Uses of Social Media in the Travel Industry

The evolution of the social media has changed the way we live. For example, 18 percent of consumers use social networking sites before even getting out of bed. It has also changed the way people travel. There have been drastic changes in how people search, shop for and purchase travel. Today’s online travelers are content creators and collaborators, posting traveler reviews and actively sharing travel experiences through their social networks. This interactive sharing is affecting not only travel products and service but also companies that are in travel businesses.

Uses of social media have brought significant growth in online traffic to company’s website. Social media has played significant role in bringing people in the website. Website is one of the important customer touch point because it is primary entry point of potential customer. My personal blog, not travel related, receives almost 20 percent traffic through Facebook. Travel companies who use social media saw 69 percent traffic growth on their Facebook profile, and 46 percent on Twitterii. Southwest Airlines, American Airlines Company, is the leader in taking benefit of social media. As of 21st July 2011, it has 1.66 million Facebook likes and 1.15 million followers on Twitter. This means Southeast Airlines is always connected with 2.81 million people. Any new product or service the Southeast Airlines announce will be reach to 2.81 million people instantly and easily. The company can keep synchronous communication like hearing feedback, critics and responding back to them through their Facebook and Twitter.

Social media is internet-based application that allows the creation and exchange of user-generated content. User generated content can be in different forms including Internet forums, weblogs, social blogs, microblogging, wikis, podcasts, photographs or pictures, video, rating and social bookmarking. In simple term, social media is website that facilitated content creation and exchange. But social media is not just website, it includes wide range essay like chat applications and many mobile based software. According to Kaplan and Haenlein there are six different types of social media: social networking sites (e.g. Facebook), blogs and microblogs (e.g. Bloger, Twitter), collaborative projects (e.g. Wikipedia, Travelwiki), content communities (e.g. Youtube, Flickr) , virtual game worlds (e.g. Farm Ville), and virtual social worlds (e.g. Second Life). Technologies include: blogs, picture-sharing, Video Blogging, wall-postings, email, instant messaging, music-sharing, crowdsourcing, and voice over IP, to name a few. Many of these social media services can be integrated via social network aggregation platforms.

The travel industry, by nature, is slower in movement in terms of information flow. It has historically been an industry dominated by a group of “experts” (the travel agents) who controls the information that gets around. However this has been challenged by social media. Gary Arndt , travel blogger, claims that he is one man National Geographic. It is hard to deny his claim. As a fact, he has visited ninety nine countries and writes all his travelling experiences in his blog. More than 100 thousand followers in his Twitter account is a proof that many individuals and travelers relies on his information. Today, behavior of travelers has also been changed significantly. Unlike previous days, now most of travelers read reviews before deciding hotels and travel service booking. Suresh Manandhar told that he and his wife used TripAdvisor to find the hotel. He further explained, “We searched the hotel in TripAdvisor and booked one that is rated by more number of the travelers”. This is how social media is changing the way information is exchanged/shared in travel industry.

Newly entered players have been changing industry drastically. A collaborative project called Wikitravel was found in 2003 and by now it has user generated information of 50 thousand cities. The content in Wikitravel is updated every other minute and is considered to be reliable since it is edited by group of passionate travel writers. Review site called TripAdvisor has 50 million reviews for 500 thousand hotels. Those reviews are posted by individual who have stayed in the hotel. Travelers like Suresh Manandhar take help of TripAdvisor’s reviews to make decision. Among all social networking tools, Facebook has been quite dominant. According to Tripl , 72 percent of social media users access their social networking site while they are travelling. Tripl has conducted a survey among Facebook users to identify how their travel plan has been influenced by Facebook. 52 percent of user said that their friends’ photos inspired their next trip, 46% user has been invited by their friends to join their trip and 45% user said that Facebook made them visit their friends abroad. Airbnb has introduced completely new paradigm in travel industry, which allows booking short term accommodation in private house and apartments, not hotels. With Airbnb service, now travelers actually can stay in house of a local while they are travelling. In July 2011, the company had over 100 thousand listings of private homes, apartment and rooms in 16 thousand cities and 186 countries. Now Airbnb allows booking entire village, which is very innovative call.

Most of online travelers now cite traveler reviews as influential when planning their leisure trips. Knowing how travelers operate in the social web has become a prerequisite for success in the online travel space. A clear understanding of how to measure, manipulate and improve social media performance gives travel companies power to expand the business beyond conventional market. Travel companies need to understand the how the social travel sentiment and the underlying social graph increasingly impact the behavior of online travelers.

Note: This is part of EMBA work at AIM.

Magento 1.4.1 – deleting all orders

Deleting orders from Magento is little difficult. I found following SQL, and saved it for my future reference :-)

  1. SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=0;
  2. TRUNCATE `catalogsearch_query`;
  3. ALTER TABLE `catalogsearch_query` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
  4. TRUNCATE `sales_flat_creditmemo`;
  5. TRUNCATE `sales_flat_creditmemo_comment`;
  6. TRUNCATE `sales_flat_creditmemo_grid`;
  7. TRUNCATE `sales_flat_creditmemo_item`;
  8. TRUNCATE `sales_flat_invoice`;
  9. TRUNCATE `sales_flat_invoice_comment`;
  10. TRUNCATE `sales_flat_invoice_grid`;
  11. TRUNCATE `sales_flat_invoice_item`;
  12. TRUNCATE `sales_flat_order`;
  13. TRUNCATE `sales_flat_order_address`;
  14. TRUNCATE `sales_flat_order_grid`;
  15. TRUNCATE `sales_flat_order_item`;
  16. TRUNCATE `sales_flat_order_payment`;
  17. TRUNCATE `sales_flat_order_status_history`;
  18. TRUNCATE `sales_flat_quote`;
  19. TRUNCATE `sales_flat_quote_address`;
  20. TRUNCATE `sales_flat_quote_address_item`;
  21. TRUNCATE `sales_flat_quote_item`;
  22. TRUNCATE `sales_flat_quote_item_option`;
  23. TRUNCATE `sales_flat_quote_payment`;
  24. TRUNCATE `sales_flat_quote_shipping_rate`;
  25. TRUNCATE `sales_flat_shipment`;
  26. TRUNCATE `sales_flat_shipment_comment`;
  27. TRUNCATE `sales_flat_shipment_grid`;
  28. TRUNCATE `sales_flat_shipment_item`;
  29. TRUNCATE `sales_flat_shipment_track`;
  30. TRUNCATE `sales_invoiced_aggregated`;
  31. TRUNCATE `sales_invoiced_aggregated_order`;
  32. TRUNCATE `sales_order_aggregated_created`;
  33. TRUNCATE `sendfriend_log`;
  34. TRUNCATE `tag`;
  35. TRUNCATE `tag_relation`;
  36. TRUNCATE `tag_summary`;
  37. TRUNCATE `wishlist`;
  38. TRUNCATE `log_quote`;
  39. TRUNCATE `report_event`;
  40. ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_creditmemo` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
  41. ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_creditmemo_comment` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
  42. ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_creditmemo_grid` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
  43. ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_creditmemo_item` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
  44. ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_invoice` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
  45. ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_invoice_comment` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
  46. ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_invoice_grid` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
  47. ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_invoice_item` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
  48. ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_order` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
  49. ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_order_address` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
  50. ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_order_grid` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
  51. ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_order_item` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
  52. ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_order_payment` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
  53. ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_order_status_history` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
  54. ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_quote` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
  55. ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_quote_address` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
  56. ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_quote_address_item` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
  57. ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_quote_item` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
  58. ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_quote_item_option` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
  59. ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_quote_payment` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
  60. ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_quote_shipping_rate` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
  61. ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_shipment` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
  62. ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_shipment_comment` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
  63. ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_shipment_grid` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
  64. ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_shipment_item` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
  65. ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_shipment_track` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
  66. ALTER TABLE `sales_invoiced_aggregated` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
  67. ALTER TABLE `sales_invoiced_aggregated_order` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
  68. ALTER TABLE `sales_order_aggregated_created` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
  69. ALTER TABLE `sendfriend_log` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
  70. ALTER TABLE `tag` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
  71. ALTER TABLE `tag_relation` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
  72. ALTER TABLE `tag_summary` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
  73. ALTER TABLE `wishlist` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
  74. ALTER TABLE `log_quote` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
  75. ALTER TABLE `report_event` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
  76. SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=1;

Hydropower of Nepal – Slow development

Theoretical potential of hydropower generation of Nepal is estimated to be 85,000MW, and 43,000 MW is considered as technically viable. Currently, it is generating 697MW that is 1.7% percent. Only 40% of population is using electricity in Nepal. Those who are consuming electricity are facing massive power cut of a maximum of 16 hours daily. Despite of having such huge potentiality, hydropower development is not happening. According to report published by NEA, current Peak Demand is 885MW. Deficit in wet season (July-Dec) is -217MW that has reaches to -685MW in dry season (Jan – Jun).
Hydropower history can be traced back to 1911. Pharping Power Plant,  500 KW capacity, was first hydro power project. Let’s look at the periodic development:

Plan Period Capacity MW  Success (%)
Achieved Target
Till 1991 239.33
8th Plan (1992/1997) 3.2 - -
9th Plan (1997/02) 261 293 89.07%
10th Plan (2002/07) 41.63 314 13.26%
Interim Plan (2007/10) 82 105 78.09%

9th plan is considered to be most successful in history of development where as 10th Plan is a dismal failure.

What are the reasons behind grand failure of 10th Plan? Among various reasons, Maoist insurgency is one of the main reasons. The civil war begun in 13 February 1996, reached to its peak in 2000, and ended in 2006. The period of 10th plan (2002/07) was in the peak time of the civil war. During the war, government was limited to urban areas and Maoist had dominated most of the rural parts of the country. Due to lack of security of projects side, many hydropower projects couldn’t be executed at that time. With the peace agreement, the Maoist insurgency ended in 2006, and the Interim Plan achieved 78.09% success. If we look at 9th plan, before civil war, it had achieved 89.07% of its target.

Ratna Sansar, hydro-expert, said that main reason of failure of hydropower projects is due to weak financial engineering. One of worst example is Middle Marshyangdi that had 4 years of time overrun and 5 folds cost overrun (from Rs. 109 to Rs. 529). And the most hyped success project is Chilime, which, however also has a 40 month time overrun and Rs. 800 million cost overruns. Historically, hydropower projects have never been completed within estimated time and budget. Some more projects which faced time overrun are showed in table below:

Project Time overrun
Kulekhani I 21 months
Marsyangdi 7 months
Kali Gandaki A 18 months
Chilime 40 months
Middle Marsyangdi 4 years

There are numerous reasons behind the failure of financial engineering. At macro level, unstable tax and duties imposed by government is main. Hydropower projects are investment sensitive and requires consistent policies. Under the electricity act, there was a Tax Holiday for15 years, and only 10% tax was applicable from the 16th year. This facility was withdrawn by Income Tax Act 2001 and again reinstated by Finance Act 2009 with some modifications. This kind of unpredictable policy frightened away investors. To be noted, the 10th plan started in 2002, Government changed the tax policy in 2001. For the import of electro-mechanical equipments, the VAT policy was not consistent. It was exempted till 2005/06, and in between it is required to be paid and finally exempted again from 2008/09.

Some economists and hydro experts claim that many potential projects have not been initiated due to lack of domestic capital. This is not true. The truth that is many potential projects have not been initiated due to lack of policy, guidelines and environment. Financial institutions in Nepal have a reserve of Rs. 700 billion. 1/10 of total reserve is sufficient for projects of upto 700WM. As per the official data, Nepal receives Rs. 300 billion remittance per annum. Ten percent of remittance is adequate for a 300MW project. But most of money has been wasted in non-productive sectors like real estates. With the lack of long term clear direction and unambiguous policies, the hydro sector has not been able to attract investment from the private sector.

Lack of efficient generation and distribution are also reason for the electricity power crises. Electricity sector is mainly divided into three sectors – generation, transmission, and distribution. Around 30% of generated electricity is lost during transmission. This is a really a high amount of loss compared with other countries. During dry season many power house generates less amount of electricity than their capacity, which is natural because of reduction in water level. However, there are been criticism that sometimes powerhouses are not generating at optimum level despite of sufficient water flow. A group of engineering students witnessed such a situation at the Marsyangdi Power plant during their visit. The Plant with capacity to generate 69MW was producing only 36 MW due to coordination problem between NEA headquarter.

There are various reasons behind the extreme electricity crisis in the country. Almost all Hydro-Projects were not successful in terms of estimated time and budget. Maoist insurgency, and inconsistent tax/custom regulations remains major reasons for project failures. No proper policy to attract private sectors is main reason for low or no private financing. Therefore, to develop hydro sector in the country a long term consistent holistic approach is required. Financial engineering and project contract should be standardized to ensure that rate of project success will be high. To attract project capital, private-public sector partnership should be encouraged. Last but not least efficient generation and distribution of power is also very important.

 

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Note: This writing is part of my EMBA work at AIM.

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