Last month during TravelRave, we came across many interesting travel startups from the region. One of them was Tourplus from Malaysia. Tourplus offers a platform for travellers to find expert local guides to explore a destination and also check itineraries created by others to see what places they are exploring.

The attractions included in the itinerary are listed along with their TripAdvisor rating to give an added assurance to the travellers. The website interface is simple and you can easily look up attractions that other travellers have recommended. Like we mentioned, users can book a private tour guide through the website and if they are a local expert, they can also register as a tour guide and help travellers explore their city.

We had a chat with Kyle Foo, Co-Founder of Tourplus. Here is a short video of him explaining why the travellers needed Tourplus:

You can try Tourplus to check out the itineraries by other travellers or to find a tour guide for your next trip. Visit them on www.tourplus.my.

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One of the leading and trusted advisors of the business world- McKinsey & Company– has come out with ‘Asian Business Traveller’s’ report. For its survey, it targeted 2500 travellers across five key markets in Asia- India, Singapore, Indonesia, Japan and China- for analysing booking and spending patterns from the data provided by Amadeus and Visa. These countries were considered for the survey as they represent 78% of Asia’s business travel spends.

The attendees of TravelRave

According to the report, Asian business travellers enjoy greater autonomy where more than 50% of them view such trips primarily as travel experiences. In other words, they perceive business trips for not only professional purposes but as opportunities for enjoying the diverse cultures of international destinations. The disruptive elements of leisure travel are influencing business travel. Digital platforms are being used to book tickets extensively. Corporate travellers are showing keen interest on sharing economy accommodation for lodging facilities and interestingly 41% of the Asian business travellers opt to travel in low-cost carriers.

Convenience has become the most essential factor for most of the business travellers across ages and cultures. 53% of the Asian Business travellers deviate from the company travel policies for booking a travel carrier that provides a more convenient travel option.

India:

In the survey, it was found out that 32% of the respondents valued convenience above all other factors. To facilitate travel processes, digital platforms were used as well. This behavioural pattern was quite evident among Indian travellers above 35 years old.

China and Indonesia:

The ‘feel good’ factor is of utmost importance for most of the Chinese and Indonesian business travellers who fall in this category. The survey found out that 94% of them were ready to pay more for additional services and have distinctive travel experiences. .

Singapore and Japan:

The travellers of these countries are ready to spend a substantial amount of money on costly air-carriers. They observe travelling as an opportunity to maximise loyalty rewards, prioritizing  comfort over rewards. Only 25% of them were willing to fly in low-cost carriers although Singaporeans and japanese travellers are more budget conscious than the others. .

Mr. Andrew Phua, Director of Exhibitions and Conferences, Singapore Tourism Board, quoted:

“However, as research on this region has been lacking, this report on Asian Business Travellers is extremely timely; we hope it will help travel managers to better understand Asian Business Travellers and maximise the opportunities of this dynamic and burgeoning segment of travellers.”

Through this research report, travel operators targeting these geographies can easily understand that they will have to offer more individualised travel experiences with greater services and convenience for travellers.

For more stories on TravelRave, click here. 

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Many marketers wish to learn the art of customer acquisition. This year, WIT Singapore held a panel discussion on ‘Travel Distribution, Reboot’ which focused majorly on how traditional global distribution systems are prominently positioning themselves in the market. The panellists of this discussion were: Albert Pozo, President, APAC, Amadeus; Martin Herbert, General Manager, Asia, Travelport; Roshan Mendis, SVP, Sabre.

The panelists of ‘Travel Distribution. Reboot’ session  at WIT 2015

The panel discussion brought to light many essential factors for the marketers who attended this event:

#1- Customer Acquisition, Personalised Unique Experience and Travel Corner Platform

With the motive to attract ‘powerful’ travellers, the need of ‘powerful’ data was brought to the forefront. ‘Powerful’ travellers are the ones who are better connected, informed and experienced in the world of travel. On the other side, the focus of global companies should be customer acquisition while giving a personalised experience to the customers. This is mostly forgotten by businesses in the cut-throat competition in the market. Global distribution system should be converted into a ‘Travel Corner Platform’ that provides richer and diversified content on their fingertips of the users. Taking this into account, Travelport has allowed airline companies to merchandise and sell their products while helping them expand in different sectors like hospitality.

#2- Disruption in corporate travel

While leisure travel space is mostly disrupted, corporate travel is falling in the same category too. In the corporate market, there are many discrepancies. Often there are issues of cost and control between businesses. Then, there are business travellers who have different tastes and preferences- few of them wish to travel in the business style while others want to enjoy the facilities of both leisure and business travel. To counter this irregularity, technology providers can produce sophisticated search and control platforms and use business analytical tools to attain the best results.

#3- Significance of localization & development of advanced technology

Many global companies realise that localisation is inevitable. For this form of development, restructuring of businesses is deemed necessary. Recognising the needs and demands of clients/customers is highly essential for businesses to deliver better products and obtain profits. With the improvement in the quality of products, advanced user-friendly technologies should be developed that help the suppliers to make differentiated offerings for the customers.

#4- Travellers’ feedback in company policies

Travellers’ feedback can really help travel brands to grow and expand. The panellists in the discussion pointed out that adoption of travel feedbacks must be made mandatory and should be included in the company policies. If the company listens to their travellers, their compliance will be higher. This self-regulatory system will increase travellers’ satisfaction for the brand.

#5- Disruption in the Travel and Transportation Distribution System

Be it GDS, Metasearch, corporate travel agencies, the barriers to enter into this market are low. With richer content in GDS, new companies have come into existence. The corporate space is vast and there is room for more players who wish to establish businesses and try out different things.

You can find more stories from WIT Singapore 2015 and other events held during TravelRave here.

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Rakuten Group, founded by Hiroshi Mikitani in 1997, is the largest and possibly the most reliable internet shopping mall in Japan. It has around 40 businesses and services like Online Retail, Securities, Travel, Professional Sports and Entertainment. The travel wing of Rakuten provides hotels, cars and other forms of travel solutions to its customers.

Takanobu Yamamoto, the Executive Officer of Travel Business Rakuten, attended WIT Singapore 2015 – the leading B2B conference of travel and technology sector. Like other speakers, Takanobu shared his experiences and insights about the company’s services and travel industry.

Takanobu Yamamoto at WIT Singapore. 2015

Rakuten Travel offers 29,845 hotels within Japan and 15,425 hotels outside the country on its platform. They work closely with these hotels to understand the uniqueness of each property. After careful observation, they display the best features of the hotels on their website. For every hotel booking, the customers earn points which they can use to purchase small but essential items. 56 million room nights were booked from October 2014 to September 2015. Rakuten Group received a revenue of USD 56 billion in 2015 of which travel is about 10% of the group’s revenue. Through their analytical tools, they have realized that the conversion ratio of women smartphone users is higher than the male counterpart.

Takanobu Yamamoto stated that Rakuten Travel is not just a transactional platform but a matching platform too. It connects the travellers and hotels providing the best fit between the two. Elaborating on the same, Takanobu Yamamoto quoted:

“We’ve transitioned from a transaction platform to a matching platform. We tell users we can find the best hotel for them, for their unique personality, and tell hotels that we can find hotels the best fit users.”

Rakuten Travel even has ‘internet travel consultants’ who support customers and reduces the amount of mismatch on a regular basis. Successful matching creates higher customer satisfaction and results in better hotel reviews. Satisfied customers who have rated this travel service above 3.0 have 30% higher repeat rate than those who have rated it below 2.0.

Like AliTrip, Rakuten Travel has a huge database. It uses this chunk of data to understand customer behaviour for achieving more profits. Takanobu Yamamoto revealed that the brand is achieving just 20% to 40% of its potential profits. The enormous data alone can help this travel business to grow to a great extent.

Rakuten Group, often called as ‘the Alibaba of Japan’, has focused on establishing solid brand power in Japan in the last few years. It has already laid a strong base to build a truly global company. How does it perform in the years to come, especially at an international level, is yet to be seen.

For more updates from WIT Singapore 2015 and other events held during TravelRave, click here.

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Alitrip, the online travel marketplace, has a significant foothold in the Chinese market. It has focused on signing up travel agencies to reach more customers with its products and services. Distinguishing itself from other brands, it plans to drive a C2B marketplace and thereby transform it into a consumer-driven business.

Sherri Wu at WIT Singapore 2015

Sherri Wu, the Chief Strategy Officer of Alitrip, attended WIT 2015 to share her knowledge and experience of the travel industry and Alitrip. She pointed out that today most of the Chinese travellers are young, affluent, educated and independent by nature. They are ready to spend a sufficient amount of money at international destinations. Last year, Chinese tourists had spent a whopping sum of US$164 billion overseas. This clearly shows that money is not the limiting factor anymore for the modern Chinese traveller. As most of them are digital natives, they embrace technology and rely on mobile devices for their travel bookings. As a matter of fact, 70% of their travel bookings come from mobile devices alone.

Most of the businesses, especially startups, neglect storing data. Alitrip has realized its importance. It has accumulated a large amount of data over the last 16 years. With the help of this data, Alitrip wishes to create and design the best products and services according to the customer..

Social websites like Facebook, Twitter, G+ are being used extensively by many brands to reach to their customers. According to Sherri, the content on social media should be converted from user-generated content (UGC) to professional-generated content (PGC). This professional guide will be viewed as a more reliable and useful source for strategically bringing supply and demand together.

China’s Singles Day sale is believed to be biggest online shopping festival in the world. Alitrip celebrated this occasion for the first time in 2014. Giving exclusive offers to its customers, its total sales reached USD 9.3 billion in the 24-hour time period. The company had sold goods worth USD 1 billion in 17 minutes only, and touched the USD 2 billion mark in just above an hour. Its record-breaking achievement on a single day grabbed the attention of international audience.

Future of AliTrip:

Alitrip aims to further develop products and services that better meet the needs of customers. It plans to make travel a ‘natural extension’ for its customers. As described by Sherri Wu, the brand believes on ‘Innovation, Innovation and Innovation!’. Sherri quoted:

“Now the customer doesn’t even have to pay at check-in or checkout; Alitrip does it behind the scenes. It saves customers time and saves hotels front desk labor.”

Alitrip does a form of re-conciliation with the hotels through bank accounts. This is very convenient for the customers. Additionally, they have pushed out the online credit-based visa application for mainland Chinese residents to promote the enhanced offering.

Alitrip is an independent business unit of Alibaba – a giant Chinese e-commerce company and was created in October, 2014.

For more stories from TravelRave, click here.

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Smartphones are increasingly becoming the device of choice for people, even more so when we are talking about travellers. Thanks to the increasing number of mobile devices and their processing capabilities, we are observing a big strategic shift in industry towards mobile. Brands have to sell where the customers are and online advertising companies like Criteo have to keep a sharp eye on the industry trends to offer the best to their clients.

Daniele Beccari during his session at WIT Conference

Criteo recently published a research report for travel industry after analysing more than 1 billion bookings generated online since 2014. During the recently concluded WIT Conference in Singapore, Daniele Beccari, Head of Travel, Criteo shared some useful results they derived after analysing the data.

According to the report, share of mobile devices has now risen to 23 percent of bookings as compared to 12 percent last year. the fraction of users searching and browsing on mobiles is higher but for complicated travel bookings, desktops dominate. The rate of adoption is much higher in case of Southeast Asia as compared to Europe and Middle East.

More people book hotels and accommodation on mobile phones as compared to Rail or Airline tickets. The car rental segment is growing fast on mobile as well seeing a growth from 18 percent to 25 percent.

This trend has been observed because airline bookings usually add up to higher amount and people prefer mobile devices for smaller amounts and this holds true for most markets except Japan where the average booking values are almost same across all the devices. This to some extent, is because of the easy adoption of technology in that region. The car rental segment is catching up on mobile as most of the rental companies are relying heavily on their mobile app.

People tend to book long travel plans using desktop and mobiles account for small fraction of bookings there. But according to Criteo, 21 percent of bookings aren’t correctly measured by advertisers as the click is made on one device while the transaction is completed on the other. Of course the trend is different in case of last minute bookings where mobile devices dominate the scene.

Travel marketers need to track the users across multiple devices to offer relevant information to them and facilitate the booking process. In-app tracking can also help generate meaningful data and drive more bookings from the app only.

The full report can be found here.

‘The Mobile Opportunity’ session was conducted during WIT Conference 2015 which was organised as a part of TravelRave. You can read rest of the stories from TravelRave here.

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We are so used to having internet on our mobile devices that we feel helpless without it. While travelling outside country borders, it becomes a major problem as roaming costs can be sky high. During the WIT Bootcamp, we came across a startup Rimoto which is trying to solve this by offering users free access to some useful apps while you are travelling.

Shashin Shah, one of the co-founders of Rimoto presented the idea during the Start-up pitch during WIT Bootcamp and won during the final round on October 21. Here is a short video of Shashin introducing Rimoto to the TravHQ community.

To provide the service, Rimoto partners with various mobile operators and buys data in bulk to offer free access to partner apps through VPN. The apps are mostly services like restaurant reservation, cabs and ticket booking that people primarily need while travelling. Users can also choose to have internet access for more apps like Facebook and Whatsapp if they choose to pay for a premium plan.

Shashin presenting Rimoto during WIT Bootcamp

You can know more about Rimoto on their website here. To read other stories from TravelRave, you can click here.

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From a mattress in an apartment to a $20 billion company, Airbnb has grown at a crazy pace and is termed as one of the biggest disruptors in travel industry. It is world’s largest accommodation company and is still experiencing strong growth all across the globe. On October 20, during the WIT Conference, Julian Persaud, Regional Director, APAC, Airbnb shared his views on the role of Asia in growth of Airbnb. Here are some pointers we picked from ‘Coffee with Julian Persaud’.

Julian sharing Airbnb’s plans for Asian market

Key to success in China

Commenting on the growth the company in China, he said that one of the many reasons Airbnb picked up in China is because the modern Chinese travellers have a different state of mind. The trend has shifted from group travellers to independent travellers. Another contributor is the welcoming nature of hosts as most of them are older and don’t travel much anymore but appreciate young people coming to them and sharing their stories.

Data science and advertising

Persaud comes with years of experience of working with Google but when asked about the preferable advertising option, he stated that there is no bias towards Google. The marketing strategy includes a mix of different platforms and they favour whatever works best for them. Data science plays a very important role in the whole process to understand the impact of each channel. He also emphasised on the importance of innovative offline activities like they did in Korea by associating with Korean popstar G-dragon. Such activities drive word of mouth marketing and help a brand gain traction.

Learning from hotels

It was very obvious that the point will come up and Airbnb will be compared to the hotels. According to Persaud, Airbnb isn’t a substitute for hotels. Airbnb is more about experiences than just being a provider for accommodation. People prefer hotels for short stays and Airbnb for relatively longer stays but the line between the two is blurred.

Talking about Airbnb for Business, he said that 10% of the users are business travellers and most of them are people who have to stay for weeks. He said that they have a lot to learn from the hotels, especially the large hotel chains, on maintaining quality and being a better host.

Building around Airbnb

During the conversation, he talked about many startups that have been built around Airbnb and similar businesses. There are startups that will help control the appliances remotely to reduce electricity wastage or clear the wardrobe for guests. Persaud expressed that it is great to see such innovations and while Airbnb isn’t investing in these startups, things might change in future.

Experimenting for Indian market

Talking about the plans for Indian market, he said that Airbnb has a strong focus on India. Airbnb surely sees the local players like Stayzilla and TG Stays as strong competition but Julian said that competition is good as it prepares the market and they are still experimenting in India.

You can find all our other stories from TravelRave here.

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With WIT Singapore, 2015 taking place at Marina Bay, Singapore, we managed to pull out a few interesting key points from Chan Park’s Key address. Chan Park is the General Manager (Southeast Asia) of Uber. He is actively involved in the expansion the car-rental brand through numerous operations linked to government relations.

Chan Park sharing the Uber story

During his session, he highlighted many interesting elements of Uber and its story over the years. Here are a few of them:

#1- Uber’s presence in the Asian market

Chan Park stated that the growth of Uber in the Asian market has been ‘incredible’. The brand has observed phenomenal increase in the number of cabs and the demand for them. For this car-rental service, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand are the fastest growing markets in Asia. Marketing in India was altogether a different experience. For example, the average pick-up time for cabs in other countries is mostly 3-4 minutes but in India it turns out to be 35-40 minutes. Over the last few years the company has reduced the average fare of its cabs by 15-20% of the original cost. With the increase in demand of Uber cabs, there will be more trips daily. This will turn into an opportunity for Uber drivers to earn more per day.

#2- The roles of the Governments and locals

Governments of different countries have their own set of goals and agenda. Uber attempts to align its goals with the goals of these governments. For example, with the plans of creating a mobile environment that is safe and smart, Uber has observed that Singapore focuses on lesser cars and reduction of car parking space in its area. Interestingly, 12% of the real estate of Singapore is allotted to car parks. In the same manner, they have also noticed that different countries have their own set of rules and regulations for car-pooling. In order to expand globally, Uber will be required to adhere to the laws of the land.

Persuading the governments in the right manner is essential too. Uber makes it clear to them that they are for safety, customer protection, formalizing and regulating appropriately within the transport industry of the country. Fortunately, things have been mostly favourable for the brand till date.

#3- Uber for Business

Understanding the difference between regular travellers and business travellers, the brand has extended its service. ‘Uber For Business’ provides reliable rides for employees with rides up to 40% cheaper than regular taxis.

After enrolling through its website, businesses can set rules and policies mentioning where and when their employees can take the ride. For later reference, trip info for every ride will be available. The feature makes the management of business rides much easier.

#4- Goals of Uber

During his speech, Chan Park stated that Uber attempts to reach the following goals: Bringing down the pick-up time and fulfil the customer requests. As mentioned earlier, the pick-up time in most countries is 3-4 minutes but for India it reaches 35-40 minutes. In India, they might face a big challenge in reducing pick-up time.

#5- A glimpse into the life of Chan Park and his link with Uber

Chan Park has been an avid Mathematician. For a short period of time, he worked as a currency trader. He claims that his analytical, creative and quick problem solving skills have helped him become an important part of Uber culture. He elaborates that the company does not really take cultural background into consideration for accepting employees. Most of the present employees of Uber are bankers and consultants. People just need to have strong analytical skills and they can be a part of this global brand.

You can find more stories from TravelRave here.

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We are reporting live from Marina Bay Sands, Expo Centre where ITB Asia has kick-started earlier in the morning today.  The ‘Trade Show for the Asian Travel Market’, opened its doors with a power packed panel discussion on the next big things that will potentially drive the future of the travel industry.

At the opening panel represented by industry heavyweights including Expedia, Airbnb and the World Tourism & Travel Council (WTTC), personalisation, innovation and technology were cited as some of the leading industry growth drivers. 

ITB Asia 2015 Opening Press Conference and Panel Discussion (L to R): John Bailey, Managing Director, Ketchum Singapore (moderator), Dr. Christian Göke, Chief Executive Officer, Messe Berlin, Dr Michael Frenzel, Chairman, World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), Ms. Mieke De Schepper, Vice President, APAC Expedia Inc. and Mr. Julian Persaud, Regional Director for APAC, Airbnb, Inc.

As one would expect, mobile is the key growth driver for major players in the region. For Hotels.com, more than 1 in 4 of global transactions in Q2 were booked on a mobile device. Mieke De Schepper, Vice President, APAC the Expedia Group, stated, “We are investing in technology to enable our hotel partners to reach travellers in the way that they want to shop. The speed of innovation is faster than ever and the industry needs to focus on being nimble”.

Julian Persaud, Regional Director for APAC, Airbnb, stated, “The number of travellers looking for a local experience and staying in an Airbnb when they travel across Asia has grown by almost 400% in the last year alone. A growing number of these bookings are now made on mobile devices, a 60 times increase as compared to 2013, when the app was first introduced. Our success in the region would not be possible without a growing community of hosts in this part of the world who share their homes which has become a part of their lifestyle.”

You can find more stories from TravelRave here.

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