Huella

Introduction

Huella Online Travel Ltd is a Malaysian-based online travel portal which targets Greater China and Asian Pacific. It offers travel-related products and services on behalf of their suppliers. In 2000, due to the high internet penetration rate and techno-savvy population, Huella launched its local site in Hong Kong. However, Huella faced several challenges in penetrating the Hong Kong market. Its Hong Kong’s market share and revenue growth had been declining and less than expected.

This case analysis paper will be focusing on the issue of problem definition in marketing research by using the data and information from the Huella Online Travel’s case study. In the first section of this paper, previous research by MGO is analyzed and the second section is the second stage of the market research by MarketSense, which comprises the information that Huella needs to achieve its goals, decision problems, research objectives, and research design.

Qualitative Research by MGO (previous research)

Huella situates itself in the market, where consumers preferred offline alternative and generally perceived online purchases as a higher-risk transaction compared to traditional, brick’-n-mortar travel agents. As a result, Huella conducted a market research on Hong Kong consumers’ purchasing patterns towards online travel, usage pattern, brand awareness and perceptions towards the brand.

The initial research results culled from a focus group discussion showed that Huella has a low level of brand awareness as majority of the respondents had never heard of Huella brand in Hong Kong, or to a few, tended to have a vague impression of it. The respondents also perceived Huella as risky and unreliable brand which mainly due to the security concerns on Huella’s website, which led to negative perceptions and attitudes towards the brand. Respondents mainly used its website to obtain information and compare prices.

The qualitative research study that conducted by MGO...