ESTIA: exploitation plan for tourism mobile services

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to present an exploitation plan for tourism related services over mobile phones. The material presented intents not only to document the proposed plan but also to provide ideas that develop insight and personal judgment about the proposed positions. Chapter 0 contains material about the theoretical framework that is necessary to understand the analysis and some implementation aspects of that thesis. The essentials of business strategy are describing in a simple way the traditional knowledge about the formulation of business strategy. After that we are introducing some models that provide insight in the understanding on how finally some tourism related services could be designed and later on classified and evaluated. However all this knowledge is in a theoretical framework that according to my opinion is too important to be in the context. So I decided to name it as Chapter 0 as it is not integrated with the respective analysis. The first chapter presents the system, the services and is not expanding beyond a simple description of what the system is intending to do. The next chapter is dedicated to describe the Tourism market. The actors, the potential the growth prospects and the impact of the new media in the market structure are some of the points addressed. Chapter three is dedicated to mobile commerce. The chapter provides some information about the major subjects of that evolving industry, the roles of the actors, the services, the penetration rates that reveal the potential of the market and finally some of the possible business models that are likely to be adopted in the wireless supply chain. Continuing our analysis, we are examining the customer of the new wireless traveler market in chapter four. Alternative ways of segmentation are applied and the useful conclusions emerge for use in the following analysis. Finally, the chapter five analyses the main subjects of exploitation plan such as value chain and revenue flows, strategies employed by the actors, their respective strengths and weaknesses, an evaluation of the structural attractiveness based on the competitive forces of the sector an concludes with a suggested strategic positioning. In the annex one can find a draft figures about the size of the Greek wireless services market currently and information about the European holidaymaker profile.