The China travel market's spiralling growth and changing purchase and behaviour patterns in Chinese travellers, mean service providers are constantly fine-tuning their product and service strategy.
In a recent Amadeus survey of 300 travel agents in China, three business priorities were identified:
1. More product choices
69% of attendees surveyed ranked “more choices to meet their needs” as the top expectation from their customers.
Surprisingly, this requirement was ranked higher than "low prices" and "top-quality service delivery".
With travellers becoming
increasingly diversified, travelling for a much wider range of reasons and with different requirements for the travel experience, travel agents today need to be able to
cater their offerings to these diverse groups.
2. Investment in technology
Top three challenges faced by China travel agents are:
- Pricing pressure from competitors
- Costs of running the business
- Lack of technology to support growth
However, 93% of travel agents indicated that technology has the potential to transform their businesses.
3. Spotlight on online sales
More than 90% of travel agents indicated that online sales were important or very important to their company strategy.
However, 48.6% were currently dissatisfied with their companies’ online business strategy.
The survey was conducted during a series of Amadeus workshops called "Shaping the future of travel in China 2013", held in Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai.
NB: Asian woman image via Shutterstock.