Free internet tools for development and promotion of Kazakhstan tourism products

БЕСПЛАТНЫЕ ИНТЕРНЕТ РЕСУРСЫ ДЛЯ РАЗВИТИЯ И ПРОДВИЖЕНИЯ ТУР.ПРОДУКТА КАЗАХСТАНА

Искакова Акжан

студент, Казахский национальный университет им. Аль-Фараби, Казахстан, г. Алматы

Abstract. Since the arrival of the Internet, there has been a huge change in the intermediation world. In the past played a very important role the tour operators and the traditional travel agencies because without them the travel process could not been carried out. The choice of this topic and interest is determined by the moment because we live in a world in which things are constantly changing. Internet tools have become very popular among experts in the field of marketing and advertising. Enterprises of direct and indirect tourism spheres use the Internet as a provider of effective tools for designing and promoting tourism products / services. Modern advertising specialists note that over the past 20 years, the volume of advertising has increased by 20 % on the Internet and by 8 % on TV, and in print media it has decreased by 10 %. The amount of advertising on the Internet will soon overtake TV. Along with the market and popularity of the Internet, SMM is developed. New tools, applications, and platforms are emerged.

Аннотация. С появлением Интернета в мире посредничества произошли огромные изменения. В прошлом очень важную роль играли туроператоры и традиционные туристические агентства, потому что без них процесс путешествия не мог бы осуществляться. Выбор темы и интереса определяется моментом, потому что мы живем в мире, в котором вещи постоянно меняются. Интернет-инструменты стали очень популярными среди специалистов в области маркетинга и рекламы. Предприятия прямой и косвенной сферы туризма используют Интернет в качестве поставщика эффективных инструментов для разработки и продвижения туристических продуктов / услуг. Современные специалисты по рекламе отмечают, что за последние 20 лет объем рекламы в Интернете увеличился на 20%, на телевидении - на 8%, а в печатных СМИ - снизился на 10%. Количество рекламы в Интернете скоро превзойдет телевидение. Вместе с рынком и популярностью Интернета развивается SMM. Появляются новые инструменты, приложения и платформы.

Keywords: free internet tools, Google, tour product, Kazakhstan, booking, platform.

Ключевые слова: бесплатные интернет ресурсы, Гугл, тур. продукт, Казахстан, бронирование, платформа.

The object of research is the Google Search Engine in the sphere of tourism, where the subject of the research is the features and modern trends in the development of the Google [1], its impact on the tourism industry and usage of Google to gather information regarding to travel issues. Google Search Engine is defined as a multi-purpose tool on a huge scale, which can greatly improve tourism industry as a whole.

The concept of Google in tour product promotion includes any service on the Internet that is using crowd sourcing as its main modification tool and that it is accessible to anyone. A new project, digitization of books in major libraries, was clearly Google’s most ambitious project [2]. Page and Brin announced they were prepared to devote significant amounts of money and resources to digitizing millions of books that were gathering dust or growing old and brittle in famous libraries all over the world. Five big names, University of Michigan, Stanford, Harvard, Oxford and New York Public library signed up. Google won over the publishers arguing that they would find new opportunities to sell books [3].

Google would cover the costs of scanning and indexing books for the right to display them as part of search results. Google would display only the few selected pages or snippets of text that related to the user’s query and in a form that could not be copied or printed. Google believed all this could give readers a taste of the book and entice them into purchasing a copy.

Google has direct impact on the promotion process of tour product in Kazakhstan. Nowadays, tourists mostly use Booking.com, TripAdvisor, Aviate, Chocotravel, Tickets.kz for booking and buying purposes [4]. In this case, Google is an intermediary between customer and service supplier, that vital component in the whole structure. From all taken replies, 66,7 per cent or extremely high proportion is taken by Accommodation facilities. Accommodation is the common term that covers all types of housing. Hotels, motel, hostels, B and b, even houses of relatives and friends are types of accommodation. This topic will be more deeper discussed in the following chapter.

Second more preferred choice is transportation. Doubtless, first question that you ask for yourself before going somewhere after «where I will sleep? » is "how i will reach this or that destination?". And last interestingly 3rd place winner is events and activities. People mostly look for interesting events around the place of their residing to hang out. Facebook has similar tool as events for a week or some gathering nearby [5]. This helps a lot when you are travelling, especially alone, to meet new people and make friends.

There are plenty of apps, as InterNatons, Couchsurfing which help to find locals. This diagram also shows that people are not highly interested in food and catering service offered by that place, because anyway you will find some place to eat. It is already included option of minds

Since the beginning of the year, Google’s share in Kazakhstan has grown from 66.84% to 72.37% [6]. The share of Yandex almost did not change: 20.61% and 20.1%. Most of all behavioral changes have touched the search engine from Mail.ru. In January, its share was 11.32% and in December it tragically fell to 6.86%.But it is always necessary to evaluate market share and relatively absolute indicators of traffic. Google had 2.814 billion visits (or 70.05% of the average annual), Yandex - 0.804 billion visits (or 20.01%) on the Mail.ru search engine - 0.361 billion visits (9.01%).These changes can be shown clearly in a form of diagrams below.

• Rapid development of network technologies allows you to accumulate, analyze and update the tourism data;

• The leaders of many companies are aware of the promise of using online platforms, in a face of Google search engine in a competitive environment.

In the second case we see the total suppression and superiority of Google. Along with that, we must remember that the data provided by Yandex, on the basis of its statistics service, which may not be installed on some sites [7]. Therefore, all figures given and used must be taken with a certain degree of skepticism.

Figure 1. Number of visits [6]

This year the author was honored to take part in Google conference, organized by International Business University of Munchen, Germany. The main guest, who presented new models and projects of Google was Thierry Geerts, CEO of Google Belgium and Luxembourg. The conference itself was focused on economical issues and business development, how Google is interconnecting and which principles are used by Google in everyday work. However, it was pretty interesting lecture for me that helped me to realize and organize some details in my mind.

Some of the characteristics of the hotel reviews are that they use the pay per click model, as Google does [8]. They allow the comparison of hotels which are competitors in order to be conscious of the different quality offers. And finally they analyze the reputation of the hotels, that is, the hotel company is able to know the rating, the comments and the positioning it has. The hotel reviews which are on the top of the list today are Tripadvisor and Holiday check.

Figure 2. Online survey results [3]

From the personal experience in the hotel industry at Schwand Gasthof hotel in Germany, the author got enough knowledge in the organization of hotel industry.

At present, information technologies in the Republic of Kazakhstan are experiencing a stage of active development for the following reasons:

• There is a large number of organizations whose activities extend to the vast territory of our country;

• The software market with powerful IT-functionality appeared on the information technologies market;

A unique digital product, an Application “Kazakhstan Land of the Great Steppe", has been presented in this section [9].

A one-of-a-kind high quality interactive application, presenting multimedia on the most representative geographic, political, touristic, historical, economic facts about Kazakhstan, contains hundreds of high quality unique photographs, videos, 3D objects, panoramic tours, interactive charts, and innovative maps. It should be of interest to anyone who wants to learn about the world's ninth largest country, including tourists, students, and business people. 

We see that the difference is huge, but we have to not miss that fact, that Kazakhstan is only 28 years old, how it dramatically can be sound [10]. We are young and strong country that has all chances and opportunities to be among 30 high developed countries in the whole world. If to consider that tourism as a field of economy was released and accepted officially only several years ago, from all aspects the author of work finds it a good progress and development of Kazakhstan tourism.

Gradually, Google is going to evolve even further, but it need certain acceleration by putting enough resources and attention to it, especially in Kazakhstan, which is in dire need of any ways of marketing of our tourist products and services [11].

All of this can be achieved by active usage of Google by involved tourists and organizations not only in the country itself, but also by the tourists and tour operators from abroad.

From the time of exchange semester the author was inspired with the realization of this project. As it was aimed initially it was necessary to organize research work among two segments as world (almost world) and Kazakhstan market, making an accent on country trends and development of tourism of Kazakhstan at all.

According to survey, which was carried among foreign as well as Kazakhstan audience we found that Google is the often used Search engines among Yandex or Yahoo partners. Indeed, even in daily life we can not imagine our lives without Goggle help [12]. If something happened, where there is no clear and immediate solution we type as fast as we can of Google in order to solve that given task. That’s why the role of Google Search engine in tourism sphere is vital and can not be replaced.