In: Operations Management
Columbiana is a small, independent island in the Caribbean that has many historical buildings, forts, and other sites along with rain forests and striking mountains. A few first-class hotels and several dozen less expensive accommodations lie along its beautiful white-sand beaches. The major airlines have regular flights to Columbiana, as do several small airlines. Columbiana’s government wants to increase tourism and develop new markets for the country’s tropical agricultural products. How can a web presence help? What Internet business model would be appropriate? What functions should the website perform?
Columbiana can increase tourism intensely through creating an online presence and implementing an effective business model. By forming online presence millions of web users would be able to see what Columbiana has too offer for a vacation. Columbiana is one of the smaller islands in the Caribbean so it may not be well known, by putting the information out there it will allow more to discover it. Having a website can also help with how easily prospective tourists find hotel rates so they can book a reservation.
The website should be able to give customers a catalogue of financial commodities as well as different travel packages to the island. A transaction broker business model would work best for this because the focus of the site should be with travel services.
Having a variety of function for the website would assist it in becoming more popular. The focus should be on travel, by connecting users to various hotels in the area, airlines that travel to the island, and information about flights. The website should also discuss the history of the island and the most popular attractions that tourists would want to visit. Including pictures and videos of the scenery and attractions would also help to grab the users’ attention by showing them how beautiful the location is.