ASSIGNMENT

QUESTIONS
 BACHELOR OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

MARKETING MANAGEMENT II

ASSIGNMENT

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ASSIGNMENT FORMAT:

Assignment 1 Assignment 2
(where Minimum Maximum
Programme
applicable) Assignment body references similarity
assignment
length required in a index
submission
Assignment body in words – bibliography permitted
guidelines
length excludes
in words – cover page,
excludes tables of
cover page, contents, and
tables of references
contents, and
references
Masters 1,200 – 1,500 5,000–7,000 15 15%
Postgraduate 1,000 – 1,200 4,500–5,500 10 15%
Diploma
Third year 1,500 – 2000 (LLB) 3,500–4,500 7 30%
Second year 1,500 – 2000 (LLB) 3,000–4,000 5 30%
First year and 1,500 – 2000 (LLB) 2,500–3,500 3 30%
higher
certificate

Please consult the Turnitin similarity index guidelines. If a submission exceeds the permitted
threshold, the student must revise the manuscript by paraphrasing content and ensuring all
sources are accurately cited and referenced.

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Line spacing 1.15 pt. 1.15 pt. 1.15 pt.
Margins 2 cm top, bottom, left and right

• Appendices may be a maximum of three pages each, and the information must be
relevant to the assignment, with links provided so that your assessor can evaluate
your sources.

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these count for marks.

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 MARK ALLOCATION GUIDELINES
Introduction Up to 5% for a clear statement of purpose, a clear outline of aspects
and conclusion covered in the assignment, a summary of key issues in the assignment, and the
relevance of the summary to the assignment
Referencing No in-text Minimal Referencing is The minimum Perfect in-text
referencing or referencing evident but is number of referencing,
reference list evident inconsistent, references reference list,
= 0% = 1–4% incomplete, has been variety, and
and exceeded number of
insufficient = 6%–9% references
= 5% consulted and
substantially
exceeding the
minimum
number of
references
required =
10%

Body The marks awarded for the questions you answer or tasks you perform will be
calculated out of 100. These will be recalculated to count for 85% of the total
assignment mark.

Referencing

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Enclose quotes in inverted commas to indicate that they are not your words and
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• Refer to the video on Plagiarism and Referencing in your Self-Pace Orientation

module for guidance.

• Extensive and credible academic references are required to demonstrate that you
have researched the topics fully and can substantiate your arguments critically.

• NOTE: At the postgraduate level, you are expected to substantiate your answers
with evidence from independent research.

Referencing Styles

• All schools are required to utilise the APA 7 referencing style, except for the School of
Law, which adheres to the SAAJHR House Style 2017.

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 INTRODUCTION TO THE ASSIGNMENT

• This assignment consists of ONE case study and FOUR questions.

[Link] Growth Case Study: $23.7B Travel Empire

The [Link] case study is one of those stories that sounds too good to be true; a broke Dutch grad student builds
a hotel-booking site with a server under his desk in 1996 and, three decades later, it becomes the world’s most-visited
travel platform with $23.7 billion in revenue. But it is completely real. In this blog, we dig into how [Link] grew: the
business model, the SEO obsession, the marketing playbook, the AI bets, and most importantly, the strategic moves that
most people overlook. If you are a marketer, founder, or just someone trying to understand what world-class digital growth
looks like, this [Link] case study has some genuinely useful lessons packed inside.

Introduction

You search for a hotel, pick one, pay, and you are done. But behind that ridiculously smooth experience is one of the
most disciplined, data-obsessed, quietly ruthless growth stories in internet history.

What is interesting is that [Link] did not win because it had the most funding, or the flashiest product launch, or
some genius branding moment. It won because it was relentlessly useful. It kept making the booking experience a tiny
bit better, every single day, for nearly 30 years. That is it. That is the whole secret, and it is harder than it sounds.

This case study breaks it all down: where it came from, how the business model works, what the marketing strategy looks
like under the hood, and what you can practically take away from all of it.

The Origin Story: A Problem Spotted at the Right Time

Picture Amsterdam in 1996. The internet existed, but barely in the way we know it today. Geert-Jan Bruinsma, a recent
University of Twente graduate who had briefly worked as a hotel night porter during his studies, stumbled across
[Link] and realised you could book a hotel room online in the US.

He looked for something similar for hotels in Amsterdam. Nothing existed.

So, he built it himself, launching [Link] on November 12, 1996. He operated it off a server literally sitting under his
desk. He knew almost nothing about the hotel industry; he set commissions at 5% because it “sounded logical,” not
because of any industry research. Hotels would set their own rates on the site. Simple, clean, disruptive.

The early growth was anything but smooth. When he tried to take out a newspaper ad in 1997, the paper refused; ads
had to include a phone number, not just a web address. That one detail tells you exactly how foreign the concept of an
online-only business was at the time.

What kept [Link] alive in the early days was an instinct for partnerships. Two other hotel-listing sites in Amsterdam
were not offering real online reservations. Bruinsma approached them with a deal: link your visitors to [Link], split
the commission 50/50. That simple move gave him enough traction to hire his first full employee by the end of 1998.

The real rocket fuel arrived in 2003. Google AdWords launched, and [Link] took to it with an almost frightening
speed. They became one of Google’s largest customers so quickly that Google asked them to slow down; their system
was creating new ad campaigns faster than Google’s servers could process them.

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That is the moment the business really started flying.

In 2000, [Link] merged with another Dutch startup called [Link] and adopted the [Link] URL. By
2005, the company had grown enough that Priceline Group (now Booking Holdings) acquired it for $133 million; along
with UK-based Active Hotels, which it had bought for $161 million the year before. The two were merged into what
became the [Link] we know today.

That $133 million price tag looks laughably small in hindsight. Priceline went from a $19 million net loss in 2002 to $1.1
billion in profit by 2011; almost entirely because of what happened with [Link].

Understanding the Business Model: More Interesting Than You Would Think

At first glance, the [Link] business model seems obvious: travellers book stays, the platform takes a commission,
and everyone goes home happy. But the real story is more layered than that.

Two Ways to Make Money from the Same Transaction

[Link] operates on two different revenue models, and the shift between them is one of the more important strategic
stories of the last few years.

The older model, the agency model, works like this: you book a hotel, the hotel charges your card directly, and
[Link] collects a commission afterwards. Clean, simple, low risk. The hotel handles the money.

The newer model, the merchant model, flips that. [Link] processes your payment upfront, then pays the hotel
later. They are now the merchant of record, which means they control more of the customer experience, have better data
on what is happening at checkout, and can offer things like easier cancellations and unified refund policies.

Here’s why this matters: in 2024, 60% of [Link]’s gross bookings came through the merchant model, with merchant
bookings growing 51.7% while agency bookings grew just 2.3%. That is not a small shift; it is a deliberate, multi-year
pivot toward a more controlled, more profitable business structure.

The Connected Trip: Thinking Beyond Hotels

The bigger ambition at [Link] right now is what they call the “Connected Trip.” The idea is simple but ambitious:
do not just be the place people book hotels. Be the place they book the whole trip, flights, rental cars, airport taxis, day
tours, and restaurant tables.

In 2024, that vision started showing real numbers. Nearly 49 million airline tickets were booked through the platform, up
36% from the year before. Rental car bookings hit a record 83 million. The more components a traveller books in one
place, the more loyal they become, and the harder it is to leave for a competitor.

The Scale That Makes Your Head Spin

Before getting into the strategy, it helps to understand what “global scale” means for [Link].

As of early 2025, the platform lists over 31 million total reported properties, including 8.1 million alternative
accommodation listings (apartments, country houses, boats, treehouses, yes, actual treehouses) across more than
175,000 destinations in 220+ countries and territories. Travellers have left over 370 million verified reviews, which can
only be submitted by people who genuinely booked through the platform.

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The mobile app has over 100 million active users, and mobile bookings account for roughly 60% of all transactions. The
website pulls in around 560 million visits every single month, making it the most-visited travel site on the planet as of
2025.

In 2024, the platform facilitated 1.1 billion room nights; that is, a billion people sleeping somewhere they found on
[Link]. Total revenues hit $23.7 billion, up 11.2% from the year before. Net income reached $5.8 billion, a 37%
jump. Gross bookings crossed $165.6 billion.

And it has not stopped. For full-year 2025, Booking Holdings reported revenues of $26.9 billion; another 13% increase,
with adjusted EBITDA up 20% to $9.9 billion.

The Marketing Strategy: Where [Link] Really Earns Its Dominance

This is the section that most case studies rush through. We’re not going to do that, because [Link]’s marketing is
genuinely worth studying in detail.

SEO: Not Just Good; Structurally Unstoppable

If there is one thing [Link] has done better than almost anyone in its industry, it is SEO. And not in the “we publish
lots of blog posts” way. In the deep, structural, almost architectural way.

The platform ranks for over 18 million organic keywords globally and drives roughly 120 million monthly visits from search
alone. Research consistently shows that over 80% of travel planning starts with a search engine query. [Link] has
built its entire web presence around intercepting those queries at every stage: inspiration, research, comparison, and
booking.

The technical foundation is exceptional. URLs follow clean, crawlable hierarchies. Internal linking is systematic and
deliberate. Site speed is treated as a business-critical metric, not a developer concern. And the platform is built mobile-
first, which matters enormously because most travel searches now happen on phones.

But the thing that really makes [Link]’s SEO untouchable is user-generated content. Those 370 million verified
reviews are not just social proof; they are a constantly refreshed reservoir of keyword-rich, location-specific, genuinely
useful content that search engines love. A review mentioning “the breakfast was amazing at this canal-view hotel in
Amsterdam’s Jordaan neighbourhood” is doing SEO work that no copywriter could replicate at scale.

The content strategy also targets travellers in the research phase before they are ready to book. Destination guides,
neighbourhood breakdowns, “best hotels for families in X” articles. These capture people early, build trust, and keep
[Link] top of mind when the booking moment arrives.

Paid Search: Precision Over Volume

[Link] is also one of the heaviest investors in paid search globally. In 2024, the total marketing spend hit $7.3
billion, rising to $8.2 billion in 2025. But here is the nuance: the ratio of marketing spend to gross bookings has been
declining, which means they are getting more efficient, not just spending more.

The PPC strategy is not about reaching the most people; it is about reaching the right people at the exact moment they
have purchase intent. Bidding on “hotels in Kyoto” is one thing. Bidding on “cheap boutique hotels near Fushimi Inari
Kyoto” is where the real conversion magic happens.

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Social Media: Community and Aspiration Together

[Link]’s social strategy is less about hard selling and more about staying present in a traveller’s mind during the
period between “I want to go somewhere” and “okay, I’m actually booking.” Instagram showcases aspirational imagery.
Facebook targets older demographics with curated deals and travel inspiration. YouTube hosts longer content:
destination features, property showcases, and travel tips.

The TravelGenius campaign is worth noting here. Travellers who shared their experiences with the #TravelGenius
hashtag could be contacted by [Link] to have their content shared on its channels, and selected creators received
$500 in travel credits. Low cost, high authenticity, massive content volume. Classic UGC marketing done right.

Personalization and Email: The Quiet Revenue Engine

[Link]’s email and personalisation strategy operate mostly in the background, but it’s a genuine revenue driver. If
you search for hotels in Barcelona and do not book, you might get an email a week later with a “prices have dropped”
alert. If you booked a hotel in Tokyo last year, you might get a “similar properties you’d love” recommendation before
your next trip window.

This kind of contextual, behavioural personalisation is not magic; it is a data infrastructure built over years, combined with
machine learning models trained on millions of past booking behaviours. The result is emails that feel less like marketing
and more like a helpful nudge from a friend who happens to know a lot about hotels.

The Genius Loyalty Programme: Perks That Actually Matter

[Link]’s Genius programme is worth calling out specifically, because it’s a better loyalty programme than most
travel brands manage to build.

The reason it works is simple: the benefits are real and tangible. Free room upgrades. Complimentary breakfast. Actual
percentage discounts on rates, up to 20% through Getaway Deals in 2025. These are not theoretical rewards you
accumulate over the years. They are perks you feel on your current trip.

The tiered structure (Genius Level 1, 2, and 3 based on booking frequency) creates the right kind of incentive: travel
more to unlock better perks, which makes you want to travel more. It is a flywheel that turns casual users into loyal ones,
and loyal ones into advocates.

The AI Bet: Building for the Next Era of Travel

[Link] has been using machine learning for over a decade for things like dynamic pricing, fraud detection, and
personalised ranking. But the generative AI wave has given them a new set of tools, and they have moved fast.

In June 2023, the platform launched a generative AI trip planner, a conversational interface where travellers can describe
their ideal trip in plain English and get personalised recommendations, with a booking widget embedded directly in the
chat. One of the earliest consumer-facing GenAI tools in the entire travel industry.

By October 2024, three more AI features had launched: Smart Filter (describe what you want in words, AI applies the
right search filters), Property Q&A (ask specific questions about individual hotels, get AI-generated answers from reviews
and property data), and Review Summaries (AI distills hundreds of reviews into a readable paragraph so you do not have
to read all 847 of them).

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Then in October 2025, [Link] launched its first agentic AI tools: Smart Messenger and Auto-Reply, which handle
property-to-guest communication autonomously. AI Voice Support went live the same month, letting travellers manage
bookings by speaking naturally, with the system pulling booking details and either resolving the issue or connecting
seamlessly to a human agent.

There is also an active partnership with OpenAI to integrate large language models into search and customer experience.
Booking Holdings CEO Glenn Fogel has been loud about his conviction here, describing agentic AI as a “transformative
force” and backing that language with real money; approximately $170 million of the company’s efficiency savings are
being reinvested specifically into AI capabilities and Connected Trip development.

What [Link] Did Right That Others Missed

Looking back across the whole arc of this case study, a few things stand out as genuinely counterintuitive.

They bet on SEO when everyone else was betting on ads. In the early Google era, many OTAs treated organic search
as a bonus on top of their paid spend. [Link] built its entire infrastructure around ranking organically. Two decades
of compounding that investment is now nearly impossible for competitors to replicate.

They let hotels set their own prices from day one. Bruinsma did not dictate rates. Hotels controlled their own pricing on
the platform. This was radical for 1996, and it is a key reason that properties trusted [Link] early on. That trust
turned into inventory scale, which turned into consumer choice, which turned into market dominance.

They did not chase shininess. [Link] never had the most beautiful website, the coolest brand campaign, or the
most talked-about product launch. They had the most useful platform, and they kept making it more useful. In a world
obsessed with growth hacks, that is a genuinely boring strategy, and it clearly works.

They made peace with being a background brand. Unlike Airbnb, which built an emotional lifestyle brand, [Link]
is primarily a utility. Travellers use it because it works, not because it makes them feel something. That is a resilient
position; utility is harder to displace than aspiration.

Conclusion:

When Geert-Jan Bruinsma launched [Link] from his apartment in 1996, he was not thinking about market share
or gross booking volume. He was just solving a problem: why can’t I book a hotel in Amsterdam online?

Three decades later, that simple instinct has become a business that facilitates $165+ billion in annual travel bookings,
employs thousands of people across 70+ countries, and is used by over 560 million people every month.

The lesson is not that you need to be first ([Link] was not), or the best-funded (it was not that either), or the most
innovative. The lesson is that if you solve a real problem well, and keep solving it better year after year, the compounding
effect of that work eventually becomes something that is very, very hard to compete with.

(Sourced from: Suroshi, V. (2026, April 08). [Link] growth case: $23.7B travel empire. Young Urban Project.
[Link] (accessed 14 May 2026))

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ASSIGNMENT QUESTIONS

QUESTION/SECTION 1 [25 MARKS]

Explain how [Link] segments, targets, and positions itself in the online travel market using the
customer-driven marketing strategy framework.

TOPIC POOR ROOM TO PROFICIENT MASTERLY

= 0%-24% DEVELOP = 25%- = 51%-74% = 75-100%
50%
CRITERIA
Explain how Little to no attempt has An attempt has been The student has explained A comprehensive and
[Link] been made to explain made to explain how how [Link] coherent explanation of how
segments, targets, how [Link] [Link] segments, segments, targets, and [Link] segments,
and positions itself in segments, targets, and targets, and positions positions itself in the online targets and positions itself in
the online travel positions itself in the itself in the online travel travel market using the the online travel market using
market using the online travel market market using the customer-driven marketing the customer-driven
customer-driven using the customer- customer-driven strategy framework. marketing strategy framework
marketing strategy driven marketing marketing strategy has been carefully provided
framework. strategy framework. framework, but it is barely by the student.
plausible.

QUESTION/SECTION 2 [25 MARKS]

Discuss [Link]’s growth from an Amsterdam hotel-booking website into a global connected-
trip platform using the product life cycle.

TOPIC POOR ROOM TO PROFICIENT MASTERLY

= 0%-24% DEVELOP = 25%- = 51%-74% = 75-100%
50%
CRITERIA
Discuss Little to no attempt has An attempt has been The student has A meticulous and logical
[Link]’s growth been made to discuss made to discuss discussed [Link]’s discussion of
from an Amsterdam [Link]’s growth [Link]’s growth growth from an [Link]’s growth from
hotel-booking website from an Amsterdam from an Amsterdam hotel- Amsterdam hotel-booking an Amsterdam hotel-
into a global hotel-booking website booking website into a website into a global booking website into a
connected-trip platform into a global connected- global connected-trip connected-trip platform global connected-trip
using the product life trip platform using the platform using the product using the product life platform using the product
cycle. product life cycle. life cycle, but it is barely cycle. life cycle has been given by
plausible. the student.

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QUESTION/SECTION 3 [25 MARKS]

Using the pricing decisions framework from the study guide, evaluate [Link]’s shift from the
agency model to the merchant model.

TOPIC POOR ROOM TO PROFICIENT MASTERLY

= 0%-24% DEVELOP = 25%- = 51%-74% = 75-100%
50%
CRITERIA
Using the pricing Little to no attempt has An attempt has been The student has A rigorous and cogent
decisions framework been made to evaluate made to evaluate evaluated [Link]’s evaluation of [Link]’s
from the study guide, [Link]’s shift from [Link]’s shift from shift from the agency shift from the agency model
evaluate the agency model to the the agency model to the model to the merchant to the merchant model
[Link]’s shift merchant model using merchant model using the model using the pricing using the pricing decisions
from the agency model the pricing decisions pricing decisions decisions framework from framework from the study
to the merchant model. framework from the study framework from the study the study guide. guide has been
guide. guide, but it is barely scrupulously done by the
plausible. student.

QUESTION/SECTION 4 [25 MARKS]

Apply the integrated marketing communication framework to [Link]’s use of SEO, paid search,
user-generated content, social media, email personalisation and loyalty communication.

TOPIC POOR ROOM TO PROFICIENT MASTERLY

= 0%-24% DEVELOP = 25%- = 51%-74% = 75-100%
50%
CRITERIA
Apply the integrated Little to no attempt has An attempt has been The student has applied An exhaustive and
marketing been made to apply the made to apply the the integrated marketing thorough application of the
communication integrated marketing integrated marketing communication integrated marketing
framework to communication communication framework framework to communication framework
[Link]’s use of framework to to [Link]’s use of [Link]’s use of to [Link]’s use of
SEO, paid search, user- [Link]’s use of SEO, paid search, user- SEO, paid search, user- SEO, paid search, user-
generated content, SEO, paid search, user- generated content, social generated content, social generated content, social
social media, email generated content, social media, email media, email media, email
personalisation and media, email personalisation and loyalty personalisation and personalisation and loyalty
loyalty communication. personalisation and communication, but it is loyalty communication. communication has been
loyalty communication. barely plausible. rigorously done by the
student.

Total Marks: 100

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