IN an ever-changing travel landscape, it has become even more critical for travel consultants to examine their core competencies vis-à-vis technology and carve out a unique selling proposition to ensure the success of their business amid competition, say senior executives of Amadeus.
While technology is a “facilitator” for many travel agencies in the age of the Internet, Holger Taubmann, senior vice president, distribution, at Amadeus cautions travel agencies from becoming over-dependent on technology.
Speaking to TTG Asia e-Daily, Taubmann said: “If you get into a technology-only game, it’s a mass market and the margin is low and you have to optimise all the processes and usually that leads to consolidation. If you go down the specialisation route, you have a possibility of surviving. Many of our customers are very successful using technology but it’s not their core competence.”
Albert Pozo, president of Amadeus Asia-Pacific, has observed a large number of traditional leisure and corporate travel agencies in Asia adopting specialisation in the quest for survival. “If you want to create loyalty or a level of stickiness with the consumer, you need to have a degree of expertise,” he said.
Travel agencies can also go to the other end and target the masses, Pozo pointed out, but their core competencies should then lie in the their capability to attract traffic and meet as many travellers’ demands as possible.
“There is no one size fits all approach,” he remarked. “I’d say to a travel (consultant) to know what you’re good at: are you good at acquiring traffic, a (particular) destination or a specialised service for professionals? Be very good at that, whatever it is, but don’t be a Jack of all trades.”
Mobile is a space that travel agencies in Asia can ill ignore, particularly in markets such as China, South Korea and India, which have some of the most advanced usage of mobile devices in the world, observed Pozo.
The high penetration of mobile devices has allowed many companies in these markets to leapfrog the web phase and move into mobile directly.
