Customised travel driven by consumer demand
ITB China News spoke with Guo Ming, Co-founder and CEO of HHtravel, about customised travel services in China and the importance of adapting to consumer requirements as well as the advantages new media channels offer agencies.
Guo Ming highlighted that 2016 was arguably the “first year” of customised travel service in China, “when major travel service platforms increased their inputs in the customised travel market.” He added that with the recovery of tourism service in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers are looking for “more personalised, quality and diversified travel services.” He maintained that consumers today “prefer to travel in small groups rather than large ones”, which leads to a sharp rise in the demand for customised travel service.
Consumers are looking for more personalised, quality and diversified travel services.
To meet the rising demand for customised services and luxury travel in China, HHtravel aquires new understanding about consumers before developing products that focus more on their demands. Compared with the product-oriented approach adopted in the past, this approach centres around clients’ demands. Guo Ming stressed that a travel agency specialising in customised services should develop its response strategy from three aspects, i.e., new understanding, new demands and new provision, so as to constantly satisfy the clients’ demands, create values for them, and pursue development driven by clients’ demands.
New media can provide a channel for travel agencies offering customised travel services to acquire clients while building further relationships with them. HHtravel reduced costs for aquiring clients by relying on a new media matrix that Mr Ming said “efficiently attracts clients.” “By opening and operating our WeChat Official Account and Little Red Book (Xiaohongshu) Account, we are improving the new media matrix of HHtravel thanks to the constant development of new media. We turn scarce resource products and incomparable fun-seeking experiences into media content in diverse forms, and precisely distribute such content to different groups of people. In this way, our travel products are transformed into media content and made known to the public, and the impact of our brand is enhanced.”
需求激增推动定制旅游发展
鸿鹄逸游·携程太美旅行联合创始人CEO郭明接受ITB China采访，探讨了中国定制旅游服务的发展，以及适应消费者需求的重要性和新媒体渠道为旅行社带来的新机会。
郭明表示，2016年可谓中国定制旅行的“元年”，“各大旅游平台纷纷加大投入定制旅游市场”。他进一步指出，随着疫情后旅游市场的复苏回暖，消费者的旅游方式及需求快速变化。消费者更加注重“个性化、品质化和多样化”，更偏向于“大团变小团”，带来定制游需求激增。
消费者更加注重个性化、品质化和多样化的旅游服务。
为了满足消费者对定制化和高端旅游的需求，鸿鹄逸游对消费者形成了新的认知，在产品开发上更加侧重游客需求。相较于过去的产品导向，以客户需求为导向的趋势将更加明显。郭明强调，定制旅行社的应对策略应该从新认知、新需求和新供给三个方面出发，不断满足客户需求，为客户创造价值，以客户需求为驱动。
新媒体既是定制旅行社的获客渠道，又能与客户建立深度连接。通过新媒体矩阵的高效引流，鸿鹄逸游不仅获得了新的出口，还降低了获客成本。郭明表示：“随着新媒体的不断发展，我们也在不断完善新媒体矩阵，包括微信公众号、视频号、小红书号的落地等等，我们将稀缺资源产品和无可比拟的玩法体验制作成不同形式的内容，根据不同人群定位作精准分发，从而实现产品的曝光和转化，扩大品牌影响力。”
