这个内容是平常给一些大的国外基金的咨询，我花了三个小时搞成一篇双语文章，算是给国外机构的免费咨询。当然汉字和英文都没有校对，有没有错字不知道，专家们也不用挑我的语法和语病了，本来我英语就是二把刀。
前言
因为国外经济方面学术研究的资料太贵了，于是我得经常得想办法赚点小钱，办法之一就是受邀加入了一个顾问公司做为专家顾问，主要提供中国电子商务及酒店业的咨询，电子商务主要集中在在线旅游以及新浪、搜狐等公司，这家公司的客户主要是要是要买这些公司股票的对冲基金、私募基金等。
这项工作的收入还不错，每个小时500美金，每两个月都会有这种电话咨询，我一般把电话时间选在美国的上班时间，因为那正好是我的晚上9点多下班时间，我可以利用蓝牙接上车上音响，边堵着车边电话赚钱。
因为我的回答可能影响到他们对行业、对企业的了解，可能会影响到他们的股票价格，所以我都会客观地凭良心来解答所有问题，事先也会整理和收集一些资料。
最近一年问携程、艺龙以及7天、如家的比较多些，因为这次我从打酱油变成打群架的，所以我就把在线旅游里的我回答的整理一下。
关于OTA(在线旅游简称)的发展问题
1.OTA将会长期存在
首先，其服务的核心价值将一直存在，即：提供旅游相关信息、提供形成安排预订服务的功能一直存在。
a、提供旅游相关信息
无论互联网发展到什么程度，客户都不可能自己在无尽的信息中自己整理和分析，所以他们都需要有这样的公司整理所有信息，但是这些公司提供的信息需要尽量客观中立，以便于他们做出明智的选择。
随着社交网站的发展，OTA需要提供更多客户产生的信息，即：由其他利益无关方提供的信息，这些信息更客观更全面。
b、提供旅游预订服务
旅游预订服务最终也有存在的价值，因为用户在合理的价格区间内，他们趋向于选择方便、安全的预订模式。而价格透明和趋同性的增强，用户会逐渐使用以前已经习惯使用并且觉得安全的方式。
2.OTA的变迁
虽然OTA的核心价值不变，但是OTA的业务模式将会随着互联网的发展进一步进化发展。
a、携程、艺龙的服务形式由电话预定为中心转向以互联网服务为中心。
b、他们的服务内容将想多元化发展，提供信息、用户点评将是平台价值更重要的组成部分，用户产生的信息价值更高，更加智能化的信息组织安排呈现形式将出现。
c、市场营销模式也由线下销售的人海战术转向线上为主，搜索引擎的SEO和SEM越来越重要。社会化媒体的引用将是建立人性化品牌的手段。
3.其他新兴模式，尤其是tripadvisor的这种模式对于OTA的冲击
Tripadvisor在国外最大最成功的点评网站，因为他是基于用户产生的内容，比利益相关方提供的信息可信度更高，但是，即使在美国，Expedia和tripadvisor并没有产生替代关系，即使expedia收购tripadvisor之后tripadvisor给expedia带来的业务也不会像我们相像的那么大。
国内与tripadivsor相对应的网站他们问的最多的就是“去哪儿”了，我的观点是“去哪儿”和tripadvisor模式非常类似，只要经营模式能够针对国情调整，从长期来看应该是有前途。
“去哪儿”目前碰到的最大的挑战是——
1)特殊国情下如何保证用户产生信息的准确性，因为从技术上没有办法解决用户乱点评(我没说“五毛党”，应为不知道怎么说)，接着我解释了中国商家比较喜欢作假，包括作假诋毁竞争对手，并且可以雇佣市场营销公司来这么做，(老外一般会很奇怪)，我接下来需要解释许多企业在商业道德上的缺失和法律的不健全。
2)品牌的建立：品牌建立需要很大的投资，现在唯一最高效的方法几乎是搜索引擎(除了口碑相传)，而搜索引擎中量最大的无疑是购买关键字，以旅游景点名称、酒店名字、以及航空公司名字为主的关键字。
但是，在这个行业购买关键字的成本非常昂贵，因为有携程、艺龙、去哪儿、到到、酷讯以及去哪儿都在买这些关键字，这种竞争导致购买关键字的价格非常高，3块-4块钱点一次是很正常的价格了，长尾现在价格也上来了。
据我了解，百度在旅游业的广告收入应该在1.5亿-2亿左右，而现在由于竞争，各种关键字的转化率越来越低，估计小的网站交易的转化率是2%都到不了，换句话说，如果用户花2块钱买一次点击，那么转化成交易需要50次点击，及100块钱，一张机票平均只能赚40块钱不到(含返点)，所以肯定没法按此收费，换句话点评网站只能按交易赚钱，即分到20块钱，那么，从搜索引擎买流量必然是赔本的生意。
3)供应商质量保证：还是小企业诚信风险控制体系的问题，如何保证供应商提供的产品真实性将是一个巨大挑战，包括，产品描述的真实性，甚至包括作假。
“去哪儿”模式对于OTA的冲击
理论上说应该是互补关系，如果OTA能够及时在用户点评这些方面做好工作，利用他们的强大优势帮助规范酒店业的价格体系，提供更加准确的信息和用户信息，更加按照酒店本身的品质而不是佣金来向用户推荐酒店，那么去哪儿将会受到巨大的冲击。
其他商业模式，尤其是priceline以及lastmintubooking这种模式有一定的难度，主要是因为酒店自身的技术力量极其有限，单体酒店自身连网站很难保证正常运行，他们不可能提供接口进行实时的价格及房态的更新。
4.酒店及航空公司的直销对于OTA的冲击
航空公司
航空公司对于OTA的潜在冲击将会比较大，因为航空公司的家数相比酒店而言非常少，就那么几家，他们有很强的谈判能力。
但是，由于航空公司之间存在竞争关系，用户需要的信息是对航空公司之间进行比较，选取合适的航班，而航空公司自身没有动力去销售其他航空公司的机票，所以航空公司需要OTA，但是OTA的利润空间可能会由于航空公司的政策变动受到挤压。OTA从某个角度来说需要利用航空公司之间的竞争， 航空公司和高铁之间的竞争，以及随着中小代理商逐步消亡，OTA的优势也会有增长的空间。
酒店
酒店，尤其是单体酒店，将很大程度上需要OTA，而有品牌的酒店连锁虽然自己有力量进行各种营销，但是他们对于OTA的依赖也依然存在，因为酒店是个存在很强淡旺季的行业，淡季的时候绝对需要OTA。
酒店将会意识到自身价格体系混乱最终会影响自己的收入，他们将更加规范自己的价格体系，将强收入管理体系，这个举动将有助于OTA的发展，因为市场上存在的不规范的低价概率越来越低。
5.携程和艺龙
在携程不犯重大错误的话，携程的老大地位将很难动摇，艺龙在网络营销上做的稍微好一点，但是他们放弃了线下营销，换句话说就是在线下没人和携程竞争，而线上的竞争没有明显的区别。
具体描述省去，太专业了点……
附《在线旅游商业模式之争》英文版：
Online Travel Industry War
Preamble
As they said “you can’t make a scene without the green”. To satisfy my small hobby – buying (or collecting) bunch of very expensive academic research books， I got find some petty cash somewhere else. I joined a professional service company as one of their professional service expertise. The company provides professional consulting service to big international hedge funds and PEs. My fields is more focused on online travel industry， hotel industry， internet companies， more on sina， sohu.
I made decent money with this part time job， 500 bucks per hour. And I am called in about every two months. I usually schedule my time to 9PM， my off-duty time. I take the call with my Bluetooth attached to the car audio system. I make the little money while I am driving and enjoying the jammed 2nd ring road.
I understand my opinion will have influence on their research results in these industries and， even those companies stock price. I always， to my best knowledge， honestly answer there questions. Of course I need do quite a lot of homework： collecting intel， asking friends， etc.
There were quite a lot of discussions about ctrip， elong ，7 daysinn and homeinns last year. I saw myself an observer (loiterer) in the nasty war in the travel industry in the last couple of months. As I was dragged in to the war couple of days ago， I spend some time organizing the common questions raised in my past consultation of this industry.
The future of OTA
1、The OTA will exist in foreseeable future
The core value of its service (another words it value proposition) remains： providing travel related information， providing booking (arrangement) service
a、Providing travel related service
No matter how internet evolves， customers have no way to collect and analyze all travel related information as analyst does. They need companies who collect and organize information. To make an informative decision， customers will require unbiased information.
With the development of social media， OTAs need to provide more user-generated information. AKA， information provided by non-vested-interest party， the travelers themselves， more accurate and broader information
b、Providing online booking service
The value of booking service remains essential. As long as product price is within a reasonable price range， customers tend to choose a more convenient， secure booking channel. Increasing transparent and comparable price will encourage customers to use providers that they are familiar and feel comfortable to deal with in the past.
2、The evolution of OTA
Although the core value proposition unchanged， OTA will evolve with the development of internet， mostly on service model.
a、Ctrip and elong has been shifting their service from offline to online
b、OTAs will provide more service. Providing travelers review and multiple travel related information will be an essential part of its service platform. User-generated content will have higher value. More intelligent information organizing and arranging mechanism will emerge.
c、Marketing focus will shift to online. Search engine optimization and search engine marketing becomes the most important marketing vehicles. Social media will be the vehicle to create a brand with emotional association.
3、OTAs’ new challenge： new Business model， especially tripadvisor-like model
Tripadvisor’s the most successful user-generated review sites， internationally. The user-generated information can overcome the bias brought by service providers. But even in the country， the states， Tripadvisor is not a model that replace expeida’s place in the market. The benefit brought to expedia after expedia acquired tripadvisor is not as significant as they thought.
Qunar is the China’s answer to tripadvisor. I think they have very similar business model. AS long as Qunar can weather their business model to the local stormy market， it’s promising.
The challenges Qunar face
1)How to ensure the accuracy and objective of user-generated information? The business ethics in general in China is not that sound. Faking products， attacking competitors are very common marketing practice in China. Local companies even hire marketing company to do that kind of job. That means skewed negative reviews cooked by business and marketing companies might inundate real reviews.
2)Building a well-known brand needs big investment， especially in the mass market. Other than word-of-mouth spreading， search engine is the most effective tool. Buying keywords with hotel names， airline names， and destination name are the ace cards they have.
But the competition in online travel industry makes buying keywords extremely expensive. Ctrip， elong， Qunar， Kuxun， daodao and other small travel agencies are fighting for those key words. 3-4 yuan per click is the normal price. Long-tail key words have been fully explored by them and got more expensive as well.
Based on my intel， Baidu’s revenue from onlie travel industry is ranged from rmb150-200 million. The conversion is getting lower and lower with the fierce competition. Small travel agencies conversion rate could be as low as 2%. Another words， if you need a transaction， you need 50 clicks. Let’s assume 2yuan per click， that means you need spend 100 yuan to buy a transaction. The average commission per ticket is 40 rmb. Logically there’s no way for travel agency making money from selling tickets with this kind of conversion. Another words， they may be willing to work on a profit sharing model， say giving 20yuan to Qunar per transaction. It’s not a profitable business for Qunar if you look at the transaction itself as it needs to buy traffic from Baidu with such a low conversion rate.
3)Service (products) providers quality： It’s all about the relative bad business ethics and integrity in China. How to ensure service providers provide true (not mention unbiased) information is a big big challenge， which including service description and even fake tickets.
The challenge to OTA - Qunar model
Theoretically， they are not competitors. If OTSs can improve its user-generated review platform， they will have big advantage as they can， in a way， make sure the authenticity of the reviews because only those who buy and use products over their platform can write reviews. They can provide more useful information to customers.
If big OTAs such as ctrip and elong could leverage the big bargaining power over hotels， they can help hotel industry build a level price system and make OTA’s prices more competitive. More importantly， with their shift from commission based recommendation level(ranking) to value recommendation level(ranking)， Ctrip and elong will bring big value to customers， which in turn is a big negative impact to Qunar’s business.
Other business model such as priceline and lastminutesbooking is hard to survive in China market. This is because hotels in china are highly fragmented. There’re very few chain hotels. They can barely maintain its website and PMS. How could you expect them to provide interface and refresh their price and availability. Computer system(PMS) is a sacred and untouchable part in those hotels.
4、OTAs’ challenge： Hotels and airlines’ direct sales.
Airlines
The potential negative impact to OTAs from airlines’ direct sales is big because the limited number of airlines makes their competition simple and they have bigger negotiation power than more fragmented hotels.
But the competition among the airline carriers exists. Customers need a platform that can compare flights information of all airlines. An airline carrier’s platform doesn’t want to sell competitors tickets. That’s why customers need OTAs and make the airlines need OTAs. Airline companies have the power to change the commission policy， especially CAAC in China have a big say on their commission policy. OTA’s profit margin could be squeezed if airline companies make the change. The bright side is that more and more ticketing office and travel agencies will die and the competition among airline companies and with high-speed train network makes them rely on OTAs. OTAs still have promising future in ticketing service.
Hotels
Hotels， especially non-chained hotels， they rely on OTA more and more with the dying of small travel agencies. Chained hotel has their brands and marketing investment. However， the seasonality exists no matter how. Hotels need OTA to walk through low season.
Hotels will realize a messy price system will do harm to themselves and have negative impact to their top-line and bottom-line. Hotels will have the impetus to work out a more rational price system and increase their yield management. This move will help OTA at the end of the day because lower price for individual travelers a hard to find in the market and it will make price comparison meaningless.
5、Ctrip and elong
Ctrip’s position is unshakable in foreseeable future. Elong did better in its online marketing especially on seo and sem but they abandoned offline marketing and sales. This will make offline a cheaper and non-competitive turf. Ctrip is catching up in online marketing… …
对博文《在线旅游商业模式之争》的补充说明
在机场等飞机，想起了昨晚写的“在线旅游模式之战”，因为整个内容都是平常给国外的hedge funds和PEs提供电话咨询的内容，自己没有任何记录，确实有很多遗漏的点。一个是忘了说移动平台对OTA模式的冲击，二是忘了说百度可能的策略。
第一条移动平台的冲击就不说了，开车来机场的路上想起了上次开车去机场接人，想连长的航班管家查航班是不是晚点，结果低头找手机的瞬间出了事，花了五万多块钱，移动平台伤不起啊。
第二条我跟国外的基金电话咨询时说过百度有可能会以某种形式进入旅游行业，因为百度这个横向扩展的冲动总是很明显。
而直到有一天百度的投资部门的人来找我咨询旅游行业的事情，虽然他们的问题围绕OTA，还有点评平台转，没有提到“去哪儿”收购的事情，但是我告诉他们进入OTA行业不是他们的利益点，也会让自己的搜索变得不公立。我提到点评网站方面的机会，但是我告诉他们点评网站在他们这里投的钱加起来每年不会低于1亿人民币，如果投入，一是要考虑这方面收入怎么处理，二是要考虑如果保证百度的中立性。其实当时我明白百度最大的好处是增加了广告展示机会，因为平常搜索结果上面一般是3个付费链接，而进入点评平台后，几乎可以有无数个收费链接。并且会让OTA理论上有必要花两次钱，一次在百度，一次在点评平台。
这就是我想到的内容，另外，昨晚自己把ranking system按中文字面意思翻译成了“recommendation level”，刚想起来，惭愧，自己的英文好烂。
