CRM techniques for analyzing client profiles in tourism promotion web sites

Transcription

1 CRM techniques for analyzing client profiles in tourism promotion web sites Abstract José L. Caro a, Antonio Carrillo a, Andrés Aguayo a, Sergio Gálvez a and Antonio Guevara a, a Lenguajes y Ciencias de la Computación Málaga University, Spain {jlcaro, aguayo, carillo, galvez, guevara}@lcc.uma.es Finding out the profile a given city or town has in the eyes of potential tourists is very useful for marketing purposes as it helps to develop strategies and communication actions aimed at promoting the city. It also allows us to identify which elements are more relevant to the evaluation carried out by the different market segments of the place in question, which have to be taken into account in positioning strategies. Because of this, the use of a tourism promotion website is essential. However, it is also essential to know about who visits the website and what sections are being looked at. The use of CRM techniques (Customer Relationship Management) are fundamental for gathering this kind of data that will later assist in developing the best strategy. In this article we introduce a method for implementing a CRM strategy system in tourism-oriented websites. We present the general architecture of our CRM system and its implementation in the tourist website of Ronda (Málaga - Spain). This website offers tourists both historical and sightseeing information as well as a range of commercial services. It also includes a CRM system to gather information about the profile of potential clients, which is the basis for this article. Keywords: Tourism, Web design, Internet, Database, CRM. 1 Introduction In the field of tourism, a well-designed web site is fundamental for promoting a given destination. Currently, many clients and potential travelers obtain information and change their destination by a simple click of the mouse, demonstrating the underlying need for top-quality web-site design to promote such destinations. However, what do we know about the people visiting our site? It is in our best interest to find out what potential clients are looking for, so that we can enhance our site and

2 the target destination offers using this information. In this sense, the study of market demand and segmentation has become fundamental in the competitive world of tourism. This kind of study is even more indispensable if the site stores information not only about what is attractive for the tourist e.g., historical sites, weather, interesting sites, etc. but also tourist services such as hotels, museums, camping sites, theaters, etc. Thus, when any product is offered via the Internet, it is essential to obtain information regarding the profile of the potential client. Customer Relationship Management systems (CRMs) promise to gather more knowledge about the client by studying the demand. In more specific terms, this is a business strategy that helps to improve the relationship with clients by offering new ways and processes to adapt to the clients demand. CRM applications make possible and effective this kind of knowledge and help to establish a closer relationship with the client. The rise of CRMs is linked to the new wave of clients, who are increasingly able to gather information from the Internet and tend to change destinations and providers with greater facility. Business CRM solutions have been presented as the panacea for getting closer to the clients' needs. However, they are expensive and difficult to implement. Implementing CRM solutions involves restructuring the information handled, which is a difficult task, especially for small- and medium-size companies. These companies cannot afford the total cost involved in a CRM solution. Improvement Feed-back information Reports TOURISTIC INFORMATION STATIC INFORMATION WEB Web Organizational Information Database WEB CLIENT STUDY SYSTEM OUR CRM-WEB BASED http Server Log files Parser Information Recolector Software Statistical Information Database potential tourist information INTERNET Fig.1. CRM architecture for a web site In this article we attempt to show how to use CRM techniques by taking advantage of the technical characteristics of web servers (i.e., the system s logs) and creating the

3 necessary databases and the design specifications required to implement a CRM system for a tourism web site, without the need for expensive commercial packages. We will describe how to extract information using certain techniques based on a wellstructured and well-designed web site that will allow us to extract useful information from the logs of the web server. The structure of our CRM system is depicted in figure 1. This system will be implemented on the web site of Ronda, which is a town with great tourist appeal, in Málaga Province. The web site has been developed by the research group in the Cooperative Information System (SICUMA) from the Department of Computer Sciences and Languages in cooperation with some members of the Department of Applied Economics, both from the University of Málaga. This web has three basic sections: A static section, which holds information about the town and resources for tourists. A dynamic section with the tourist offer in town. This web is updated in two different ways depending on the nature of the information: o Historical tourist resources: updated by the tourist central office. o Business tourist resources: each business involved (hotels, camping sites, shops, etc.) will update its own information and offer. The CRM module (client profile/statistics) will have the following subsystems (see Fig. 1): o A database for the web site structure. This will store information about the web site structure describing each section and topics. o A database with statistical and access information. Here all the information previously retrieved from the server s logs will be stored and organized according to the structure described in the previous database. o Software and web pages. These are needed for upgrading and checking the two former databases as well as for report making. This article focuses on the development of the CRM module. This module will be an instrument capable of going beyond simply searching and accessing the log. It aims at incorporating the structure of the web site as well as statistical and web databases and the software needed for database management and search. Similarly, our intention is to build a general and portable system so that it can be implemented in other tourism web sites with a few configuration changes. Finally, we will present a general methodology for web design since a good design and structure is essential for the successful application of these techniques. 2 Objectives and structure of the website

4 The tourist website Ronda: The Enchanted Land is the fruit of an R&D project carried out by a group of teachers from the department of Languages and Computational Sciences of the School of Tourism at the University of Málaga in collaboration with the firm Turismo de Ronda S.A. Ronda and the surrounding area (The Serrania) receive around half a million visitors per year. Last year 430,000 persons stayed at least one night in its hotels, campsites or rural accommodation. 2.1 Objectives One of the main objectives of this project is to create an inventory of the tourist services of the town and promote them via the Internet. In more specific terms, the project has the following objectives: 1. Make available to Internet users the cultural, tourist, and leisure activities that Ronda has to offer. 2. Build a system able to continuously update the offer with the direct input of the firms involved in the project. 3. Producing some statistical data about the users of the different services that would enable us to gain knowledge, in a dynamic way, regarding the profiles of the demand in different segments. 4. Recommending certain courses of actions to the firms and institutions in order to gain client loyalty to the businesses in the town. During the design of this website we have followed basic guidelines regarding the optimal contents of a tourist website, especially the recommendations given in the WTOBC report (WTOBC, 1999) as well as those derived from comparative analysis of institutional tourist sites developed by different Spanish cities (Traverso and Berbel, 2000). In addition, the information gathered can be classified according to its character. On the one hand, there is data that has a permanent or practically permanent nature that is stored in the static section of the site, which has a traditional structure. On the other hand, all information that by nature changes often is gathered in the dynamic section of the site which is fed by a database that can be updated online. The general structure of the website is as follows. 2.2 Structure and static contents The static structure of the website is fundamental for the CRM technology we aim at developing. Therefore, a good basic design will help us to structure the information in such a way that: (i) it can be easily translated into other languages; and (ii) the pages

5 can be grouped according to their content so that we can establish homogeneous categories and subcategories. This second aspect is essential for the CRM system, because if we know the web tree being accessed, it is possible to establish categories of the pages most visited. In other words, we can extract statistical information regarding the category or subcategory the user has visited. The content of this section is structured in such a way that users have access to the information in a logical way, and at the same time, it allows extracting statistical data from the web server. This information has been organized according to the following blocks: Location and access information. History. Sights. Museums. Trips. Nature. Culture. Gastronomy. Handcraft. Famous people and writings regarding Ronda. General information. 2.3 Dynamic content The dynamic component has been developed with Visual Basic Script with the Active Server Pages components (ASP) of IIS (Internet Information Server) corresponding to the server-side. The client-side section has been developed in both JavaScript and VBScript. This dynamic component is made of the following subsystems: The cultural and leisure agenda. Street maps. Services in town. The core system is a database and a web application that manage the database. The database schema is structured according to three sections that were outlined in the previous paragraph. The catalogue of services available have an open structure, and so it is possible to classify the services according to families and subfamilies. For example, the accommodation family includes the subfamily camping sites, hotels, hostals, and rural accommodation. The web pages that manage the catalogue of services allow searches using multiple criteria. The maintenance and updating of the information included in these pages is done by the actual tourist firms that offer their services and are able to make reservations via

6 the Internet. On the other hand, with the CRM system, the firms gather information about how often their services have been looked at and the profile. In this way they can find out what part of their offer interests the tourist more and what other offers the visitor is interested in. In this way tourism companies can better organize their marketing strategies. Similarly, an event agenda has been implemented: This agenda shows exhibitions, fairs and any other cultural event organized in Ronda. The agenda is updated by the firm Turismo de Ronda, that gather this kind of information as well as the demand of the local tourist businesses. Finally, a street map has been implemented with a small database including all the streets in town which are related with rastered images at two zoom levels. 3 CRM System 3.1 Objectives Efficient tourism policies able to make private enterprises profitable and put public resources where they are most needed require sound knowledge of the actual circumstances of the town, continuous monitoring of the tourist situation, a prospective approach, and access to reliable information sources (Aguayo et al., 2001). In order to decide on a tourist destination the user requires a "destination information system" ; in other words, a permanent and systematic process to compile, process, classify, and distribute accurate information that will help public and corporate agents to plan, evaluate, and act upon a given tourist destination (Bigné et al., 2000). As stated in the introduction, CRM technology (CRM, 2001) makes it possible to get closer to clients and their way of thinking. Currently this is possible by making a previous study of the system and then, if appropriate, a CRM application is installed such as that implemented by Nortel Networks, PeopleSoft, Sibel Systems, etc. These solutions tend to be expensive and difficult to implement because the study itself is costly. Regarding this issue, we have to consider whether it would be possible to install a CRM system for a tourist website. Several attempts have been already made, among which we can highlight the West Virginia tourist website (WV, 2001). This system is based on components and databases where the information is stored, and IIS, SQL- Server, and CORBA are used. Our aim is to implement a CRM system based on the information provided by the web server and according to the web structure stored in a database. In this way, and in

7 accordance with our objectives, the system will be able to collect and store the information we are interested in regarding the visitors to the site. Currently, in order to extract information regarding access, powerful analytical log tools are used by servers. These tools among which we can mention WebTrends, InSite, SiteSense, WebReports, etc., create reports that are very valuable regarding what is happening in the server, but they are not enough to achieve total integration with the site. The objectives are then to create a tourism-oriented CRM system with the following characteristics: 1. The site's initial good design and organization will enable us to express its structure as categories. 2. The system will be independent from the log generated and so it will be independent from the web server. 3. The statistic information gathered is stored in a database which helps to segment visitors and create their profile. 4. It is able to generate reports through the web. 5. It is able to create user profiles that will adapt the web page according to the data required. In order to achieve these characteristics we have to bear in mind the design of the web regarding how the pages are organized. Ideally, the design should have a very thorough structure. This involves choosing a design where the individual pages are organized in such a way that those belonging to different categories do not mix. 3.2 The CRM system architecture The design of the system is modular and fully open to insert any other websites. For this reason we have decided to implement the following modules: A structural database of the web. Information Parser for the server log. Statistics database. A database with user profiles. Report generator. The diagram in figure 2 shows the links between the module and its relationship with Ronda's website. We now describe each module and its function:

8 A structural database of the web. This database stores all information referring to the actual website. This includes the existing categories and subcategories as well the association of each page to one or more categories and general information regarding the pages. Information Parser for the server log. The httpd servers generate information regarding access to each of the website's page. This information is stored in a text file known as the log file. The information provided by the log depends on the type of httpd daemon implemented and its configuration. In general terms there are several formats available: Common Log Format (CLF), Common Log Format with Virtual Host, NCSA extended/combined log format, Referer log format, and Agent (Browser) log format. These formats share the feature of showing access to different websites files outlining the host from which the page was accessed, the time, the session, etc. This information is very relevant because in this way we can know the location of the users as well as what sections of the website interested them more. The parser translates this information into the kind of data stored in the statistics database. In order to do this we need the actual logfile and to know the format of the file. Statistics database. This database stores all accesses to the website. After analyzing the log file with the parser, statistics will be extracted and stored using information from the structural database. Report generator. This module is used to look up and show the statistical information stored in the database. In order to look up data we need to know the web structure. A database with user profile. This last module is in charge of making the website contents dynamic according to the profile of the visitor. This module is currently under investigation and its implementation will take place once the testing period of the other modules is finished.

9 Users INTERNET log format logs PARSER Service Catalog HTTPD Ag. Statistical database Web Structural database WEB TURISMO DE RONDA REPORT GENERATOR Profile database/ configurations Fig. 2. Modules for the CRM system In order to develop this architecture we opted for the SQL-Server, IIS, and ASP in the server-side section. The basic languages used were Javascript and VBScript because both are very versatile and able to handle IIS objects. We have used both languages in the client-side section to provide further dynamism to the web pages as well as HTML 4.0 extensions. 4 Conclusions and Further work This article describes a project for the implementation of a tourist website for Ronda, a town with high touristic interest in Spain. This site provides a full catalogue of Ronda's tourist offer as well as thorough an agenda of events. For the business world it is essential to know as much as possible about potential clients, as this allows the establishment of a close relationship between the client and the firm, which in this case translates into a tourist-destination relationship.

10 Much energy is being put into the analysis of access information from a given site. In some cases, statistical reports are generated via the Net; in others, the system logs are directly analyzed. In either case these tools are not fully integrated and cannot provide a general solution. On the other hand, CRM techniques and methods do provide a solution to the issue of getting the client closer to the firm. For this reason we have dealt with the second stage of the project involving the implementation of a CRM module. Once the different alternatives were evaluated, it was patent that a commercial CRM solution for Ronda's website was too expensive to implement and although its structure is open it is difficult to configure. Given these constraints, a group of researchers from the department of Languages and Computational Sciences of the School of Tourism at the University of Málaga has initiated the second stage of this project to implement a CRM mo dule from scratch, i.e., by creating a new architecture oriented to tourist-websites. The project has already started, and the module is being tested in the Ronda website. In this way we can find out who is visiting the website and what are the contents that are of greatest interest. Thanks to this feedback process, the website can offer those contents that most attract the tourist. As further work, we aim to create a module to analyze demand and the dynamic aspects of the website bearing in mind the tourist's profile, so those with higher demand can be highlighted. References Aguayo, A., Caro, J.L., Guevara, A., Gálvez, S. (2001). Sistema para el análisis y la promoción de destinos turísticos en Internet. In TURITEC'2001 Turismo y Tecnologías de la Información y las Comunicaciones. Madrid, UALH, España. Bigné, E. et al. (2000). Marketing de destinos turísticos. Análisis de estrategias de desarrollo. ESIC. World Tourism Organization Business Council : WTO-BC (1999). Promoción de Destinos Turísticos en el Ciberespacio. Traverso, J. y Berbel, J.M. (2000). Análisis de la gestión de la información turística a través de las páginas web, como una ventaja competitiva de las provincias españolas. Turismo. III Congreso Universidad y Empresa, Tirant lo Blanch, WV Gov Office of Technology (2001), WV Tourism/Citynet Database in CRM (2001), Custormer Relationship Management Center at