Business Plan for

InThessaloniki.com
Konstantinos Dimitrios Patsogiannis

SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS, BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION & LEGAL STUDIES

A thesis submitted for the degree of
Master of Business Administration

January 2019
Thessaloniki – Greece

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 Student Name: Konstantinos Dimitris Patsogiannis
SID: 1101170015
Supervisor: Prof. Souitaris Vangelis

I hereby declare that the work submitted is mine and that where I have made use of
another’s work, I have attributed the source(s) according to the Regulations set in the
Student’s Handbook.

January 2019
Thessaloniki - Greece

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 Executive Summary

The opportunity
Demonstration of the tourist’s industry socioeconomics which are going to ensure us
that the current business plan is indeed based in an opportunity. Study of market’s
development, analysis of the competitors and what inthessaloniki.com is going to
offer.

Method Data – Collection

Use of Google analytics in the already established website to collect the desired
demographic data, the devices that were used and the traffic sources that brought the
visitors.
Approach of the potential customers and organise a survey in order to explore the
possibilities of advertising in an online company like Inthessaloniki.com.

Analysis
Demonstration of the marketing strategy, the operations of the business, the financial
elements and the human resources capabilities.
Among others we provide the following reports
• P.E.S.T.E.L. analysis (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, Legal)
• SWOT Analysis & Matrix
• Marketing strategy

Conclusions
Restate of the thesis, summarize of the main points and answering of the “so what?”
question. Is the business plan feasible?

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Preface

The basis of InTheessaloniki.com idea was originally steamed from my everyday

persuation of finding the uniquness and , not neceserilly globaly but even inside a small
community or a city.

My grandfather said when I was ten years old “pursuit an idea in a market that has not
much competition” summarized in a sentence some very basic rules of business
organization growth.

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Contents

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ............................................................................................ III

THE OPPORTUNITY........................................................................................................... III

METHOD DATA – COLLECTION .......................................................................................... III
ANALYSIS ....................................................................................................................... III
CONCLUSIONS ................................................................................................................ III

PREFACE .................................................................................................................IV

CONTENTS ...............................................................................................................V

INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................ 1

THE OPPORTUNITY................................................................................................... 3

WHY WE NEED A BUSINESS PLAN .........................................................................................3

Financing the ideas ............................................................................................3
Organise and set goals and milestones .............................................................3
Take the control over your business ..................................................................3
THE DEVELOPMENT OF TOURISM AND THE ROLE OF INTERNET ....................................................4
Development of tourist section worldwide ........................................................4
Contribution of travel and tourism in global economy ......................................5
Searched categories by Google ..........................................................................6
Online share of tourism revenue in European Union .........................................7
The role of the tourism sector in e-commerce ...................................................8
THE GROWTH OF TOURISM IN GREECE ..................................................................................8
THE GROWTH OF TOURISM IN THESSALONIKI........................................................................10
WHERE INTHESSALONIKI.COM WILL TARGET.........................................................................10
COMPANIES WEBSITES THAT OFFER CITY INFORMATION – COMPETITORS ...................................12
Websites Targeting to foreign visitors .............................................................13
Websites – companies targeting to Greek visitors and locals .........................14
WHAT INTHESSALONIKI.COM IS GOING TO OFFER ..................................................................15

METHOD – DATA COLLECTION ................................................................................ 17

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 DEMOGRAPHICS.............................................................................................................17
Affinity Categories ...........................................................................................18
Geographical stats ...........................................................................................19
Devices used .....................................................................................................20
Traffic sources ..................................................................................................21
MARKET APPROACH........................................................................................................21
Cafe – Bars .......................................................................................................22
Restaurants ......................................................................................................24

ANALYSIS ............................................................................................................... 27

HUMAN RESOURCES .......................................................................................................27

OWNERSHIP – SLICING THE PIE .........................................................................................28
P.E.S.T.E.L. ANALYSIS .................................................................................................29
SWOT ANALYSIS & MATRIX, STRATEGIC GRAND MATRIX .....................................................31
SWOT Analysis & Matrix ..................................................................................31
MARKETING STRATEGY....................................................................................................32
Product .............................................................................................................33
Price 33
Placement ........................................................................................................34
Promotion ........................................................................................................35
FINANCIAL ANALYSIS .......................................................................................................36
First 3 years – Phase I.......................................................................................36
Phase II – Organise tours .................................................................................40

HARVEST AND EXIT ................................................................................................ 43

CONCLUSIONS........................................................................................................ 43

BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................................... 45

APPENDIX ................................................................................................................ 1

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Introduction

From the year 2004 and towards Greece, following the worldwide trend, is increasing
steadily every year the numbers of the visitors. In the year 2004 the visitors were 11.7
million while on 2017 were 27.2 million can be characterized a tremendous increase.

Thessaloniki is following the trend of the rest of Greece. According to the official
statistics on 2010 the city had 0.27 mil visitors and on 2017 had 0.6 mil doubling the
total number.

On 2013 me, Konstantinos Patsogiannis, and George Chatzifotis foresee the positive
development rate of the specific sector and the same time we realized that the city lacks
on the information that are provided through the global network. There was no
trustworthy, updated guide on the protypes with the quality level of information like
cities around the world already had. Websites like barcelona.com and paris.info did not
exist not only for the city of Thessaloniki but for any destination of Greece.

This is the way of the idea that occurred for creating a website that will give all the
needed information that visitor will want before the hotel check in.

After working two years on that project, studying Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
techniques and visiting every corner of the city to collect the necessary material for the
content the website was ready and the years to come was going to dominate on
internet.

The so-called website named inthessaloniki.com from 2015 winning the search engine
“competition” being for many keywords on the first places of google results overtaking
all the other, with similar subject or no, websites.

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It must be highlighted the fact that the website comes in the first pages on keywords
regarding sightseeing and is first result regarding food areas keywords like “bit bazar”
and “ladadika” having in total around one thousand visitors per day on average.

Figure 1 InThessaloniki.com website traffic (1/1/2014 to 31/12/2018)

On this dissertation we are going to set a plan in order to transform the “traffic juice”,
as widely called, into a healthy business. We are going to analyze the opportunity, the
current competitors alongside their price sale policies and the number of their clients.

We will set an organization culture according the new personnel and their roles.
Marketing plan and financial needs will be also matters of discussion in the following
chapters and we are going to try to calculate the expected outcomes.

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The opportunity

On the following chapters we are going to demonstrate the socioeconomics of the

tourist industry which are going to ensure us that the current business plan is indeed
based in an opportunity.

Why we need a business plan

“It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.”
(Tolkien, 1937)

On the current dissertation we are working on a business plan for an idea that may has
the potential to succeed. In that point it is good to mention WHY we need a business
plan and how this procedure is very important to be followed for any level of
entrepreneur.

Financing the ideas

Being a young entrepreneur the first thing that comes in mind is “where am I going to
find the resources to fund my idea”. Especially on that occasion a well-structured
business plan will show to the potential sponsors-funders that you are serious-minded
regarding your plan and in the same time you are giving them the path to understand
your idea and demonstrate the predicted profits of the business.

Organise and set goals and milestones

In a business plan one of the first things that must be done is to set the goals. This way
you follow in theoretical level the entire path of the project and you can review until a
level whether the chosen strategies are applicable or not and adapt changes for
foreseen situations.

Take the control over your business

During the syntax of a business plan, the entrepreneur has the opportunity to study in
depth the industry, the market and the competitors. This way the potential

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“businessman” will discover the exact position of the future company in the industry,
where must be headed, the gaps in the market and the challenges that will need to
overcome.

The development of tourism and the role of internet

Development of tourist section worldwide

As we can see from the following table the international tourists are steadily increasing
year by year in the last decade. The only exception was the year 2009 as a possible result
of the financial crisis that globally took place that year. Remarkable is that more than
the half of the international tourists had Europe as a destination and more specific there
is an increase of the total number of visitors around 3% per year.

Year North America Asia Pacific Middle East Europe

2005 89.9 154.1 33.7 452.7
2006 90.6 166 40.9 463.9
2007 95.3 182 46.9 485.4
2008 97.7 184 56 487.6
2009 93 181.1 52.8 461.7
2010 99.5 208.2 55.4 487.7
2011 102.1 218.6 54.7 516.1
2012 106.4 233.5 51.7 534.4
2013 110.2 249.8 48.4 566.4
2014 120.9 264.3 52.4 580.2
2015 127.6 284.1 58.1 605.1
2016 130.9 306 55.6 619.5
2017 134.8 323.1 58.1 670.6

Table 1 Number of international tourist arrivals worldwide from 2005 to 2017, by region (in
millions) (UNWTO, 2017)

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Contribution of travel and tourism in global economy

As the number of tourists increasing and the globalization is expanding, a phenomeno

that gives in more and more people the ability to travel, the contribution of the turism
in the gobal market is increasing.

The direct contribution concerns the taxes that initially were generated on incomes from
tourism employment and tourism businesses and by direct levies on tourists such as
departure taxes. Indirect contribution is a measure of business-to-business activity and
concerns taxes and duties levied on goods and services supplied to tourists. Both factors
are increasing from year to year.

Year Direct contribution Indirect contribution Total contribution

2006 1,91 4,12 6,03
2007 1,99 4,33 6,32
2008 1,94 4,39 6,33
2009 1,89 4,19 6,08
2010 1,93 4,31 6,24
2011 1,99 4,45 6,44
2012 2,06 4,57 6,63
2013 2,16 4,83 6,99
2014 2,36 5,22 7,58
2015 2,23 4,94 7,17
2016 2,31 5,3 7,61
2017 2,57 5,7 8,27

Table 2 Contribution of travel and tourism in the global economy ($ trillions) (UNWTO, 2017)

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Searched categories by Google

In the following pie we can easily see that more than the half searches that are
happening on google are for Travel & Tourism information including accommodation,

guided tours, city information and transportation.

Figure 2 Searched categories by google

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Online share of tourism revenue in European Union

In the following figure we demonstrate a graph from “Tourism Economics” which allow
us to recognise that the biggest opportunity for growth in the specific area is in Greece.

Figure 3 Tourism revenue researched or booked online (Goodger, 2017)

The low level of the online organized travels is mainly because of the limited available
online content compared to the rest of the, competitive, countries. In the past 4 years
in Greece were created 20000 jobs less than the rest countries in the section of online
tourism content. If Greece manage to follow the rest European Mediterranean countries
170000 new job positions are calculated that will be created.

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The role of the tourism sector in e-commerce

Figure 4 E-commerce share - all sectors and accommodation (Goodger, 2017)

The lack of trust in online platforms and the low percentage of card holders, either debit
of credit, drives the Greek market in a very low 10% e-commerce share turnover. With
the latest laws for obligatory use of card over specific costs and the obligation of the
shops to provide the card payment method through points of sale (POS) will push to the
change.

When the customers will gain the habit to pay with “plastic money” then the gap in the
market for online services will become profitable and the companies that are “already
there” will have the advantage in the competition and in the same time those services
will be available worldwide.

The growth of tourism in Greece

Greece is a popular touristic destination. The combination of history, culture, nightlife

and natural beauties (mountains and beaches) make the country one of the most visited
countries worldwide having the peaks especially during the summer times.

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 Figure 5 Greek tourism growth 2008-2018 (TRADE ECONOMICS, 2018)

There were many facts that lead the tourism to rapidly increase the last ten years. Some
of them were the Olympic games on 2004, the visa free entrance for Balkan countries
like Serbia, the economic crisis that lead the prices to go down especially in North Greece
and of course the use of Internet and social media applications drove high exposure of
some of the highlights in Greece letting people know about places that were not that
famous in the past.

Additionally, the establishment of low-cost air companies like Ryanair and Easyjet forced
the competition to create new (low) price strategies making the transportation
especially of European citizens to Greece affordable for almost everybody.

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 The growth of tourism in Thessaloniki

In the previous paragraphs were mentioning the numbers of tourists only from abroad.
The market that the website is going to target is the summary of the domestic and
foreign arrivals. For this reason, the following data will combine both kind of visitors.

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017

Foreign 275.414 336.160 360.304 430.811 505.398 557.419 547.178 607.401
arrivals
Domestic 615.418 593.287 531.159 571.477 615.283 689.306 714.038 699.740
arrivals
Total 890.832 929.447 891.463 1.002.288 1.120.681 1.246.725 1.261.216 1.307.141
Arrivals
Foreign 589.662 746.983 916.847 924.735 1.067.034 1.146.885 1.234.236 1.385.705
overnights
Domestic 1.210.281 1.156.017 1.033.336 1.093.721 1.177.883 1.322.745 1.401.725 1.364.814
overnights
Table 3 Growth of tourism in Thessaloniki 2010-2017
Total
1.799.943 1.903.000 1.950.183 2.018.456 2.244.917 2.469.630 2.635.961 2.750.519
overnights a
Occupancy 39,6% 41,1% 42,2% 42,7% 46,0% 50,4% 53,9% 56,3%

In the above table we can see that the visitors are increasing alongside the number of
the nights that they chose to stay in the city hotels, fulfilling in the same time the
occupancy of the hotels (the number of the rooms capacity of Thessaloniki is steady the
last seven years).

Where inthessaloniki.com will target

Scope of the editorial team until now was to succeed high positions in many diachronic
articles in search engines. The high-quality articles that were written for the stable
content of the website like museums, archeological areas, entertainment, areas
description and more, alongside with the unique photo gallery raised the website on the
first positions of the most used search engine in the world, google.

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The target is simple. The traffic of the website, well known as “juice”, must be converted
to income and transform the website into a healthy business. Inthessaloniki will offer
different services to the tourists and to Greeks (visitors or locals).

For Greeks, except the clean area of information -where to go, what to do- there will be
area for the ongoing events of Thessaloniki, entertainment suggestions and blog area
for articles with indirect promotion.

For the visitors the website will target mostly to the unique things in the city, like food
taste, alongside with may offers for tours.

The plan will be diverted in two phases.

Phase one
Having low budget and no investors the development of the company must start from
creating relationships and offer services based on the only product that has right now,
the website traffic.
• Establish business to business relationships with
1. Travel agencies that offer tours in Thessaloniki and in North Greece
2. Invest on branding by attending important events and becoming media sponsor
3. Approach restaurants, bars, coffee shops and offer them the opportunity to
advertise themselves in a high traffic website.
• Translate the website in the languages of the visitors that the city has (Bulgarian,
Serbian, Turkish, Russian)

Phase two
Having in the team people that are already in tourist and sale industry the website must
be able to transform to a vital organism of the city. Services like tours and entertainment
events must be organized from Inthessaloniki.com.
• Establish tour agency and organize independent tours

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Companies websites that offer city information – Competitors

From 2013 to 2018 there were no moves on worldwide web in order to complete the
gap in the market regarding city information. There were some small efforts from small
teams but in the end they subside. Mostly this happened because they didn’t use some
techniques, that will be described in a later stage of this dissertation, that are vital in
order to survive in the Internet competition.

However, the inthessaloniki.com, targets now to enter on the sales area where there
are some dynamic websites offering advertisement to businesses and some of them,
they are doing it efficiently.

We can separate the competitors by which public they are targeting. Foreign and Greek.
We found them by using keywords according to the services that we want to offer.

The research took place by studying keywords that a tourist or a local citizen use when
they are looking for entertainment, eat and food, accommodation or transportation
services.

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 Websites Targeting to foreign visitors

The websites that are targeting the foreign visitors are two and both of them are public
sectors. They do not have a scope to promote businesses like restaurants or
accommodation solutions to their audience and they do not provide information in
depth for the highlights of the city like inthessaloniki.com already does.

Keywords that used to

Google Alexa rank
Website name be found as research Languages
results (Global rank)
criteria
Thessaloniki, EL, ZH, DE, EN
Thessaloniki.travel Thessaloniki tourist 1st page 768.904 IT, EN, RU
information, where to (6)
eat in Thessaloniki, EL, EN
Thessaloniki.gr 1st page 163.578
what to do in (2)
Thessaloniki,
accommodation
Thessaloniki, EL, EN
Inthessaloniki.com 1st page 917.516
Thessaloniki nightlife, (2)
transportation
thessaloniki

Table 4 Competitors targeting foreign visitors

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 Websites – companies targeting to Greek visitors and locals

The competitors who are targeting the Greek market are mostly catalogue websites that
do not offer information regarding what the city has to offer.

Keywords that used to be Google Alexa rank

Website name Languages
found as research criteria results (Global rank)
EL, ZH, DE, EN
Thessaloniki.travel 1st page 768.904 IT, EN, RU
(6)
EL, EN
Thessaloniki.gr
Θεσσαλονίκη, 1st page 163.578
(2)
τουριστικός οδηγός

Thessalonikiguide.gr Θεσσαλονίκης, φαγητό 1st page 202.123 EL (1)

εστιατόρια Θεσσαλονίκη,
Λαδάδικα, μπιτ μπαζάρ,
Biscotto.gr 1st page 344.340 EL (1)
μουσεία Θεσσαλονίκης,
αξιοθέατα Θεσσαλονίκης
Cityportal.gr 1st page 153.486 EL (1)

EL, EN
https://inthessaloniki.com 1st page 917.516
(2)

Table 5 Competitors targeting locals or domestic visitors

Thessaloniki.travel and Thessaloniki.gr as we mentioned before they are municipalities

websites that offer the basic information. Thessalonikiguide.gr and Cityportal.gr offer
mostly information regarding the nightlife, theatre and cinema options and they
advertise through Search Engine Optimized articles some “very particular” places for
eating or having a drink.

Biscotto.gr is the main competitor of inthessaloniki.com Greek version. Biscotto.gr

maybe does not have the looks of international websites of its kind, but they managed
to develop a huge clientele for advertising, from small coffee shops to luxury restaurants

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and popular nightclubs. They manage to organise weekly events with broad themes and
publish discount card with annual registration alongside with a monthly free magazine
which they are using it for promoting, the registered with them, companies-shops.

As Biscotto.gr is the main competitor on the market regarding the listing services we
approached them, and we have in our disposal the full price list of their services.

The cost of their services is 150€ + VAT and includes

1. Listing of the company in the suitable category in the online version
2. Dedication of space in the upcoming weekly newsletter
3. Five posts on Facebook group during the year on time and date that the customer wish

What inthessaloniki.com is going to offer

As we can see from the already existing website, the interests of the 45% of the total
number of visitors are looking information regarding nightlife, where to eat and where
to shop. The target of the website will be to offer services on those sectors.
Landing Page Sessions % New Sessions
/el/diaskedasi/nixterini-zoi 69.417 87,20%
/el/fagito/ana-perioxi/bit-bazar 35.729 84,83%
/en/shops/mediterranean-cosmos-mall 35.629 89,09%
/en/ 35.396 68,19%
/el/fagito/ana-perioxi/ladadika 28.238 85,05%
/el/odigos-polis 25.162 84,55%
/en/entertainment/thessaloniki-by-night 25.041 88,41%
/el/agora/mediterranean-cosmos 22.252 89,75%
/el/agora/agores-sto-kentro-tis-thessalonikis 20.472 87,45%
/el/ 19.294 76,56%
990.855 81,77%
Total Sessions from January 2014 2.172.138
Percentage of the selected categories 45%

Table 6 Most visited pages of InThessaloniki.com

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The future clients can be diverse on three kinds.
a. Visitor – tourist
The modern platform of our website will work as an affiliate booking website were the
future visitors of Thessaloniki will have the ability to book their accommodation.
Websites like http://booking.com and http://affiliates.hotelscombined.com offer a
respectable commission for every booking or lead (payment per booking, payment per
leading a visitor to the original website).
On the same way http://www.viator.com offer tours and entertainment to the visitors
making easier the cooperation with tour agencies that offer the same services.

b. The locals
The residents of Thessaloniki will have the opportunity to be informed for the
happenings, and the events of every kind around the city. There will be availability with
the appropriate widgets to buy online tickets from platforms like http://viva.gr and book
table of eating through http://e-table.gr. All the above using the technique of the
affiliation.

c. The business owners

The owners of businesses like restaurants, cafes, bars, nightclubs and travel agencies
(potentially in the future any kind of business in Thessaloniki) will have the ability to
register their companies and advertise their services.

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Method – Data collection

InThessaloniki.com is online from January 2014. On the code, from date one, is installed
the google analytics tool. Google analytics tools tracks and reports website traffic. From
boards and charts we are capable to decrypt what the people are looking and interested
in, alongside with demographic statistics.

On the following paragraphs we are going to demonstrate statistics that are useful to
our business plan. Those statistics are from 1st of January 2014 to 31 of December 2018.

Demographics

As we can see from the attached

Age Users % Gender Users %
table the main traffic in the
18-24 25,10% 57,78%
website comes from female
25-34 33,23% Male 42,22%
(57.78%) visitors, by gender.
35-44 18,33%
Regarding the ages we notice that
45-54 10,25%
the age group 25 to 34 years is
55-64 6,84%
first with 33.23% followed from
65+ 6,26%
the younger group 18 to 24 with
25.10%. The younger ages, as we
Table 7 Demographics of InThessaloniki.com
were expecting, hold the biggest
percentage of the visitors’ pie. In
conclusion we must highlight that 76.66% are under 45 years old.

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Affinity Categories

Affinity categories, on google analytics terms, identify users’ lifestyles. In the following
table we can understand the audience of the existing website and if we attract the
suitable for our sales.

Category % of visitors
Banking & Finance 1,40%
Beauty & Wellness 1,86%
Food 6,44%
Home & Garden 2,68%
Lifestyles & Hobbies 10,33%
Entertainment 32,11%
News & Politics 13,03%
Shoppers 4,05%
Sports & Fitness 8,36%
Technology 4,40%
Travel 7,18%
Vehicles & Transportation/Auto Enthusiasts 8,17%

Table 8 Affinity Categories

The categories that we mostly are interest to have high percentages are “Lifestyle &
Hobbies”, “Entertainment”, “Food” and “Travel”. The website indeed is successful on
the era and 56.06% of the visitors are visiting it for the reasons that actually has been
built. We must highlight on that point that those factors are going to increase when
there will be more search engine optimized articles and points of interest regarding the
specific categories imported to the website.

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Geographical stats

Figure 6 Website traffic location by map

Country % Continent Users

Greece 78,71% Africa 0,24%
Germany 3,44% Oceania 0,86%
United Kingdom 2,94% America 4,31%
FYRO Macedonia 1,74% Asia 6,67%
Serbia 1,50% Europe 87,93%
Bulgaria 1,39%
Romania 1,14%
Russia 1,08%
Netherlands 0,97%
Italy 0,82%

Table 9 Website traffic location by statistics

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The website every year has visitors from around the world. The biggest pool of traffic
though is from Europe which gives the 87.93% and this is mainly because of the Greek
version of the website which is very popular.

Greek visitors are giving the 78.71% (665.000 visitors) of the traffic which comes from
Europe while German and United Kingdom follow with high, relative, digits. (Over 10%
of the foreign website visitors- 29000 and 25000 respectively).

Translating the website in Russian, which is a country that gives high number of tourists
and on a Yugoslavic dialect, which will support residents from many neighbouring or
near to Greece countries, will rapidly increase the traffic of the website.

Devices used

Device Category %
We can see equal use between Desktop and
Mobile devices, assuming that tablet are mobile Desktop 49,34%

devices as well, that are visiting Mobile 44,31%

InThessaloniki.com. Tablet 6,35%

Table 10 Devices used to visit

Those metrics give us the conclusion that in order
Inthessaloniki.com
not to lose sales, all the services must be available on a friendly user environment to
both mobile and desktop versions. The mobile versions must have responsive design
and perhaps to develop an iPhone application alongside with the existing android.

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Traffic sources

Channel Grouping Traffic %

Direct 11,17%
Organic Search 83,85%
Paid Search 0,02%
Referral 2,80%
Social 2,16%

Table 11 Traffic sources

As we can see from the above table, the 83.85% of the total traffic since January 2014
came from organic search. This is a result of two factors. The syntax team made Search
Engie Optimized articles for important city keywords while in the same time, the
competition on that field is very weak.

There is room to develop on the social media engagement where the presence must be
more dynamic with scope to bring traffic and customers in the future.

The occasions that paid website promotions took place were insignificant and this is the
reason of only 0.02% visits from paid sources. On the other side the reputation is in good
levels bringing 11,17% of the total traffic by typing directly on the browser the website’s
URL.

Market approach

During the writing of the current business plan we collected data from targeted group
companies that already use the internet to advertise their services especially and they
have presence on the social media.

On the same time, we approached the store managers of the companies and investigate
the possibilities of advertising in a company of InThessaloniki’s philosophy without
mentioning the existence of the website.

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Cafe – Bars

Café-Bars Like Followers Check-in

Local 6.100 6.000 12.100
Pantheon 16.100 16.000 41.300
Sinatra 24.100 23.800 113.600
Canteen 13.700 13.600 19.650
Salto 17.150 17.000 50.300
Café theatre Ellinikon 2.150 2.150 1.150
Kafodion Ellinikon 16.650 16.450 12.350
Egli Geni hamam 34.100 34.000 41.500
Mon Frere 14.900 14.750 31.700
Domatio me Thea 9.500 9.450 32.750
Kitchen bar 28.100 28.050 33.500
Candybar 25.550 25.350 91.850
ARC Espresso Wine Bar 19.200 19.100 131.600
Olympion 9.500 9.450 89.500
Apallou 40.400 39.800 158.650
Butler 25.200 25.100 131.450
Le Jardin 8.750 8.750 64.000
Patron 14.100 14.000 29.350
Paraty & Loft 13.050 12.950 25.050
Average 17.805 17.671 58.492

Table 12 Café – Bars / Social Media Interaction

According to the above table we can see that the café-bars that we approached are very
active on the new era’s way of advertisement giving weight on social media. They are
high recognizable meeting points for Thessaloniki and assumed that the owners will be
easier to be convinced to register their business in a high traffic website.

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 Will you possible register your business in a webisite like
"InThessaloniki"?

25%

Yes

75% No

Figure 7 Companies that are willing to register for advertisement in a website like
InThessaloniki
From the above chart pie we have the positive result that even the bar-restaurants are
quite known in the town are willing to be advertised. During our conversation we
received the following comments.

Why "Yes"

Forsee the prespective of the

15% website
21%
Want to attrach foreign customers
as well
21% 12%
Increase customers

31% Participate in the new city's

information portal
No need of advertisment

Figure 8 Why potential customers will choose a website like InThessaloniki.com to be

advertised

The potential customers had more than one reason to join the new city’s portal. They
can foresee the prospective of the website (21%) and they believe that they will be able

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to increase their profits by attracting new customers, foreign (12%) or in general (31%).
There is also a high percentage, 21%, that want to support the new, different as they
admit, information city portal.

The main reason that questioned companies were negative on a future deal was the
belief that they do not need any further advertisement.

Restaurants

On the following paragraph a similar research takes place, this time for selected
restaurants of Thessaloniki.

Restaurants Like Followers Check-in

Pizza Please 4750 4700 700
Rouga 2800 2750 6650
Extravaganza 10650 10600 5650
Frutti di Mare 7950 7900 6350
Mazagiazi 2000 2000 3100
Zorba 450 450 1000
Sebriko 3450 3450 4300
Grada Nuevo 1400 1400 3250
The last Slice 15450 15350 5150
Full tou meze 500 500 2650
To Elliniko 11700 11550 11250
Palati 1100 1100 8500
Ta 3 gourounakia 3600 3600 1600
Comunale Restaurant Original 1250 1250 950
Brothers in law Thessaloniki 43150 42850 33400
Plaisir Brasserie Aristotelous 6850 6800 6500
The Dubliner 6800 6750 9650
Average 7285 7235 6508

Table 13 Restaurants Social Media Interaction

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It is noticeable that the social media interaction of some very known restaurants and
taverns of Thessaloniki is remarkable lower from Café-Bars figures. Like we did on the
case of café-bars, we approached the potential clients and questioned them regarding
the possibility of advertising.

Will you possible register your business in a webisite like "InThessaloniki"?

45%
55% Yes
No

Figure 9 Companies that are willing to register for advertisement in a website like
InThessaloniki
In that case the companies that were willing to be advertised were slightly less than in
the case of café-bars. The answer in the question of “Why you wouldn’t prefer online
advertisement” the total of the questioned answered that they belief that “word of
mouth” is enough.

We strongly believe that this is subject to change. Thessaloniki has big tradition and on
the same time big competition in the industry of food. People, travelers are advised
more and more, as we saw in previous diagrams, internet for their information. We can
foresee that they will start visiting the places that have online presence along site
reviews and the rest of the taverns/restaurants will discover that they must follow the
technology and they will look for solutions like InThessaloniki.com.

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 Why "Yes"

11% 18% Forsee the prespective of the

website
Want to attrach foreign customers
as well
41% 30%
Increase customers

Participate in the new city's

information portal

Figure 10 Why potential customers will choose a website like InThessaloniki.com to be

advertised

From the above pie chart, we conclude that the motivations of the restaurants’ owners
are slightly different. The 41% of the questioned want to increase the customers. The
30% have noticed the increased number of foreign tourists and they want to attract
them while only 11% will participate for branding reasons and 18% foresee a positive
prospective of that kind of website.

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Analysis

On this chapter we are going to demonstrate the business plan. It will include the
marketing strategy, the operations of the business, the financial elements and the
human resources capabilities.

Human Resources

The “heart” of this project was based, from the very begining, in the high skilled and
motivated human capital. The project has the potential to succed due to the entrance
of two new members who have the same motivation but different, high importance,
skills. In total the stuff has the ability to communicate in six different languages which
are Greek, English, Spanish, Russian, Italian and German

• Patsogiannis Konstantinos (owner): Mechanical Engineer degree, MBA, SEO expert

Patsogiannis Konstantinos is the person who visualised the idea. In the last 5 years he
developed IT skills in the area of website construction and modification as well in search
engine optimization. Meanwhile he is trained on social media marketing and internet
software regarding customer growth on the tourist market.

He is responsible for building and making any suitable changes on the website. Solves
any technical issues that may occur and organize the team members.

• Giorgos Chatzifotis (owner): Historical and Archeological degree. Tour guide license-
holder, photographer, SEO expert

George Chatzifotis is the co-owner with Konstantinos Patsogiannis. He is responsible for

creating Search Engine Optimized texts and photograph points of interest. As a licenced
tour guide by the Greek government he has the ability to support the organization and
run the tours in the second phase of the project.

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 • Vassiliki Natsi: BA in Foreign Languages, Diploma in Russian language, Master’s in
Applied translation Studies, Master’s degree in global marketing by London School of
Business and Finance, MBA

Vassiliki Natsi is one out of the two new members of the team. She is expertise and
got experience the last nine years in the area of marketing. Vassiliki Natsi is the person
who is going to run the marketing strategy of the project.

• Theodota Kassara Bachelor’s degree in Accounting and Finance

Theodota Kassara has gained experience the last 7 years on sales having in her CV
great numbers by working I highly respective brands like MARS and VIANEX. Mrs.
Kassara will be responsible for the door to door sales.

Ownership – Slicing the pie

The two owners-founders (Patsogiannis Konstantinos & George Chatzifotis) have decide
to keep the 52% of the company (26% each) and equal split the 48% to the new
members. The new members are highly trusted persons that will transform the non-
profit website into a company and actually bring the growth and the cash.

This way, the team that is going to be created, will accomplish the personal goals of each
person in their fields. It will offer to the members the chance to be independent in the
market and they will face the company as their own.

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P.E.S.T.E.L. ANALYSIS

On the following table we will analyse the macro-environmental factors that may impact
our organization

Political:
• Greece is a well-known country as a touristic destination
• Greece encourages the promotion of tourism by having separate ministry for the
specific occasion and advertisement campaigns around the world
Economic:
• 2008 economy recession over the world
• Economy rebounds in 2009 for most of the countries except Greece who still tries to
enter the markets
• 66% increase of the visitors over the last 12 years
Social:
• Greeks have tradition on tourist industry and there is growth on the professions with
relative subject
• The tourists are using more and more the internet to book their accommodation,
travel tickets, private or group tours

Technological:
• The people are using more and more their smartphone devices to book
accommodation, transportation, tours and eve restaurants
• Guides are easily accessible from the handheld devices
• Information and feedback for any place and service can easily be found in the internet
Environmental:
• No hardcopies of maps or tourist guides. Tourists prefer to have all the information
in the smartphone.
Legal:
• Visitors from foreign countries need to feel safe while they are travelling and to be
covered in case of an accident

Table 14 P.E.S.T.E.L. ANALYSIS

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SWOT Analysis & Matrix, Strategic Grand Matrix

Internal
SWOT Analysis & Matrix Strengths (S) Weaknesses (W)
1. More than 4 years’ experience working on
InThessaloniki.com
2. Multilingual strong syntax abilities of
attractive texts
1. Low financial support
3. Search Engine Optimization knowledge
2. Lack on graphic design capabilities
and experience
4. Experienced local stuff on Marketing and
Sales
5. Already established brand name
6. High traffic on the existing website
Opportunities (O) S – O STRATEGIES W - O STRATEGHIES
1. Advantage of the non-saturated
1. Organize marketing campaigns to gain the
1. Non-saturated market market and promote the market
biggest part of the pie before the
2. High development rate of tourist section in strategies on low costs
competitors arrive
Greece 2. Find graphic design services
2. Use of the syntax team with high SEO
3. Room for development on tourist revenue on offering rewarding benefits in a
capabilities to create attractive, unique
research or booking online market where the candidate can
texts and take advantage of the low
4. No big competition at the moment easily stand out and promote
competition
External

himself
Threats (T) S -T STRATERGIES W -T STRATEGIES
1. Promote team’s locality, fact that due to
the culture of Greece will make the
company first in the preferences
1. Competition will raise rapidly on the moment that
2. Create a pool of clients from different 1. Start with low price services and
foreign companies will come to Greece and invest
nationalities by translating the services, maintain them
on the market
using the multilingual capabilities of the
2. Economic uncertainty
personnel, in a variety of languages.
Having foreign customers will give in the
company a balanced base

Table 15 SWOT Analysis

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Grand Strategy Matrix

Figure 11 Grand Strategy Matrix

InThessaloniki.com is located in the first quadrant close to the second. Has a good start
up position in the market as a business, because as a brand exists more than 4 years.
The potential company is in a market with increasing rates of growth.

InThessaloniki.com must penetrate the market in order to win clients fast with
competitive – low prices. The stuff is going to work a lot on development new products-
services.

Marketing Strategy

In the current chapter we are going to analyze the four variables who are construct the
marketing strategy. More specific the model is called 4Ps from the four first letters of
the variables.
• Product
• Price
• Promotion
• Placement

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Product

As mentioned above, Inthessaloniki.com in the first phase must build the brand of the
name, of an upcoming event-tour organiser. The main clients that is going to target are
restaurants, coffee shops and bars. InThessaloniki will offer them advertisement
services in the form of directory and or banner and will try to build long-term
relationships/contracts. The company has the ability to rent space for advertisement in
a high traffic website with over one thousand visitors per day.

Following the second phase the company will create new services in the touristic and
entertainment market by organizing tours by taking advantage the suitable personnel
that is already in the team and the relationships that have been built on Phase I.

Price

InThessaloniki at the moment doesn’t have competition but having in mind the threat
that soon investors with different teams will want to enter the market. For this reason,
the company must gain fast a big piece of the market and keep the client satisfied in
order in the near future will not think to move somewhere else.

After the research price policy, we ended to the following two different options

1. Annual listing of a company

The annual listing of a company in the directories will be at 100€ plus VAT and there will
be a 30% discount voucher available if the client wants to purchase a banner position as
is described in the next paragraph.

On the mentioned price the client will include

1. Adding the business to the appropriate directory on the website
2. Adding the business to the appropriate directory in the existing android
application.
3. Adding unique article and photos taken from the team of Inthessaloniki
4. Adding a placemark to website’s and application’s maps
5. Promotion on social media (twitter, g+, Facebook, Instagram)

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Additionally, the business title can be added to high traffic articles like “Bit Bazaar” as
recommended place to go. The cost for this recommended placement in the article will
be 150€ for six months.

2. Banner pricelist

The clients will have the ability to promote their business in about thirty thousand
visitors per month by putting in selected areas their banners. Every banner due to size
and position follows different price policy but in the same time is easily understood by
the following scheme.

Position Dimensions Price per month (min 3

(px) months)

Top Banner 350 x 80 80,00 € plus VAT

Top Wide 728 x 90 80,00 € plus VAT

Skyscraper

Banner Right 350 x 140 40,00 € plus VAT

Square Button 150 x 150 20,00 € plus VAT

Right

Bottom Wide 728 x 90 60,00 € plus VAT

Figure 12 Homepage Skyscraper
banner positions
Table 16 Banner Pricelist

Placement

Because of the nature of the selling services and the very low index finger of ecommerce
figures in Greece the sales must follow the “door to door” technique trying to achieve
face to face contact with the future client. This way we will have the opportunity to
demonstrate our product, answer the possible questions and handle any objections that
may arise.

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The team will try to approach popular shops having on mind that if we achieve some of
them to become clients it will be much easier to approach and register smaller
businesses. The sales will start from the centre of the city, near to landmarks and not
isolated shops. We want the rumour to follow the worth of mouth. Targeted shops will
be those that already have online presence and they are familiar with similar ideas.

The sellers will be equipped with tablet and smartphone for demonstration reasons and
hardcopy brochures for having something left in hand after the visit.

The sales of the second phase that will include tours made from InThessaloniki will
mainly promoted by our website having in mind that a lot of future tourists are visiting
already the website and on social media advertisement platforms.

Promotion

Having low financial support, the company must use thrifty ways of promotion but
thanks to the social media industry this doesn’t mean that will not be efficient. Millions
of people are using every day the social media which actually are giving the choice to
create very precise marketing campaigns taking into consideration the gender, the age,
the location and even the habits of the person who is going to see the advertisement.

The promotion strategies will take place as mentioned before on the second phase of
the business plan for propulsion of touristic packages and tours inside the city.

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Financial analysis

On the following chapter we are going to demonstrate some future projections

regarding the first 2 years of operations.

First 3 years – Phase I

On that point we must mention that the market with the potential clients in the area of
Thessaloniki are according Hellenic Statistical authority are about 5133. More
specifically the restaurants/taverns are computed to 2536 and the coffee shops/bars to
2597.

Financial Activity Number of companies Number of employees

Restaurants 2.536 15.570
Coffee shops / bars 2.597 17.282

Table 17 Restaurant/Coffee shop market of Thessaloniki

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 Projected
Regarding InThessalonikicom’s the first year
Operations
of operation we have the following
January 9.000 €
projections.
February 9.450 €
March 9.923 €
• The company predicts that will register
April 10.419 €
about 3 shops per day on average on the
May 10.940 €
price of 60€ per year.
June 11.487 €
• We calculated that the sales are

2019
increasing every month by 5% July 12.061 €
August 12.664 €

Having in mind the total of the first year and September 13.297 €
the potential economic uplift in Greece the October 13.962 €
company projects that in the end of 2020 will November 14.660 €
have registered the 40% of the available December 15.393 €
market into the website having a total Total sales 2019
revenue on 2021 of 205.300€. (1433 shops 143.254 €
registered)
Total sales 2020
(1750 shops 175.000 €
registered)
Total sales 2021
(2053 shops 205.300 €
registered)

Table 18 Projected Operations 2019-2021

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The following table presents the inflows and outflows for each month of 2019 in euros.
2018 Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Sales from companies
9000 9450 9923 10419 10940 11487 12061 12664 13297 13962 14660 15393
registration
Tours Booking 0 0 5 8 15 20 20 25 17 10 0 0
Sales from affiliation 0 0 175 280 525 700 700 875 595 350 0 0
(Operating Cost) 4375 4375 4375 4375 4375 4375 5850 5850 5850 5850 5850 5850
Rent 750 750 750 750 750 750 750 750 750 750 750 750

Salaries 3400 3400 3400 3400 3400 3400 4850 4850 4850 4850 4850 4850
Electricity 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100
Phone/Internet 100 100 100 100 100 100 125 125 125 125 125 125
Water 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 25
Total 4625 5075 5723 6324 7090 7812 6911 7689 8042 8462 8810 9543

Table 19 Inflows and outflows 2019 in (€)

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We used the following criteria for the projected inflows and outflows of
InThessaloniki.com.

➢ The sales increase by 5% per month

➢ The salaries are 850€ per person. Four employees until June when an extra employee
has to be hired for the sales and a small raise at 1000€ takes place for the 4 owners
➢ The rent for the offices is steady at 750 in a central area of Thessaloniki.
➢ The electricity and water supply are steady
➢ The telecommunication expenses are calculated by Vodafone professional pack. Is
steady and is increased on July due to new employee.
➢ The sales from B2B relationships include mainly the organization of tours from third
party. The projection is based on an already cooperation which is running the last three
years. InThessaloniki takes the 10% of the final price

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Phase II – Organise tours

After three years of operations the team will have the budget and the experience
through the previous B2B cooperation, to organize its own tours in the city and on the
near areas.

One the following table we can find the tours that InThessaloniki offers as an affiliate
partner.

1-3 4-8 9-19 20-58

Tours Duration PAX (€) PAX (€) PAX (€) PAX (€)
Round of Thessaloniki 4 hrs. 200 240 320 410
Round of Thessaloniki 8 hrs. 310 350 430 620
Jewish tour 4 hrs 200 240 320 410
Pella-Veria-Vergina-Edessa 10 hrs. 390 450 620 795
Steps of Apostele Paulos -Kavala – Filippi 8 hrs. 360 400 595 940
Filippi – Kavala 10 hrs. 360 400 595 940
Meteora 10 hrs. 410 490 660 870
Dion – Litohoro (Olympus mountain) 8 hrs. 330 380 590 765
Pella 4 hrs. 230 290 400 580
Vergina 4 hrs. 230 290 400 580
Pella – Vergina 6 hrs. 270 340 530 580
Vergina – Dion 6 hrs. 270 340 530 580
Pella – Vergina – Dion 8 hrs. 350 390 630 790

Table 20 Offered tours by InThessaloniki on Phase II after taxes

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In order to project safely the future earnings, we will use the number of the bookings that we have at the moment and an average cost of tour.

2020 Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Sales 17108 17108 17108 17108 17108 17108 17108 17108 17108 17108 17108 17108

Tours Booking 0 0 5 8 15 20 20 25 17 10 0 0

Sales from tours 0 0 2325 3720 6975 9300 9300 11625 7905 4650 0 0
(Operating Cost) 8450 8450 9200 9650 10700 11450 11450 12200 11000 9950 8450 8450
Rent 750 750 750 750 750 750 750 750 750 750 750 750
Salaries 7500 7500 7500 7500 7500 7500 7500 7500 7500 7500 7500 7500
Electricity 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100
Phone/Internet 125 125 125 125 125 125 125 125 125 125 125 125
Water 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 25
Tour cost 0 0 750 1200 2250 3000 3000 3750 2550 1500 0 0
Total 8658 8658 10233 11178 13383 14958 14933 16508 13998 11783 8633 8633

Table 21 Inflows and outflows 2022 in (€)

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We used the following criteria for the projected inflows and outflows of
InThessaloniki.com on 2022

➢ The sales were assumed steady, maintaining the 40% of the market and the income from
the registrated companies was diverted by twelve months
➢ The salaries were at 1500€ per person for each of the 5 employees
➢ The rent for the offices remained steady at 750 in a central area of Thessaloniki.
➢ The electricity and water supply are steady
➢ The telecommunication expenses are calculated by Vodafone professional pack

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Harvest and exit

The final target of the company will be to create a business that will walk in the path of
international tourist guides, offering everything to the visitor and the local, regarding his
entertainment and his education when it comes for tours.

Using the technique “Consider your stage in life as you consider your exit strategy”, the
wish is to follow the “All in the Family”. Share the power to trusted people with a limited
partnership though. A business that with the correct human resources management will
lead on the tourist market of the main Greek cities and develop to the entire country.

Conclusions

Inthessaloniki is an idea that can implement. There is a very strong base, the high traffic
website, there is a market with 5000 potential clients for steady income and the tourism
has high development rates not only for the city but for the entire country as well.

The funding resources though are low, and the development of the company could be
faster with the appropriate funds. During the first two years the team should build some
win-win relationships with already established companies that have a long client list on
the food-entertainment market of the city.

Perhaps a cooperation with companies like e-table, deliveras and e-food who have
already clients restaurants and can introduce our services to them would dramatically
increase the sales. Those companies have the advantage that they are already familiar
with internet services and it would be easier to be registered.

We couldn’t implement those ideas into the business plan because they are based on
potential business relationships that can make the difference but if they fail on reality
the plan would be at big risk of failing as well.

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-44-
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Appendix

Table 1 Number of international tourist arrivals worldwide from 2005 to 2017, by region (in millions)
(UNWTO, 2017) _________________________________________________________________________4
Table 2 Contribution of travel and tourism in the global economy ($ trillions) (UNWTO, 2017) __________5
Table 3 Growth of tourism in Thessaloniki 2010-2017 _________________________________________ 10
Table 4 Competitors targeting foreign visitors _______________________________________________ 13
Table 5 Competitors targeting locals or domestic visitors ______________________________________ 14
Table 6 Most visited pages of InThessaloniki.com ____________________________________________ 15
Table 7 Demographics of InThessaloniki.com ________________________________________________ 17
Table 8 Affinity Categories _______________________________________________________________ 18
Table 9 Website traffic location by statistics ________________________________________________ 19
Table 10 Devices used to visit Inthessaloniki.com_____________________________________________ 20
Table 11 Traffic sources _________________________________________________________________ 21
Table 12 Café – Bars / Social Media Interaction ______________________________________________ 22
Table 13 Restaurants Social Media Interaction ______________________________________________ 24
Table 14 P.E.S.T.E.L. ANALYSIS ____________________________________________________________ 29
Table 15 SWOT Analysis_________________________________________________________________ 31
Table 16 Banner Pricelist ________________________________________________________________ 34
Table 17 Restaurant/Coffee shop market of Thessaloniki ______________________________________ 36
Table 18 Projected Operations 2019-2021 __________________________________________________ 37
Table 19 Inflows and outflows 2019 in (€) __________________________________________________ 38
Table 20 Offered tours by InThessaloniki on Phase II after taxes _________________________________ 40
Table 21 Inflows and outflows 2022 in (€) __________________________________________________ 41

Figure 1 InThessaloniki.com website traffic (1/1/2014 to 31/12/2018) ..........................................................2

Figure 2 Searched categories by google ..........................................................................................................6
Figure 3 Tourism revenue researched or booked online (Goodger, 2017) .......................................................7
Figure 4 E-commerce share - all sectors and accommodation (Goodger, 2017) .............................................8
Figure 5 Greek tourism growth 2008-2018 (TRADE ECONOMICS, 2018) .........................................................9
Figure 6 Website traffic location by map.......................................................................................................19
Figure 7 Companies that are willing to register for advertisement in a website like InThessaloniki .............23
Figure 8 Why potential customers will choose a website like InThessaloniki.com to be advertised .............23
Figure 9 Companies that are willing to register for advertisement in a website like InThessaloniki .............25
Figure 10 Why potential customers will choose a website like InThessaloniki.com to be advertised ...........26
Figure 11 Grand Strategy Matrix ...................................................................................................................32

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Figure 12 Homepage banner positions ..........................................................................................................34

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