Competitive Product Analysis of Travel APP Hotel Function Module

Competitive Product Analysis of Travel APP Hotel Function Module

1 Industry Analysis

1.1 Concept Definition

The concept of online hotel booking: refers to the use of the Internet /Mobile Internet, use mobile phones, tablets, PCs and other devices to conduct hotel information inquiries, reservations, orders, and evaluations on hotel groups, OTA platforms, professional hotel booking platforms, and their official WeChat and clients, and after successful submission, The act of making a hotel reservation through online payment or payment at the front desk.

The concept of online hotel booking users: refers to users who book hotels online, which is different from offline users who book hotels directly without using the Internet.

1.2 Industry

Online travel industry;

Related products in the industry: Ctrip Travel, Meituan Travel, Fliggy Travel, Qunar.com Travel wait.

This competitive product analysis report only conducts a detailed analysis of the "booking hotel" functional module in the travel APP;

1.3 Industry Overview

(1 ) China's online hotel market is currently in a stage of rapid growth and development towards maturity, as shown below;

(2) Development prospects: China's hotel market is in a period of rapid growth, with huge market space in the future. It is expected that the online hotel room market will be in 2018 The night volume will reach 740 million, and the transaction scale will exceed 150 billion, as shown below.

(3) Driving forces: the promotion of favorable policies in the hotel industry, Internet +, consumption upgrades, and strong demand in China’s travel market; the improvement of Internet technology, users’ online habits have basically formed; Internet giants are actively deploying, and industrial capital Continuous investment has actively promoted the overall development of the online hotel market.

(4) Market characteristics: The mobile terminal has become a new battlefield in the online hotel market, and the penetration rate continues to increase; mature technologies such as big data and cloud computing provide support for precision marketing in the online hotel market.

(5) Competition: The OTA market is still the mainstream of the market. In 2015, the OTA platform accounted for more than 70% of the market share, and its position as the online hotel booking entrance is solid. The group buying category is only a supplement, with a share of only more than 10%.

(6) Development trend: OTA platforms will still be the mainstream of the market, and group buying platforms will only be supplementary; online hotel platforms will gradually develop towards one-stop travel service platforms. The products in the online hotel booking market are segmented and differentiated, and offline products and services are more sophisticated.

1.4 Market Share

Online hotel booking platforms are mainly divided into 3 types:

(1) OTA platform model: This platform integrates the content of upstream hotel suppliers and data, real-time query and room reservation. Players include: Ctrip, Qunar, etc. Users search based on brand, location, price, etc. After understanding the hotel infrastructure, they select a hotel that meets their requirements, make a reservation, fill in the reservation information and personal check-in information, and submit the order.

(2) Group purchasing platform model: This platform integrates content from upstream hotel suppliers and requires an appointment before purchasing. Players: Meituan, Nuomi, etc.; users search based on brand, location, price, etc. After understanding the hotel infrastructure, they select a hotel whose coupon is within the validity period and meets their requirements, confirm the check-in time and room type, snap up the coupon, and enter the coupon on their mobile phone After submitting the order, you can check in with the group purchase coupon code on your mobile phone.

(3) Direct sales platform model: the hotel’s official website or official APP, without agents, the data is updated in a timely manner, and users can directly inquire and make reservations. Players: Huazhu, Homeinns, etc. Users search based on brand, location, price, etc. After understanding the hotel infrastructure, they select the room type that meets their requirements based on their membership type, make a reservation, fill in the reservation information and personal check-in information, and submit the order.

The market share of the above three platforms in 2015 is as shown below:

As can be seen from the above figure, OTA platforms are the mainstream of the market, accounting for 70% of the market share;

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Ctrip has long occupied the first place in the online hotel booking market share. Qunar Travel, which was originally in second place, was overtaken by Meituan, followed by Alibaba Travel.

The current order should be: Ctrip Travel, Meituan Travel, Qunar Travel, Fliggy Travel (Alibaba Travel)

1.5 Market Characteristics

(1 ) The mobile terminal has become a new battlefield in the online hotel booking market, and the penetration rate continues to increase.

(2) Mature technologies such as big data and cloud computing provide support for precision marketing in the online hotel market.

(3) OTA platforms are still the mainstream in the online hotel market, with obvious advantages in entrance status.

(4) The development potential of the high-end hotel market is constantly being tapped by new generation consumer groups such as those born in the 1985s and 1990s.

2 Competing Product Selection

2.1 Competing Product Level Division

Core Competing Product: Group Buying Platform (Baidu Nuomi-Hotel, Meituan Hotel Booking)

Meituan and Baidu Nuomi are both group-buying APPs, and the hotel module is a part of them. They are in the same market segment, and their user behavior and usage scenarios are very similar.

Important competing products: OTA platforms (Ctrip, Qunar, Elong Travel, Alibaba Travel)

The same market segment - online hotel booking has a very high share Market share, transaction volume ranks among the top 4;

General competing products: hotel official APP (Huazhu, Homeinn, etc.); UGC travel service platform: Mafengwo;

Other competing products: Non-standard hotel booking: Tujia (apartment), Airbnb (homestay), etc.;

2.2 Reasons for selecting competing products

According to the form and classification of the product, Meituan Hotel is the most direct and core The competing product with the highest matching degree should be Nuomi Hotel, but Nuomi Hotel has a low market share and does not have much analytical significance.

Therefore, the OTA platform with the largest market share in the market segment is selected for analysis.

We chose Ctrip because it has the largest market share and has been working in the industry for many years and has rich resources and experience.

Although Alibaba Travel’s market share is not as good as that of Elong Travel, Alibaba’s e-commerce background makes Alibaba Travel’s user behavior and usage scenarios more similar to Meituan. Moreover, Alibaba Travel inherits Taobao’s C2C model, which is different from previous OTA agents.

2.3 Competitive Product Version

3 Demand Analysis

3.1 User Analysis

The following is the statistics of online hotel booking users in China in 2015 Analysis results:

As can be seen from the above figure, mobile booking is the most important way to book hotels online. Users under the age of 29 are the most important user group. Among users who book via mobile phone, 67% are under the age of 29, and 49% are between 30 and 39 years old.

As can be seen from the above figure, comprehensive travel booking (OTA) platforms are the most commonly used channel for users to obtain hotel information when booking hotels, accounting for 48%.

As can be seen from the above figure, when it comes to hotel experiential consumption, the details that users pay most attention to are hotel cleanliness and wireless Internet access;

In terms of user experience, users are more concerned about WIFI signals. Good satisfaction is the highest; hotel warmth and comfort experience has the highest pleasure value.

As can be seen from the above figure, users’ demand for hotel accommodation is generally concentrated on the hotel’s environment and services. The booking platform can better meet this demand because it can update hotel room rates and room status in real time. demand, the corresponding user satisfaction is higher (as shown below); on the group buying platform, due to price factors and product form limitations, hotels cannot provide high-quality services, so user satisfaction is lower, only 2.58 (full score 5 points).

As can be seen from the above figure, real-time updates of room prices and room status, convenient and fast payment/diverse payment methods, and flexible booking methods are the main reasons why users are satisfied with the OTA platform.

High price correction and poor one-stop lifestyle service experience are the main factors why users are dissatisfied with OTA platforms.

As can be seen from the above figure, special price/low price is the main reason why users are satisfied with the group buying platform;

It is necessary to make an appointment in advance but it is not necessarily available, and the number of group buying rooms is relatively small. The main reason why users are dissatisfied with the group buying platform is that the hotel pictures displayed in group buying are not consistent with the facts.

As can be seen from the above figure, tickets are the most frequently booked product when users book hotels online;

Online payment and in-store payment are the most popular payment methods for users.

3.2 Usage scenario analysis

Requirements analysis often requires analysis by analyzing usage scenarios.

We break down the main needs of target users according to different stages of purchase as follows:

According to the analysis of operational funnel data:

1. The stage where users are most likely to lose is Before and during the purchase, factors such as the content and quality of the information and the convenience of the purchase process will affect user retention, so the structure and presentation of product information are particularly important.

2 The key to word-of-mouth marketing is the sharing mechanism and the construction of UGC communities. A good sharing mechanism can save a lot of marketing costs, and a healthy UGC community will further convert browsing users into transaction users.

3.3 User Pain Points

The following figure shows the survey results of online hotel users’ dissatisfaction factors with hotel reservations and group purchases:

It can be seen from the data that users are dissatisfied with hotel reservations The pain points for hotel group purchases are mainly focused on price, while the pain points for hotel group purchases are mainly focused on information symmetry. In order to solve these two pain points, mainstream hotel booking platforms generally provide hotel booking and group purchase products. Booking products guarantee symmetric information but relatively high prices, while group purchase products cannot guarantee symmetric information but are cheap, giving users more independent choices. rights.

4 Competitive Product Analysis

4.1 Basic Function Comparison

The above table details the functions of each app in the latest version.

4.2 Competitive Product Analysis

4.2.1 Differences in Business Types

Meituan, Ctrip, and Fliggy all include various types of domestic and foreign hotels;< /p>

In addition, Meituan chose "hourly rooms"; Fliggy chose "inn apartments";

The bottom column of Ctrip shows the widest business scope, including: hourly rooms , conference group rooms, folk inns, discount hotels and specialty hotels.

4.2.2 Differences in business models

Meituan’s business model is focused on the B2C model. Directly integrating upstream hotel supplier resources will help control service quality and make booking data more reliable; the hotel sources will be consistent, the page structure will be clearer, and the user experience during the browsing process will be better; but the disadvantage is that the richness of resources will be limited ( Under the same filtering conditions, the number of hotels on Ctrip and Fliggy far exceeds the number of hotels on Meituan Travel), and the cost is relatively higher.

The business model adopted by Ctrip Travel is the agency model. The platform integrates Ctrip’s self-operated and agent products. The agent is responsible for providing products and the platform is responsible for providing services. Users do not have direct contact with the agent. This model is a typical traditional OTA model (Ctrip’s air ticket business also follows this model). The advantage is that using this model can obtain a larger number of properties, it is easy to promote in various cities, and the cost is low; but the disadvantage is that the agent Control over the quality of the properties is uneven, and the capital chain’s turnover time in the hands of agents is too long.

Fliggy Travel is a C2C model. When users purchase products other than self-operated products, they can contact sellers directly. The platform only serves as a bridge to communicate between buyers and sellers (somewhat similar to Taobao). This model is similar to Taobao’s C2C model and is the model that Alibaba is best at. This model further magnifies the advantages and disadvantages of the OTA model and is more relaxed for sellers, but it also imposes stricter quality control on the platform.

4.2.3 Differences in recommendation functions

Currently, Meituan, Ctrip and Fliggy all recommend nearby hotels, recommending hotels that are closest to the hotels browsed by users, making it easier for users to browse hotels. Compare hotel prices and services. This helps users focus on choosing a hotel and makes it easier to choose the most ideal hotel; however, the disadvantage is that it cannot drive traffic and sales of other products through hotel sales. Users need to leave the hotel if they need to purchase other supporting products. selected page.

Ctrip packages travel service-related products (tickets, etc.) into preferential packages. The packages automatically recommend content to users. However, if the recommendations do not fully meet the user's preferences, it may easily arouse users' resentment; and The recommended products may not be available for purchase in quantity, resulting in a poor user experience.

Meituan’s hotel details page has a “Hotel Mercer” label to recommend nearby food information to users.

4.2.4 Differences in payment types

Meituan’s reservations and group purchases only support online order submission and payment. The payment mode is relatively single, but the operation process is simpler and more efficient. Consistency and better user experience.

Ctrip’s booking business mainly focuses on free bookings, but a guarantee fee needs to be paid in advance. The guarantee fee is refundable. The guarantee fee is only used to lock in the room and is refundable. Pay the room fee to the hotel after arriving. Users only need to spend a small amount of money to book a hotel online, but after guaranteeing, they need to wait for a certain period of time for the hotel to confirm, resulting in poor real-time booking. In addition, Ctrip supports tourist reservations. Users can make reservations without logging in. This can easily cause fake orders and waste merchant resources. Orders cannot be queried on other devices, which is not conducive to the analysis of user behavior data and is not conducive to precise marketing.

Fliggy Travel’s hotels focus on “credit stay”. Users can check in directly after booking online. After checking out, the consumption amount will be deducted from the bound Alipay account or deducted from Ant Huabei. Users can go online You can guarantee it in advance without paying any fees. It solves the pain point of paying a deposit and getting a room card when checking in. It is a new payment method for online hotel bookings. The promotion of this model is closely related to Alibaba's credit rating system and is not easily copied by competitors.

4.3 App Architecture

4.3.1 Meituan Wine Travel

Note: The pictures are too dense, please manually enlarge and browse;

Summary and analysis:

1. Meituan has a clear information structure, clear hierarchy, and clear structure;

2. Meituan has added a group buying model on the basis of ordinary orders, so the booking methods are divided into Two kinds. Although there are two booking methods, the ordering mode and process are basically the same, which is conducive to cultivating user habits and is simple to use.

3 Meituan, in addition to standard domestic and international full-day rooms, focuses on hourly room types; the list pages, details pages, order pages, and payment pages of different types of hotels are basically the same, with the same framework, and user experience comparison Smooth;

4 Compared with Ctrip and Fliggy, Meituan’s map page has an obvious flaw. First of all, it lacks the filtering function of the map page, and it does not display the number of merchants within the current map range, making it impossible to analyze the current map. Narrow down the selection to hotels within a certain range. I think this is an area that Meituan can consider improving.

4.3.2 Ctrip Travel

Note: The pictures are too dense, please enlarge and browse manually;

Summary and analysis:

1 Ctrip The hotel business types displayed at the bottom of the hotel homepage are relatively comprehensive, including five modules: hourly rooms, conference and group rooms, homestays and inns, special hotels and discovery. This is a major advantage compared to Meituan and Fliggy.

2 Ctrip’s meeting and team room module is very user-friendly and can be customized to meet your needs, improving the user experience.

3. Ctrip has integrated coupons, local attraction tickets, etc., so it has added package orders, and you need to choose the package. The advantage is that it can meet the needs of customers visiting scenic spots in one stop. The disadvantage is that the system process is relatively complex and has many levels, making it much more difficult to use.

4.3.3 Flying Pig Travel

Note: The pictures are too dense, please manually enlarge and browse;

Summary and analysis:

1 Because Fliggy’s hotel business is positioned differently, it is a C2C model, which corresponds to the C2C sales model adopted by Taobao. Therefore, the seller list is added to the reservation list.

2. The payment page part is connected to Alibaba's overall credit rating. The Fliggy Hotel module adopts the credit check-in method, allowing customers to check-in without deposit, check-out without queuing, and Alipay automatic checkout after leaving the hotel. This method is unique and greatly improves the convenience of travel accommodation, and it is difficult for other companies to copy this method.

4.4 Interaction

With the development of the travel market and the continuous trial, error and improvement of various products, a more general architecture and model will eventually be formed. This is why travel products are highly homogenized.

A reasonable interaction paradigm can enable consumers to form a good user experience, improve user stickiness, and help cultivate user habits.

4.4.1 Date selection

The above is a screenshot of Ctrip date selection.

1. Click the check-in time box to jump to the calendar. After selecting the check-in time, it will pop out and return to the main page;

2. Click the check-out time box to jump to the calendar. Select the check-out time and jump back to the main page again;

3. The selection of check-in time and check-out time are independent of each other and are not connected together;

4. Complete the time selection. ***It has gone through 4 page jumps and 4 clicks. It is relatively complicated, not very smart, and the experience is slightly worse.

The above is a screenshot of Meituan date selection.

1 Click the time box, and the page jumps to the calendar. After selecting the check-in time, the page does not jump, but prompts "Please select a check-out time"; then the user selects the check-out time, Click the "Finish" button and the page will jump back to the main page;

3 The whole process only has 2 page jumps and 4 clicks. There are prompts and process instructions during the process. Compared with Ctrip, the interaction is better Some.

4. When the check-out time is finally selected, the user needs to manually confirm the completion. Compared with the system automatically popping up, it is a bit more complicated.

However, it may also be to reduce the risk of users jumping out due to shaky hands and clicking errors, and to ensure the correctness of the selection.

The above is a screenshot of the date selection at Fliggy Hotel.

1. Click on the time box. When the page jumps, the system will prompt "Please select the check-in date" and the user will select the check-in information.

2. After selecting the check-in information, the system will automatically pop up. "Please select the date of departure", the system will automatically jump after the user selects the date of departure;

3 The whole process requires 3 clicks and 2 jumps, which is the longest process among competing products. Simple and the one with the smoothest user experience;

In summary, before conducting a detailed analysis of the date selection interactive function, I first experienced the three competing products. It is indeed Fliggy that makes the choice more Smooth; after comparative analysis of the three apps, I realized that subtle interaction differences will bring different user experiences to users. Details determine success or failure.

Therefore, when selecting this functional module on a date, you should choose more of the "automatic confirmation" interaction method. Both Ctrip and Meituan can improve further.

4.4.2 Filtering function

The above is a screenshot of Ctrip’s hotel booking filtering module.

1 Ctrip’s filtering function is placed at the bottom of the page, presumably to cater to users’ daily habits of using social software, such as WeChat, QQ, etc., who are accustomed to clicking at the bottom of the page. But I am not used to it when using it. Therefore, whether this method really works can only be known after analyzing the operational data.

2. When you click "Filter" in the lower left corner, the image on the right will pop up, occupying the entire page, and a new page will be generated.

3 After making a selection, the user is basically required to confirm (except for the praise priority module which automatically refreshes).

4After the filtering is completed, the number of attributes will be marked in the upper right corner of the word "Filter", which provides a better user experience.

The above is a screenshot of the Fliggy hotel reservation filtering module.

1. All filtering functions are placed at the top of the page, below the search box; in this way, the visual order matches the order of operations, and the experience is smoother;

2. When filtering, different filtering conditions are It is in the form of a drop-down box or a right-hand box. After filtering is completed, the total number of filtered results will be displayed at the bottom of the page.

3Except for "recommended sorting" which does not require user confirmation, the rest of the filtering conditions require user confirmation.

4After the filtering is completed, the appearance of the filter bar will not change, and the "number of selected filter conditions" will not be displayed in real time.

1 Meituan’s filter bar is similar to Fliggy, placed below the search box.

2 Click "Whole City" and a new page will pop up from the bottom of the page, which is different from Fliggy going from top to bottom and from right to left;

3 "Whole City", "Smart sorting" automatically jumps;

4. "Price star rating" and "Filtering" need to be manually clicked to confirm after the selection is completed.

In summary, the purpose of interaction is to improve user experience.

However, blind simplicity or complexity will not improve the user experience; too few functions, although simple and easy to operate, will reduce the user experience if they do not cover the user's concerns. Excessive interactions lead to the responsibility of the operation process and visual process. Some interactions are not the core information that users pay attention to, but will reduce the user experience.

Therefore, I feel that whether certain specific interactive functions work or not, it is necessary to verify their practicality by analyzing user click stream data, purchase data, etc.

5 Discussion

By analyzing the hotel booking modules of the above three travel APPs, this research report will share my thoughts and suggestions from the perspective of Ctrip hotel booking.

(1) Since Ctrip has the largest number of business travel users, in order to satisfy the huge user base, Ctrip has the most comprehensive functions and the richest product types, which can be said to be "big and comprehensive". The online travel and hotel booking giant has a strong advantage in resources; however, Ctrip's product process needs to be further polished, and efforts should be made to improve the interactive experience.

(2) For Meituan, its resources are not as good as those of Ctrip, but it focuses on the two modules of "general booking" and "group purchase booking"; the complexity is not high, and the natural process is relatively clear. The page It is also more concise and has a better user experience. However, Meituan has connected with upstream suppliers, and its business model is relatively conventional and lacks innovation. The group buying model is also easy to copy.

(3) Fliggy Travel Hotel Reservation applies Alibaba’s typical C2C model to hotel reservations, giving full play to its own advantages. It is also different from the traditional business model for hotel reservations. Moreover, Fliggy Hotel’s promotion of credit accommodation runs through the credit rating system of Alibaba products. This highlight is difficult to be copied by similar products in the near future. And the user experience of Fliggy Travel has been improved. For example, when the user clicks to the hotel details page, only Fliggy will display "How many people are also browsing the hotel"; when filtering hotels, only Fliggy will display on the page The bottom shows a few hotels under the filter conditions. All circumstances show that Fliggy’s interaction and experience are more delicate and detail processing is better. It is the best user experience among the three APPs.

The data involved in this report are all from the statistical data of the Bida Consulting website in 2015.