAdvisor completes its acquistion of Viator. 12 August 2014. http://www.tripadvisor.com/PressCenter-i6913-c2-Press_Coverage.html. 4 December 2014.
Tripadvisor. 2013 Annual Report Notice of 2014 and Annual Meeting and Proxy Statement. Annual Report. Newton, Massachusetts: Tripadvisor, 2014. http://ir.tripadvisor.com/annuals.cfm.
TripAdvisor. About TripAdvisor. 2014. http://www.tripadvisor.com/PressCenter-c6-About_Us.html. 4 December 2014.
Tripadvisor. Our team. 2014. http://www.tripadvisor.com/PressCenter-c5-Our_Team.html. 4 December 2014.
—. The Next Web. October 2014. http://www.tripadvisor.com/PressCenter-i7017-c2-Press_Coverage.html. 4 December 2014.
