Online B2B travel platform Asiatravel.com is getting ready to roll out digital tours using the latest technology to offer a unique travel experience.

Asiatravel.com, together with its US strategic partner, Yalla Digital, will develop and operate digital tours in Asia in 2H2017, according to Fred Seow, president of TAcentre.com, the leisure wholesale arm. These tours will kick off in Singapore before expanding throughout Asia from next year.

Seow: utilising AR and object recognition tech in tours

In Singapore, Asiatravel will collaborate with local bodies like the National Heritage Board to produce multiple language videos that are synchronised with the tour itinerary. In addition, each tour will also consist of live enactments of interesting historical stories through a live skit or play.

“Such tours utilise augmented reality and object recognition technologies to enhance the tourist’s overall experience,” Seow said. “All these will translate into a much stronger, deeper and even emotional experience of the destination’s history and culture for the travellers… (giving) tours a new meaning and purpose in this region.”

As well, Asiatravel.com will from mid-July launch a digital tour to Israel, focusing on Israel’s strong cultural heritage to appeal to the Chinese market, he added.

“Since TAcenter.cn’s (TAcentre.com’s localised name in China) launch last October, we have been working closely with various major online (partners) through our B2B API while over 6,000 traditional agents have subscribed to our Chinese web version. We are working hard to develop new products and theme packages for the Chinese market,” he said.

Recognising the increasingly sophisticated Chinese travel market’s hunger for “adventure and new experiences”, TAcenter.cn will at ITB China this week launch a new wedding group tour package to Asian beach destinations, which allows Chinese travellers to experience a wedding solemnisation ceremony and celebration with their family and friends in a foreign locale, Seow told TTG Asia.

TAcenter.cn will also roll out its own chartered flights and packages to destinations not well served by scheduled flights from China. One such charter will connect Nanjing, Xi’an and Tianjin to the twin destinations of Vientiane (Laos)/Udon Thani (Thailand) and Vientiane/Luang Prabang or Savvannakhet, all in Laos.

In addition, TAcenter.cn will introduce the Travel Trade Alliance Club (TTAC), a professionals club programme offering a host of membership benefits, including a professional network for resource sharing, training and enrichment, for sales and marketing personnel in the travel trade sector.

A key benefit of TTAC will be travel packages at special prices for members, said Seow.

“We believe one of the best forms of training for travel trade sales and marketing personnel is for them to visit the destination that they are promoting and to experience it like a customer. These packages will be for their own personal travel with subsidy for both the member and a companion of up to 80 per cent,” he revealed.

Understanding will be a key theme that the Europe Travel Commission (ETC) will adopt as it rolls out stronger efforts to grow Europe’s success as a destination for the Chinese, which has risen to become the continent’s second largest source market after the US.

Buoyed by easier visa process and increasing flight connectivity, Chinese numbers to Europe have shot up “like a rocket” in the last five years, said Eduardo Santander, executive director of ETC. Last year, China sent about 12 million visitors to the continent, which Santander acknowledges is still a far cry from Chinese arrival numbers to South-east Asia, for example.

Santander: understanding works two ways

“But we want quality over quantity,” emphasised Santander, when asked if the non-profit organisation, which has 32 NTO members, has set any arrival goals for the fast-growing market.

“Certain destinations like Venice and Barcelona are already seeing capacity problems, so we want to spread Chinese tourists to second-tier cities in Europe, which has a lot of heritage, shopping, wine and culture,” he added.

In particular, the Europe-China Tourism Year 2018 has been deemed a high-priority initiative by both the European Commission and Chinese government to not just attract the Chinese to Europe but to enhance their understanding of Europe.

Santander is quick to point out that the understanding will work in a two-way direction, as training and education will be provided to European operators to better cater to Chinese travellers, whether it’s making sure that there’s availability of hot water, Mandarin-speaking staff and CCTV channel at hotels.

More research and analysis will be undertaken with UNWTO, WTTC and European Tour Operators Association (ETOA) to better understand what Chinese travellers are seeking in Europe, he elaborated.

More attention will be devoted to the FIT market from China, especially as a new class of Chinese traveller no longer wants the traditional experiences in Europe, he added. “(They are) trying to discover the hidden tracks in Europe,” he remarked.

Emphasis will also be placed on fostering partnerships with craftsmenship industries like fashion and watch-making, which are “good magnets” for the Chinese to visit Europe to buy original products where they are produced, said Santander.

“We sell Europe as a collection of experiences – the history, wine, gastronmy, music, shopping, and so forth,” he added.

At ITB China 2017, where Europe is the official partner destination, ETC – together with ETOA, Welcome Chinese and China Outbound Tourism Research Institute – have come together to match 150 European tourism suppliers with the corresponding number of Chinese buyers with the World Bridge Tourism project.

Rather than jumping headlong into the huge China market, Germany’s TUI Group is taking the contrarian approach, going for slow but steady growth in a three-pronged policy which its CEO Fritz Joussen revealed to TTG Asia in a one-on-one interview at ITB China yesterday.

“One of the issues with China is that it is so big. Therefore it is risky to build your brand too rapidly, plus you will need to spend millions of dollars to do so. That’s not what we want. We want to build a direct relationship with satisfied customers,” he said.

TUI China, which since 2011 has an outbound travel licence, has recently inked a partnership with Viking Cruises, which operates over 62 river cruise ships, to target China outbound market. Joussen foresees TUI’s role in handling the sales and visas, etc, will enable its expansion of the China outbound pie. “We believe cruises, particularly river cruises, is a big segment today for Chinese clients. We can dedicate full ships to them to sail, say, up and down the Rhine River where they can experience sights and culture while also feeling at home in a dedicated ship,” said Joussen.

Joussen: building direct relationship with satisfied customers

TUI China, whose joint venture partner is CTS, is only one of three foreign companies with an outbound travel licence, the other two being JTB and American Express. CTS owns the largest travel agency network in China with about 350 outlets.

Secondly, TUI Group has bought an equity in Dusseldorf-based Peakwork, a digital leisure travel solutions firm, which it aims to use as a means to develop dynamic packaging with Chinese partners. “We believe over time the integrated holiday experience, combined with individual demand, will come to China as the market matures. For that, you need software that can do dynamic packaging, and B2C, B2B and B2B2C (reach),” he said, adding the Chinese travel market is far more digitally-driven than the German market.

Thirdly, Joussen views China as the backyard market for South-east Asia, the way the US market is for the Caribbean and fills up all of TUI Group’s hotels in the Caribbean. TUI Group is therefore identifying new destinations in South-east Asia for hotel development while working with China partners such as Alibaba’s subsidiary Fliggy to inspire Chinese travellers to book holidays with TUI across the globe with a focus on South-east Asia, as well as its new hotels in the Maldives.

“A third of our guests in our hotels in the Maldives are Chinese guests,” said Joussen. “We thought, let’s build more hotels in South-east Asia, the Maldives, Sri Lanka and Mauritius. We’re looking into Thailand, Indonesia (Bali), Vietnam and so on.” TUI Group operates two resort brands, RIU and Robinson Club.

TUI Group now has more than 300 hotels in operation and is planning to open around 10-12 new hotels per year worldwide. It owns or manages the hotels, and is also investing in its own cruise ships (13 in operation now).

Since becoming TUI Group CEO in 2012, Joussen has been repositioning the company from a tour operator to a tourism player.

“For the first time last year, we made more profit from hotels and cruises than from tour operating. It was also the highest-ever profit we had ever made, more than half of it from hotels and cruises, less from tour operating,” he said.