Assessment item 3 – Final Research Report Due: XXXXXXXXXXMonday of Week 7, 9 am AEST Length: XXXXXXXXXX-7,500 words Conditions: XXXXXXXXXXIndividual Weighting: XXXXXXXXXX% Requirements You are...

2
Research Report on:
How to Reduce Flight-ticket Clustering for Popular Destinations for Holiday Bookings During Vacation Season
Executive summary
The rise in the penetration of internet services in almost every arena of human life is a rather interesting development that must be noted. There is ideally not even a single sector that has been untouched by these developments. Similarly, the industry of flight ticket booking is one that has benefitted greatly from these advancements, as it has made it easier for the people to book tickets from the comfort of their home, that too at attractive prices by availing great discounts. These bookings tend to increase mostly at the time of the holidays and the festive seasons, which often leads to a slowing down of the websites, often leading to the crash of the servers. This issue of flight ticket clustering is a major problem that needs to be addressed, as it has been often observed that the customers get annoyed and i
itated and shift to other alternative websites to book the tickets, thereby leading to the loss of business for the company.
The research that has been conducted to address this research problem utilises both the qualitative and quantitative methods. A thorough review of existing literature on the subject matter has been conducted, along with a survey that has provided the primary data for the quantitative analysis. The triangulation of both the methods and data obtained gives rise to the same result – an increasingly large group of people use online ticket bookings for reserving their flight tickets, but an equally large number of people face issues when trying to book tickets during the holidays or festive seasons. These issues can be managed by employing a content delivery network, which is essentially a cloud-based service, in addition to ensuring that there are no data caps in the industry partner’s servers. However, the CDNs can often be expensive, as they cost additional money, and require extra care and maintenance.
Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction and research problem    4
1.1 Overview of industry partner    4
1.2 Research problem    4
1.3 Overall research aim    4
1.4 Structure of the report    4
2.0 Theoretical background: Literature review    5
2.1 Factors of demand and competition in flight ticketing    5
2.2 Consumer choice behaviour    6
2.3 Consumer choice and behaviour in the airline industry    6
2.4 Knowledge gap    7
2.5 Conceptual map    8
3.0 Methodology    9
3.1 Overview of research design    9
3.2 Ethical concerns    9
4.0 Findings    9
5.0 Discussion    19
6.0 Recommendations    21
7.0 Limitations and conclusions    23
7.1 Limitations of the recommendations    23
7.2 Brief summary of the project    23
Reference List    24
Bibliography    26
1.0 Introduction and research problem
1.1 Overview of industry partne
The industry that is being discussed in this research report is that of the online flight ticket marketing sector. The growth of this industry can be primarily attributed to the increase in the use of internet services, and the massive penetration of mobile applications due to the widespread use of smartphones (Ruiz-Mafe, Sanz-Blas and Aldas-Manzano, 2009). There are also a large number of customers who are even willing to pay the handling charges for booking flight tickets online, simply to avoid the harassment of having to stand in the long queues that are unavoidable during manual bookings. The industry partner in question has an ongoing lucrative business that is concerned with flight ticket bookings and hotel bookings for major tourist destinations all over the world. However, it faces the issue of flight ticket clustering during the festive and holiday seasons, as the website tends to crash due to the high traffic volumes.
1.2 Research problem
The festive occasions are those periods of the year when people prefer to go on holidays the most. This leads to an abnormal increase in the number of choices that are available to the customers in terms of flight booking, prices, availability and offers. The efficiency associated with the booking of tickets attains great importance during these times. The increase in the demand leads to a clustering of the customers, which ultimately leads to a very high time being spent on the booking process of the tickets. This often leads to the company to be perceived as being inefficient, due to which many consumers might switch to the alternatives. This can often lead to a loss in the business.
1.3 Overall research aim
The aim of this research is to identify the issues that are associated with the clustering of tickets when it comes to airline ticket bookings, especially during the festive and holiday seasons.
1.4 Structure of the report
The following report will present forth a comprehensive literature review that will identify the potential factors that lead to the clustering of tickets during flight bookings especially on the holidays and festive seasons. The specified research questions are based on the literature that has been reviewed, and is aimed at addressing the knowledge gap that has been identified. A conceptual map has also been provided to explain the factors that are related to this recognised gap and the rest of the research report. The research design entails the use of a sampling method that will explain the analysis processes while also addressing the ethical concerns. A comprehensive analysis of the research findings further supported by evidence from the formulated literature review has also been provided. The discussion triangulates the acquired evidence, compares it with the reviewed literature, and states the answers to the research question. The report will be concluded by a set of recommendation and their limitations, and a summary of all the major findings as well as the potential outcomes.
2.0 Theoretical background: Literature review
2.1 Factors of demand and competition in flight ticketing
Organisations have become a lot more competitive over the years, since the global rivalry in the markets has increased manifold. They have to be a lot more efficient, and have to look for newer ways to capture the market opportunities to meet the needs and requirements of their customers. In fact, a combination of low prices and good quality is no longer considered a good enough combination for attracting the right customers (Brueckner, et al., 2015; Park and Pan, 2018). The behavioural choice can be said to be affected in a way that concerns the preferences of the consumers in terms of various products or services, and often helps companies to gather the relevant data that is necessary to learn about these very consumer preferences in an attempt to customise their approach to sales. A horde of choices need to be made available to the consumers at a generic level, and this will increase the chances of swaying their decisions in their favour. For instance, most airline companies have a range of fares for the people, with different kinds of facilities available for the passengers. They are required to understand the variety of choices that the consumers would undertake, and respect the decisions of each customer. This is useful in reducing the demand cluster (Brueckner, et al., 2015; Park and Pan, 2018), and also in creating value for them.
The increase in the diversity of the channels along with the options for information media and other various organisations have made it a tad difficult to understand how consumers choose their products. This also directs the way in which consumers choose their products, and gives an idea of their future choices. Enterprises thereby need to understand the way in which consumers make their purchase decisions, and the prediction of these preferences is vital to these organisations especially when introducing newer products and setting the target marketing. The prediction for preferences can be deployed a lot easily and extensively within the companies for helping in optimising the decisions. This has lent a significant amount of importance to the human decisions and choices, especially those that help understand the reasons that lead to the choices. The behaviours related to the choices are particularly complex, although they can also be said to be rational as well. The makers of the decisions also strive to simplify the formulation of the overall processes. These choice mechanisms are the very basis on which enterprises measure the preferences and predict their decisions (Zhang et al., 2016; Wong and Wei, 2018).
2.2 Consumer choice behaviou
In situations where consumers have the option of many alternatives in terms of products, services or
ands, they tend to make choices that are satisfactory to them in their given circumstances (Bergantino and Capozza, 2015). The theory of information integration can be said to be a provider of mechanisms as well as specific ways in which people can disintegrate the different elements of the information as per the concerned preferences. It also states that as per the given situations, the consumers usually compare the available options within the market and weigh the pros and cons against each other, an attribute which often guides their entire decision-making process. This is a rather extensive and holistic approach to decision-making, which is possible only by the integration of consumer values together with the boundaries set forth by specific rules. Marketing managers often need to carefully observe the overall decision-making processes along with those situations where the consumers could end up collating the much-needed information and form beliefs among themselves. These often define the way in which they provide the product or service reviews. These reviews often help the companies determine the standards according to which the products or services could be developed in order to satisfy the consumers.
The other factor that needs to be considered while analysing the consumer choice behaviour is that of identifying if there is a systematic approach to their choices and decisions. Both the identification as well as the understanding of these choices are critical to the development and formulation of marketing strategies that would be effective in any given scenario. Consumer choice behaviours have been usually conceptualised as being a combination that comprises specific socio-demographics together with attributes that are concerned with the alternatives. Factors such as attitude, cognition and utility are often implemented for understanding and mapping the attitudes that are relevant to the choice behaviour.
2.3 Consumer choice and behaviour in the airline industry
The volatility of the fuel prices, coupled together with the economic challenges of environmental sustainability and other concerns, have pressurised the airline industry. Furthermore, the increase in the awareness regarding the level of competition has also increased, and this can be further attributed to the availability of alternatives in transportation. Most airline service providers are dependent on them, and their customers are highly valuable to them, as they build their competitive advantage and help to understand the market demands as well. Thus, the relationship that these companies have with their customers is of utmost importance to them, as if affects its ability to make profits directly, in the long run (Tamaki, 2018; Liu, at al., 2018). Keeping the passengers engaged and interested is one of the most important objectives that need to be considered by these airline companies if they wish to maximise the consumer loyalty and make profits as well. Adequate performance of these airlines with regard to the expectations of these customers also helps determine the profits they would make, as such initiatives have the power to affect the consumer choices directly. These are among the most key drivers in the business for such companies, and airline companies have to estimate those trends in addition to taking risks for understanding the effect that these actions could have on the demand clustering (Tamaki, 2018; Liu, at al., 2018).
Understanding the changing requirements and demands of the consumers is of great importance to the consumers, but the entire system of decision-making by them is yet to gain considerable significance. Thus, a more elaborate understanding of the process with regard to...