Tiger Airways

Objectives

Purposes

Tiger Airways is a virtual storefront cum transaction broker. The main purpose of the site is to provide a form of interactive media/electronic marketing that allows customers to view, book and pay for their air tickets on their computer screens. Its secondary purpose is to act as a transaction broker, a middleman, for customers to access various travelling essentials, such as hotels, tours, car rentals, and insurance.


Features

Business Model

Tiger Airways is a virtual storefront. In other sense, it does not have a physical brick and mortar stall. It is a business that operates solely online via a website.
It can be categorized as a B2C (Business to Customer) model eg. Tiger Airways transacting directly with individual customers for personal travel
or B2B (Business to Business) model eg. Tiger Airways transacting with Travel Agents for group bookings. Travel Agents acting as middlemen for traveling customers. The middleman will earn a commission / service fee / administration fee.

Payment Scheme

Tiger Airways uses 128-bit SSL (Secure Socket Layer) technology to secure and protect users personal information.

Some safety measures Tiger Airways took are:


And Payment is simply by Credit cards or Voucher Payment.





Links

Tiger Airways has links to many travel related necessities which make it a 1-stop travel website thus making arrangements for the entire travel program a breeze. Links to Hotels/Apartments and sightseeing (Schedule and tailor-made), Transfers (Shared and Private) with octopustravel.com. Also Car Rentals with Hertz and Travel Insurance with AIG. All under one roof.



The website also has a link to Angsana Spa and offer Vouchers worth up to 40% discount.

Tiger also have a tie up with UOB VISA Gold Card. They offer a discount and great privileges for UOB Tiger Airways VISA Gold Cardmembers. Eg. Book hotels online and enjoy 5-10% discount on selected destination worldwide, Earn double Uni$, Quarterly travel deals, 10% Rebate on Tiger Airways ticket booking and 10% discount on in-flight purchases.

Tiger also have a link to Zouk Out at Siloso Beach, Sentosa where they can purchase admission tickets.

Other Features

When you first enter Tiger’s website, you can make a selection on your preferred region eg. Singapore, Australia etc. only once and your settings will be remembered the next time you visit the website. The website will automatically use the specific language commonly used in the country. As for Singapore, you can choose between English and Mandarin. This customization allows the website to be more personalizing for the user’s comfort.



In the Flight Info link, you can find out more about flight Schedules, Flight Combo, Destinations, Useful Travel info, Fare Rules, Onboard Merchandise and Onboard Food & Beverage.



There is also a “About Us” link to read up on their company’s overview, past news reports on Tiger, their fact sheet, about their fleet of planes, “Tiger Tales” their inflight magazine, Careers opportunities, Sponsorship and how to contact them in different countries.



Very importantly, they have a Help link. A guideline on how to go about to do group bookings, how to book online, website info and even info for Travel Agents.



The website offers you to choose whether to retain your details for next visit. Thus you can save time having to repeat entering your details for your next purchase of air tickets.

Tiger also offers the user to a sign up to receive tiger airways’ real deals and exclusive online offers. So you can be up to date with the latest promotions and not miss out on any great deals.

The website even provides users with the latest regulations for hand luggage.

Some extra features of the website include seat selector, sports equipment check-in, luggage upsize etc.




Characteristics

Unlike other competing websites, Tiger Airway does not only sell its tickets online like a virtual storefront. It is also a transaction broker, in which it acts as a middleman, linking up customers to other travel related businesses, such as the booking of hotels, sightseeing tours, car rentals, and travel insurance.

Therefore, not only does the website allow customers to book and pay for tickets online, they are also able to source for hotels, tours, and car rentals, etc.
The website’s design is pretty straightforward. Tiger Airways has adopted an orange color scheme for its website and also its affiliate’s website. This is consistent with Tiger Airways’s branding as they use a tiger for their logo. Also, the website’s usage of tabbed browsing makes different segments of the site, easy for customers to navigate and look for what they want.

On the main page, customers can start checking for flights that they can book. They have to choose between round trips or one way flights, which cities they would be heading to, the desired departure and returning dates, and then select the number of adults/children/infants going on the trip.



After all relevant information has been entered, a click on “Get Flights” would show a list of available flights, with detailed information such as price, flight number, and departure and arrival times.



Customers can select whichever flight they want and continue on to booking and payment. Customers would then have to print out their travel tickets and present them when boarding the plane.

Besides the sole function of booking tickets online, tigerairways.com also allows customers to book hotels and search for sightseeing, through the website.



Fill up all the required fills and customers are redirected to another website, Octopus Travel. This shows Tiger Airway’s affiliation with another business, Octopus Travel.



From there, customers are able to book and pay for their hotel rooms.

Even though the website’s design is pretty foolproof, all is not lost for those who have absolutely no idea how to use the booking system.



Tiger Airways has a help link, which provides help and information for customers. It teaches new customers how to book for plane tickets online.


Analysis

Strengths

Fulfillment time – the period from initial order to delivery is reduced significantly since the tickets and seats are confirmed immediately, the customer can print out his itinerary and air-ticket as soon as payment is made. Direct order and configuration also reduces order-entry errors which can be made by service staff at a physical shop.

e-Commerce increases the level of service by providing personalized and accurate customer information, with better tracking and performance measurement.

With e-Commerce, the chances of the service personal at the physical store making a typo error decrease 100%. Thus the risk of having a boarding pass with the wrong name is of zero chances also means the No such hassle and trouble for customer just before boarding the plane because a ticket with the wrong name will not allow the passenger access to the aircraft.

With an online store, Tiger has the ability to connect to potential customers in new markets. Eg. A customer from US is coming to Singapore for a holiday and he would like to purchase a budget ticket for a relaxing get away to the beach in Krabi (Thailand). Tiger does not operate in the US but he can go online to book his ticket for his trip to Krabi departing from Singapore. Therefore, e-Commerce allows a virtual sales force to reach global markets with product information while targeting new demographics within current markets.

With a virtual storefront like Tiger Airways, it provides capabilities that improve customer service through

- interactive and personalized customer communications: stated in features, the customer can view the website in their selected region thus suitable language. The ticket is purchase with no-frills. Any additional needs of the customer may be fulfilled by add-ons available in the website. Personalized to the consumer’s satisfaction.

- speed and accuracy: as mentioned above

- enhanced ability to track and measure capability

- Instantaneous: Internet dramatically reduces / eliminates time. Customer need not take the trouble to go down to the physical shop with the hassle of traveling and so time consuming when with the virtual store, they can book the ticket and pay in the comfort of their own home / office or any where in the world.

- 24x7 communications: a brick n motar shop opens normally maximum from 9am-9pm and is closed on public holidays n festive occasion. But Tiger’s Virtual store like all other e-commerce store is opened all the time. You can make your purchases anytime of the day, all year round

- Global: Anywhere geographical distance is meaningless with the internet and the virtual store.

- A customer-driven business model.

Benefits of e-Commerce on the whole is entering new markets, reducing cost, improve knowledge sharing, enhance customer service, improve communication, reduce time to market, create new products and services, fostering innovation and supporting globalization.

Weaknesses

Some challenges that Tiger Airways may face is:

Immaturity – limited services, incomplete product offering. Since the company is only 3 years old and e-Commerce is relatively new only happening in the recent years. Also since Tiger only have a online store, some services and product offerings are only applicable to those with a brick and motar / clicks and motar store.

Security – Fraud leading to loss incurred by customers and Tiger themselves. They are also open to hackers whom can get into their system and create havoc plus steal information.

Immature legal environment – local and international laws. As e-Commerce like mentioned above is relatively new and happened only in the recent years, the laws and legal system is not mature yet.

Rapid change in technology – support skill and technology investment. Almost everyday new systems and products are being created so Tiger must keep up to date to be in this competitive e-Commerce market by invest a lot on the latest systems and IT products get obsolete very quickly.

Ethical issues of e-commerce - Privacy issue: the implementation of booking plane tickets through e-commerce requires considerable customer information. People are afraid that their personal data and their behavior on the web may be sold, used or revealed in an inappropriate manner. Such fears may keep many consumers from shopping online. Customers may not feel save and comfortable giving detailed personal information eg. Name, Passport no., Passport expiry date, phone no., address, email etc required for the purchase of the air-tickets plus having to pay by credit card can make them feel very insecure too especially for the older generation.