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Pivotal Facets of Distribution Channels in Travel Insurance: A Qualitative Reportage

Vol 5, Issue 1, January - June 2018 | Pages: 20-31 | Research Paper  

 
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https://doi.org/10.17492/manthan.v5i01.13042


Author Details ( * ) denotes Corresponding author

1. * Marry Jeniffer. S, Research Scholar, Department of Tourism Studies, Pondicherry University, Puducherry, Puducherry, India (maryjeniffer21@gmail.com)
2. Anu Chandran, Assistant Professor, Department of Tourism Studies, Department of Tourism Studies, Puducherry, Puducherry, India (anoos_ind@yahoo.co.in)
3. Das Antoni Arokianathan. S, Program Manager, Early Childhood Care and Education Program, Makkala Jagriti, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India (das_antoni@yahoo.com)

Travel insurance as an ancillary service emerged few decades ago. In the present day, it has been bolstered up as a core function owing to the tremendous surge experienced by the global travel and tourism industry coupled with the unforeseen mishaps and untoward incidents faced by travellers’ world over. In this paper, segmentation of distribution channels like agents, banks, brokers, work site marketing, online sales are dealt with. This paper examines the ways and means of processing resorted to by distribution channels engaged in the insurance sector mainly laying focus on (i) companies – employees - customers and (ii) array of mediators to end users and the work also analyses the major influencing factors of time (convenience), price (rationale), advancements (technology) and service (feasibility) involved while selling travel insurance. A qualitative technique has been employed for this study. The data was collected from the travel insurance companies’ staff, intermediaries, tourists (customers), travel agents and industry practitioners by way of interviews and observations. Thematic Content analysis and Empirical Data analysis shall be employed to process the data and derive inferences.

Keywords

Distribution channels; Travel insurance; Service Quality; Convenience; Segmentation.

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