Fair chance to sell relevance

14mar-blog-web
In a market like Singapore, consumer travel fairs may have reached saturation point, given that the market is small, mature, technologically savvy and sees a string of these shows organised throughout the year.  Add to that new competition from online travel portals, whose last-minute deals, promotional packages and free-this-and-that gimmicks make them de facto travel fairs.

All this probably accounts for a consistent decline in visitorship at fairs in Singapore in the last few years, whereas in larger markets such as Indonesia, where there are swaths of first, second or third-time travellers throughout the archipelago, consumer fairs are thriving.

But consumer travel fairs in Singapore need not reach saturation point – if they think up ways to  enlarge the market with new tricks. Just as a retail mall constantly must think up ways to draw existing and new visitors, so do travel fairs.

Good location, creative marketing, exciting programme, great performances, appealing booth design are just a few factors that come to my mind when I think how a show such as the bi-annual NATAS Travel Fair can go for the next lap.  I’m sure organisers of fairs themselves know this – it’s not rocket science after all – but are probably constrained by the wherewithals to effect real change.

Pricing – in the form of discounts and freebies – remains the overriding carrot used to attract visitors. The look, feel and content of the fair overall has not changed much over the years, even though the consumer has grown more sophisticated. And this, despite the fact that selling travel is such a happy thing! If you ask me what I’d rather sell – furniture?, electronics?, home appliances? (dear lord), books?, cosmetics? etc – I’d pick travel because it has become an essential commodity for most people, it is invariably more interesting, exciting and alive than the other lifestyle options, visually it beats a washing machine hands down while its promise of a dream is more skin-deep than an elixir of youth contained in a cosmetic jar.

Yet, look at our booths, cramped with paper,  and paperwork, luggages and passport holders to give away, and more photocopied flyers shouting discounts from where they are pasted on walls and hung from ceilings, where nobody could really read them.

Look at our programme – did we attempt to bring in dynamic travel personalities who might inspire the crowds with their anecdotes, experiences and tips/how-tos? Did we try to segment marketing by having sections that focus on new travel niches?

In the face of an onslaught from the Internet, a consumer travel fair is actually the very tool travel agencies and their associations can use to remind consumers why agencies are still relevant.

Travel firms do this by putting their best feet forward in winning over a client, not winning sales, being with him at the start of journey and helping him make the right holiday decision with expert advice and human interaction – something the Internet can never quite achieve.

Travel trade associations on the other hand can use these fairs as an opportunity to launch direct campaigns about how travel agencies today have evolved and outline the advantages of using them over buying travel online.

Sadly, I have never seen such a campaign at these fairs.

This article was first published in TTG Asia, March 14, 2014 on page 1 to 3. To read more, please view our digital edition or click here to subscribe.

Sponsored Post