Which Business Model is e-trip?

Nice chart ! Personally, I 'll go for Intermediaries... even if others seemed more appealing such as full service providers ^^ But, e-trip is just an online market place, isn't it?

Well I guess that E-trip's business model is Intermediaries; their aim is to provide cheap flight tickets to customers, so they act as an intermediary between airlines and customers.

I agree with you Fli Flo! I would have chosen internediaries too

I agree with Florent, I would choose intermediaries because in the end they just sell products of other companies (they allow buyers and sellers to meet) but as long as they tend to diversify their offer with car rentals and hotels I would also go for full service providers claiming that their domain is 'traveling'.

i agree with everyone, i woul have chosen intermediaries thanks to etrip seller (companies' "flights") and buyers ( end customer) meet in the online market but on the other hand i tend to agree with betul because etrip don't propose only this service but multiple other services so it can be also full service provider

According to this question, I think Etrip is "Full service provider and Intermediaries." Because it provides a purchase solution (service) of airlines, hotels, cars and so on for its customers. Moreover, it also plays a role that intermediares do because Etrip indeed brings buyers and sellers together and collect affiliate fee from the suppliers.

Hmmm I'm not sure but I think etrip could also be a content provider?? Because they send you a personal offer according to your wishes.
You (end consumer) ask etrip (content provider) search Airline websites (sellers)

etrip sends you information and the website, where they found the special offer, right? So it could be a content provider.

I found this quotation on their website:

Etrip is a field market research project that compared flight prices in the various online reservation channels. We handled over 1.100 requests from 71 different countries and tried to learn whether existing travel reservations solutions are able to give customers with complete travel options variety. We also tried to learn how good are the prices offered by the various players in the market and established a calculation called 'Money Saved' which was based on these results. Etrip research project is currently closed for requests.

http://www.etrip.nl/aboutus.php

Like a lot of you, I also think the business model of ETRIP belongs to the model type Intermediaries. It brings buyers and sellers together.

I think etrip is a content provider.

They provide to the customers classified informations (personnal offer for fights tickets) and services. They use airlines companies product to give the informations to the customer according to his need.

Do we really have to choose? I mean, it's true that Etrip is definitely an intermediary, but like some other people said, it could also be content provider. And according to Ettrip business plan, its ultimate aspiration is to become a full service provider.

The better they become at what they do, the more services they can offer and consequently more value for the user. As a result, they can expand into other categories and find new opportunities.

I would also have to say that they are intermediate since they provide the flight information and tickets to the customers but they cannot provide the plane ride since they are not an airline.

I think the BM of Etrip is a hybrid of a immediary and virtual community. Here are my arguements.

Frist, Etrip is not a content provider. in page 4 the author mentions that Etrip belongs a travel reservations gateway model which not relynig on contnet links and revenues provided by onlne travel agencies. Rahter, it is benefited directly from end custmers. Since Etrip does not provide the content created on its own, it tends to invited users to share opinion.(Etrip's potential products list include "User-generated content".) It is combine both sorting best price (quantity) with valuable customer opinions (qualitity). A content provider might generate its revenues relying more on the advertisments, while Etrip tends to have only 15% of Advertisements income of its total revenue. p.8

Second, Etrip is mroe than a search engine. Etrip claims sthat they would offer customers an alll-in-one online travel purchasing experience. They also charge their customers directly through a pay-as-you-go method, when customers use their purchase assistance tools. P.5 Therefore, it does not just bring users and sellers together, but also tends to generate direct revenues from its services. (40% of its total revenue)

I agree with Naomi, why should we choose? Still, it seems really difficult to exclude any of the BM type as defined above. To my opinion any of them is in a position to create value for ETRIP.

Nevertheless I would say that some of these BM are prevailing:
-Intermediaries : as argued in previous posts.
-Full services provider : The value driver for Etrip is to add services to an initial request from the customer.
-Content provider : On the one hand, the potential addition of services into the customer baskets rely on the information quantity and accuracy.
-Virtual community : On the other hand, no information can be trusted without a real and active 2.0 community. (rating, experience sharing etc...)

Finally, from a B2B point of view we could even say that Etrip is a shared infrastructure as it provides the market actors with an effective distribution channel.