A huge change is taking place at 72-year-old Singapore Airlines (SIA), which is refleeting the product, undertaking an organisational restructure and embracing digital in a big way.
In a TTG video interview on the sidelines of ITB Asia, Campbell Wilson, SIAâs senior vice president of sales & marketing, described the transformation as âfundamentalâ.
Digital initiatives are being rolled out across the business. Giving examples, he said technology is being deployed so that frontline people, whether crew, ground staff or contact centre staff, are equipped to handle ânot just people in general but a person in particularâ, with full knowledge of what he/she likes and what might be the best solution for the personâs particular interest at the point in time.
âThatâs on the customer side. Obviously on the business side, itâs predictive maintenance, so we can ensure aircraft operate efficiently and reliably. From the sales and marketing perspective, itâs to be able to segment the customer base and provide people with a customised offer of product, and price that means something to them, that confers value of the Singapore Airlines product.
âWeâre spending hundreds of millions of dollars on IT-related CAPEX; weâre employing hundreds of additional IT-related staff. This is a fundamental transformation.â
While the organisation keeps up with contemporary demands and technologies, Wilson said its business model, which has been built on human contact, customer service and intuition, remains.
Transforming a legacy brand like SIA, compared to a LCC like Scoot (where Wilson was CEO before being transferred back to SIA) is âabsolutelyâ harder, he said.
âIf you want to do an initiative in a low-cost airline, it takes a month and itâll cost you US$10,000. If you want to do the same thing at a legacy airline, itâs usually a year and US$1 million.â
Watch the full video to understand the real magnitude of change that is happening at SIA here.
Ctrip, which says it sees 40 per cent of traffic opening its app in non-homebase destinations, is on a drive to make the âsuper appâ the only one that users will use when they travel overseas.
In a video interview on the sidelines of ITB Asia last week, Victor Tseng, Ctripâs vice president corporate affairs, told TTG Asia: âWeâve been seeing a tremendous diversification in how users are using Ctrip. Now theyâre using Ctrip throughout their whole itinerary. Thatâs been an important initiative for us to continue to push, particularly when users are travelling overseas.â
Ctrip is expanding its capabilities for users overseas, so they donât have to open another app to seek the right information, user reviews or booking tools.
Issues such as a slowdown in Chinaâs economy, foreign currency fluctuations and Sino-US trade tiff are creating âa macro overhangâ, Tseng admitted, but pointed to the recent Golden Week which delivered around nine per cent growth as a reason to be optimistic.
âWhen you look at nine per cent relative to other parts of the world in terms of travel spend, thatâs still very, very good growth,â he said.
Meanwhile, Ctripâs ambitions to expand and tap global market sources through Trip.com are âmaking very good inroadsâ, Tseng said. Currently, the key markets Trip.com is focusing on include South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Australia and Russia.
Localisation is one of the ways Trip.com is taking to attract users to the site. In Singapore, for instance, the team works with local hotels to target staycations, which Singaporeans love.
Watch the full video to hear the full initiatives Ctrip is taking to stay ahead in the global industry here.