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The pivotal role of the service industry in the economy is increasing over the last decades, as shown by the significant contribution to the GDP made by travel and tourism. Among the varied range of travel companies, this paper focuses on travel agencies. The objective of the thesis is to find out the key drivers, which lead to the success of European travel agencies and to point out the factors that make them unable to compete and develop sustainably. This paper uses the PESTEL model, Porter’s Five Forces model analysis, flywheel concept and spontaneously conducted interviews with travel and tourism industry experts. A case study approach is adopted. There is also the analysis of the financial statements, business model and strategies of the top 15 world-leading travel agencies to find out the market structures and competitors’ behaviors. From the collected data and examination, three primary factors that lead to the sustainable development of travel agencies and four main factors that decreed the failure were identified. Besides, the research also finds out the answer for the three research questions: technology is the disruptive forces in the travel agency industry, there will be no monopoly in this industry at least in the next medium-term, and the adaptation of a new business model is possible. Finally, the study proposed a sustainable development model for a European travel agency as well as directions for future relevant research.
Online commerce is growing rapidly. With the wide accessibility of the internet, e-commerce is becoming the most important ways or medium for doing business globally. The growth of e-commerce business provides companies a great opportunity to invest online so as to position their brand.
This thesis observes the elements of online brand positioning. Furthermore, it analyses whether these elements can be applied to an online business. For this Zalando the online fashion retailer, will be taken as an example. It starts with a literature review on e-commerce definition, important factors for e-commerce business, advantages of e-commerce business, brand positioning, importance of brand positioning and online brand positioning elements. The chosen brand positioning elements are then applied to analyse the online brand positioning of Zalando. Furthermore, it observes the influence of brand positioning elements on their competitive advantages.
The brand positioning elements are benefits and feature, price and value statements, competitive advantages, information on product and services, processes, partnering and relationship, leadership claims and corporate power, corporate social responsibility and credibility. All these brand positioning elements are addressed by Zalando and these elements have played an important role for the positioning of Zalando`s brand.