Web 2.0 is
the term that defines a broad range of computing experience for the consumer
that is revolves around the social dimension of online users. It is not a specific update to browsing the
World Wide Web such as what IP 6.0 does to the internet networking
protocol. Rather, it describes a 21st
century online experience that goes beyond mere web browsing. The internet is not more than just a mere
source of information but has taken on a computing platform that harnesses
broadband telecommunications and several online technologies to bring a level
of interactivity and collaboration between users online, broadening the implications
of online computing into the business and socio-political landscape (Swabey,
2008). Dale Dougherty of O’Rielly Media
is credited for having coined the “Web 2.0” term back in 2004 to simply put a
title that would best describe an O’Reilly media conference (Musser &
O’Reilly, 2008). Since then, the term has stuck to describe an online
experience that transcended a mere trend for social networking in Facebook and Twitter, blogging with Tumblr and Google’s BlogSpot,
and media content sharing in YouTube, Picasa and Flickr, into a defining online computing landscape
from which there is no turning back.
It is
precisely this ease with which content can become viral, reaching a potential
global market as well as the marketing potential of the experience that has not
escaped entrepreneurs who realized early on that Web 2.0 has not only
revolutionized the way people use the internet, but also created a valuable
channel to enhancing brand awareness and reach that traditional advertising
could only dream about at tremendous cost to the business. This proposal looks at improving the
operations of a major international airport – the Brisbane International – by
optimizing its use of a few major Web 2.0 technologies that can make a profound
difference to its business.
2.1 The Brisbane Airport Corporation (BAC)
Considered the 3rd
busiest airport in Australia after Sidney and Melbourne airports, Brisbane
Airport (BNE in IATA code) is the only major passenger air terminal serving the
residents and tourists of Brisbane and suburbs.
It has two runways and two passenger terminals - a domestic terminal
with flights to and from around 46 destinations in the Australian states and
territories, and an international terminal serving 32 foreign destinations. The
12 months ending in May 2011 saw it serving more than 20 million passengers. The
airport is a one of the major hubs of Virgin Australia where it has a
maintenance facility, and a secondary hub for Qantas and its budget affiliate
Jetstar.
Awards
Since the
dawn of the 21st century, the Brisbane airport has been the
recipient of various awards starting in 2001 when the Australian Airports
Association named it the Major Airport of the Year. In in the current year, the Australian Competition
and Consumer Association (ACCC) honoured it as the top Australian airport for
quality of service for the 8th consecutive year while Skytrax bestowed on it
the Best Regional Airport Award, following the same awards it got in 2008 and
2009. In 2010, its international terminal wing received the Queensland
architecture award and entered the 18th position in the list of the
world’s top 25 airports while once again being voted by Skytrax as the
"Best Australian Airport” (Brisbane Airport, 2012). In 2005, the airport earned the IATA Eagle
Award, the second of only two airports in Australia to be so awarded (IATA,
2005),
Ownership
The
Australian federal government has privatized several airports and the Brisbane
airport was acquired from the Federal Airports Corporation by a private consortium
consisting of private financial and government interests under the Brisbane
Airport Corporation (BAC) led by Amsterdam Schiphol Airport which currently
holds a management contract for airport on a 99-year lease of the facility.
2.2 Web 2.0 Business Implications
Web 2.0
replaces the traditional view of a website as a channel for disseminating
digital information to browsed and consumed by the user, with one that sees
websites as engaging tools for structured interaction between people and
between organizations and people. ‘Social media’ is a common, more meaningful
alternative term that aggregates a panoply of Web 2.0 technologies behind blogs,
wikis, social networks, social bookmarking, media file sharing, and news
aggregation sites that are constantly evolving and recombining. The
implications for business are numerous and have spawned the term Enterprise 2.0
for corporations as a counterpart to the consumer-centric Web 2.0. For starters,
Web 2.0 changes the way customers interact with one another and that demands a
change in the way businesses communicate and interact with their markets. A
company website simply used an online product brochure is a wasted opportunity.
More progressive companies are using Web 2.0/Enterprise 2.0 to stimulate
discussion and community awareness around their brand, products and services,
and are harvesting invaluable customer insight as a result.
The key
implication of social media to the business in promoting a closer relationship
between the business and its publics – customers, government, other businesses,
media, and the general public. For the
Brisbane Airport, communication between these segments of society and the business
is made more convneient by the fact that travel related information (flight
arrivals and departures, airport weather and traffic condition, potential and
actual delays, boarding routines, things to do while at the airport, etc.) can
now be accessed from anywhere and at any time, using PCs at home and mobile
devices such as smartphones and laptops with internet access. The same communication channel can be
harnessed using social media marketing over wider market reach advertising but
minus the regular advertising costs.
·
Brisbane Airport can promote cost effective
deals on behalf of airport business concessionaires and airlines with an active
and far-reaching social media presence. These
could result in added revenues to its business partners open up the option for
the airport to earn sales commission from online bookings and online sales generated
from a redirection of website traffic from its social media pages.
·
User Awareness once in the airport – Using Wi-Fi
technology at the airport premises that can access a cloud database, passengers
arriving thereat can be prompted to check on their travel requirements such as
visas, the rules of what can be brought with them while on board or their
destination, and provide them the easy channels to post feedback in regards to
their travels via mobile gadgets. This creates a sense on interaction between
the organization and the public the airport serves.
Equally
significant as the impact of Web 2.0 on consumers and customers are the
implications for internal collaboration. That workhorse of internal
communication – email – is looking decidedly tired as more effective and more
efficient communication and collaboration tools devised in the consumer realm
work their way into corporate life., Because an airport is a mecca for airlines
and their businesses (catering, aircraft maintenance, etc.), along with airport
business concessionaires (car hire firms, restaurants, trade and cultural
exhibitors, duty free shops and even health and recreational establishments),
harnessing the social interactive power of Web 2,0 can bring these internal
elements into a more cohesive and productive group acting towards a shared commitment
with airport management as if they as employees of the airport itself.
But some
companies appreciate the business value of Web 2.0/Enterprise 2.0 than others. Companies
like Dell and PlusNet use it to learn more about how they can serve their
customers better. Others, like Wachovia Bank and Best Buy use Web 2.0 tools to
help their companies and business partners work together more synergistically
with improved social cohesion (Swabey, 2008).
Every Web 2.0 application shows why it is imperative for the company,
particularly its information technology departments to understand and harness
Web 2.0 from a technical and social perspective. By enabling collaboration and fostering closer
relationships with their stakeholders (markets and publics as well as
governments and business partners), Web 2.0 empowers the business to bring its marketing,
customer service and business development activities to better economies and
cost efficiencies.
2.3. Web 2.0 in BAC
The company
is open to adapting emerging new technologies in its business operations. In a
press release issued by Cisco (2012), the Brisbane Airport Corporation has implemented
virtualization technology from network solutions provider Cisco, storage
solutions provider EMC and virtualization software provider VMware to strengthen
the company ability to enhance economies of airport operations and customer
responsiveness through strategies harnessing emergent technologies information
and communications technologies (ICT). But
along with 
this,
just exactly how far Brisbane Airport has arrived in harnessing Web 2.0 or
Enterprise 2.0 as a means to further the ends of its business imperatives is
seen by its current social media activities (Abady, 2012). The BAC has established a relatively wide social
media presence with the following:
this,
just exactly how far Brisbane Airport has arrived in harnessing Web 2.0 or
Enterprise 2.0 as a means to further the ends of its business imperatives is
seen by its current social media activities (Abady, 2012). The BAC has established a relatively wide social
media presence with the following:
·
Mobile version of official website enabling mobile users to check flight
details using smartphones with internet access;
·
Official Facebook page in standard format and
linked to the corporate website
·
Official Twitter account; and
·
Official Pinterest account
Having said
that, the airport’s social media presence can stand significant improvements in
the way it interact with its customers and airport concessionaires. For instance, their mobile website version displays
flight arrival and departure details.
However, given the fact that over 20 million foreign passengers have used
or passed through the terminal in 2011/12, it should not be that difficult to
incorporate a language selection options for passengers on the existing mobile
phone application (see Figure 1). This is more of a feature enrichment rather
than an innovation as most online services catering to several nationalities
generally have some form of language transcription that can cater to people
that do not use English as their first language.
There is
currently a gap in marketing infrastructure of Brisbane Airport Corporation
that social networking platforms such as Facebook, blogging and social media
sharing could help close. Facebook can essentially be used like a live wiki for
thousands travellers who are Facebook users who may want to be remain updated
by simply clicking one button and getting linked to the official Brisbane
Airport page. The type of information that the Airport can share on Facebook
can be extremely broad, ranging from quick facts about the airport and say its baggage
procedures and limitations to Updates on the Traffic and congestion troubling
the primary routes in and out of the facility.
There is
great room for improvement within the relationship and closeness that the
consumers feel towards the airport. Brisbane
Airport is a large multi-faced business that needs to leverage communicative
competence in bringing together the disparate business concession operating
within the pre-departure, post-departure and transit experience of passengers. Using social media to enable the Brisbane
Airports marketing strategy could aid in helping establish a better
relationship with the thousands of travellers who use social networks as well
as employees working in the airport. Social networks are all about crating and
sustaining a feeling of connection that keeps users logging in every day or several
times in a day and while the Brisbane Airport has already gained a foothold
into the social media bandwagon, there is ample room to make this presence grow
to its optimum potential.
2.4 Business Needs Analysis
An
exhaustive analysis or assessment of business needs is a fundamental diagnostic
process to determine root causes of current problems and situations that can
prepare the company in exploring and evaluating various alternatives in solving
these problems, filling in proficiency or competency gaps or market expectation
and real-world service quality gaps, and addressing the needs that can enable
the company to better achieve its business objectives. For the Brisbane Airport Corporation, the
current situational analysis using a Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and
Threats (SWOT)) analytical framework has been used to identify the major areas
when Web 2.0 can be harnessed to maximize the company’s business potential in
its target markets (Weihrich, 1982). In
addition, the PESTLE framework which explores in more detail the external
factors can feed right into the opportunities and threats in the SWOT analysis
(JISC, 2012). These are the Political,
Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and Environmental factors that may be missed
if only the SWOT was used (Thomas et al, 2007).
Table 1:
SWOT Analysis
SWOT Areas
|
Assessment
|
Strengths
|
·
The Airport is a major domestic
and international hub for several airlines in the Brisbane metropolis serving
as a gateway to Queensland, the region and the world.
·
BNE is seeing an increase in
visitor arrivals going through the airport totalling 1.8 million or an
increase in 2.7% year on year as of September 2012 (BNE, 2012).
·
The company has a relatively
strong but static online presence through its corporate website at www.bne.com.au where
BNE customers can check on flight information, travel news in Brisbane, and access
information on various travel related topics while in the airport
·
The airport has been at the
forefront of social media as it recently became the first Australian airport
to use Pinterest which has a reported 8.9 million views in the country in
February 2012. This was it third social network after Facebook and Twitter.
|
Weaknesses
|
·
There is no effective internal
communication that can link airport management to its business
concessionaires (car rentals, duty free shops, restaurants and lounge
operators, airlines booking offices)
|
Opportunities
|
·
Web 2.0 technologies have yet to
be fully harnessed;
·
A stable and growing national
economy that portends a sustained recovery from the global recession as
evidenced by recent increases in passenger arrivals in the airport
|
Threats
|
·
The airport has little competition
in the area other than those that function as alternate or feeder airports
such as Sunshine Coast. Gold Coast, Toowoomba, Ballina/Byron Gateway and
Lismore airports.
|
Table 2:
PESTLE Analysis
PESTLE
elements
|
Factors
|
Political
|
·
Healthy business relationships
exist between the company and local Brisbane authorities as well as
commercial firms engaged in concessionary business within the airport
premises.
|
Economic
|
·
Strong macroeconomic fundamentals
with rising GDP and improving unemployment rate ensure a local economy slowly
recovering from the onslaught of the global recession over the last three
years.
·
5.1% unemployment rate as of 2011,
improving slightly from the 5.2% registered in 2010. But among the youth sector (aged 15-24)
unemployed stood at 11.6% during the same period. (Index Mundi 2012).
·
Brisbane is experiencing modest
but stable growth in visitor arrivals which totalled 1.8 million for a year
on year increase of 2.7% year as of September 2012 (BNE, 2012a).
|
Social
|
·
The airport has a thriving list of
business concessions such as car rentals, restaurants and shops that together
serve passengers while going through the airport.
·
It has a growing involvement in
social networking groups such as Facebook, Twitter and recently joined Pinterest
dedicated for online users who love or enjoy air travel (BNE, 2012b).
|
Technological
|
·
Strong internal IT infrastructure
and development support for in-house application systems using existing
computing and database platforms
·
There is a growing social media
penetration rate among internet users and this can be harnessed more fully by
the company
·
Cloud computing which is a form of
IT outsourcing when used from a 3rd
party provider is emerging as the new way of supporting the business for
improved economies of scale that effectively makes unnecessary the
traditional continuous investments in hardware and software during system
upgrades (Hogan, 2008).
|
Legal
|
·
Copyright violations increase with
user-generated content in Web 2.0 (Ingram. 2010). The issues revolve around managing user-developed
or collaborated content and ensuring that the copyright of others is not
infringed in the process. This often requires a more conscientious monitoring
of critical social media content like images, music and video whose owners
are known to enforce copyright ownership rights.
·
Social media often comes with personal
information as in the case of user profiles and photos in social networks and face the potential
risk that such information are used without securing explicit permission from
their owners. Web 2.0 implementors will have to exercise more diligence and
care about protecting the privacy of individuals. (Thomson, 2008).
·
Web 2.0 content risks being
compromised by malicious users who may post pornographic, licentious, hateful
or racially derogatory materials.
Constant monitoring of the site can prevent such materials from
defacing the site.
|
Environmental
|
·
The company has not highlighted
its greening or eco-friendly efforts to general more support from greening
enthusiasts among its passengers.
Further studies will be conducted in this area to identify areas for
improvement and inclusion as an airport feature for its social media
marketing efforts.
|
