TTG ASIA MARCH 2019
ANALYSIS 4
Personalisation
for good measure
Growing demand for personalisation in travel has put DMCs and travel
operators’ expertise into sharper focus, but at the same time the tailor-
made wave has opened up new concerns for players and even put
traditional industry relations under question. By Xinyi Liang-Pholsena
G
one are the days where
travel agents are needed
to plan and book simple
beach vacations or run-
of-the-mill packages, a trend that
DMCs and tour operators are only
too keenly aware of.
But the earlier prediction of travel
agents going obsolete with the rise of
the Internet and OTAs did not en-
tirely come true. While some agents
died out, quite a few remain in busi-
ness and offer a stronger value prop-
osition than before.
The growing demand for immer-
sive, authentic experiences tailor-
made to individual liking and pref-
erences actually bodes well for travel
expert, driving many tour operators
to carve our clearer positionings and
niche segments for themselves, any-
thing from VIP services and expert-
led itineraries to bona fide, once-in-
a-lifetime voyages of discovery.
David Kevan of UK-based Chic
Locations believes that “there is still
good scope for tour operators but
(they) cannot be all things to every-
body”.
“For Chic Locations, independ-
ent experience-led touring holidays
is the way to go, combining at least
three different places and maybe us-
ing three different airlines – things
that clients have neither the confi-
dence or expertise to arrange them-
selves,” said Kevan.
The ability to curate and “find
gems that (clients) can’t find on
the Internet” is precisely how Asie
Voyages’ Philippe Roussel sees his
strengths as a French tour operator
specialising in the Far East.
Particularly in South-east Asia,
it’s “not easy to find gems” without
guidance from a travel expert, he is
quick to point out.
That is where the local destination
knowledge and expertise of DMCs
come in, said Stephan Roemer, CEO
of Diethelm Travel Group.
“We cannot sell (standardised
tours) anymore,” he said. “But what
I can sell is a simple noodle shop,
where locals sit on stools for lunch.
It’s an authentic experience and (our
clients) love it. It’s our job to find the
best noodle shop (in a destination)...
and that’s how we make a difference
and create added value.”
Personalisation: harder work, but
greater profitability
Travel players speak of the greater
dividends found in customising
tours, an area where many compa-
nies have devoted attention and ef-
forts to.
Even though classic tours still
make up business “volume” for Go
Vacation Thailand, the demand for
classic group series and SIT tours
have declined over the years, shared
business development director To-
bias Fischers.
In place, Fischers sees a clear pivot
towards private group tours as trav-
eller can better dictate what they
want in their itineraries and elements
adjusted to their liking.
Along with “bigger profit mar-
gins” that tour customisation has
brought is “more work”, admitted
Fischer, who added that Go Vacation
has a tailor-made department to ca-
ter to such requests.
“But that’s precisely where the fu-
ture of DMCs and travel agents lie.
It’s the future of what the market
wants, especially for repeaters,” he
emphasised.
Likewise, Nicola Scaramuzzino,
country manager of Panorama Des-
tination (Thailand) noted that the
tailor-made market, which is char-
acterised by organic growth, has
yet to deliver volume for the com-
pany. In the mean time, he assert-
ed DMCs still need both segments
to stay viable, with group series
generating quicker cashflow
while tailor-made tours offer big-
ger opportunities in profitability.
Complexity in ‘fitting puzzles’
The growing demand for customised
travel has opened up several con-
cerns for travel experts, including
greater time, effort and knowledge
needed to draw up a value proposi-
tion for their clients.
Creating a customised pro-
gramme requires strong industry
knowledge as well as interpersonal
skills, pointed out Scaramuzzino,
as travel designers “need to know
the psychology of customers and
ask a lot of questions in order to
provide correct products”. “It’s like
putting pieces of a puzzle together,”
he opined.
You need to
know the
psychology
of custom-
ers and ask a
lot of ques-
tions in order
to provide
the correct
products...
It’s like put-
ting pieces
of a puzzle
together.
– Nicola
Scaramuzzino,
country man-
ager, Panorama
Destination
(Thailand)
At the same time, the growing
tailor-made wave has opened up a
more “interesting” career path for
reservations staff, noted Scaramuz-
zino. As reservations staff acquire
industry knowledge and hone their
skills by “learning tricks to create the
right package for the right people”,
they can eventually rise up to be-
come travel designers.
“You cannot be a chef without
learning to chop onions,” he added,
drawing the analogy to a professional
kitchen.
Travel experts also spoke of con-
straints in delivering quotations for
a customised itinerary within a short
turnaround time, the result of con-
sumers having constant access to in-
formation and their mobile devices
in a hyperconnected world.
Said Scaramuzzino: “(In an age)
when booking flights take longer
than five seconds, replying (to cli-
ents) within 24 hours is considered a
long time.”
The ever-shortening response time
expected of travel agents is some-
thing Roussel is all too familiar with.
“But a la carte tours don’t happen
with clicks, it would take more time
(for us) to get back (to requests),”
he stressed. “(Furthermore), it takes
about 10-15 requests to translate
into one booking.”
That said, travel experts told
TTG Asia said that totally fresh
demands that require conceptu-
alisation from scratch are far and
in between, with most customised
requests falling in an area where
existing itineraries can be used
and adjusted to customers’ prefer-
ences.
Scaramuzzino shared: “Anyone re-
questing for something entirely new
are very few. You can classify custom-
ers into a few broad profiles – nature,
beach and culinary – and from there
send them sample standard pro-
grammes (according to their profile
types) to gauge interest.
“There’s usually a 50-50 chance of
acceptance,” he said.
Wither the DMC-tour operator
relationship?
As more tourism players get into the
personalisation game, the supplier-
DMC-tour operator-retail agent-
travel customer chain also comes un-
der greater scrutiny.
Kevan argues that the need for a
DMC is now lesser in a mainstream
destination like Thailand, which has
a high repeat visit factor and where
clients’ itineraries are generally less
complex – characterised by longer av-
erage length of stay, fewer stops and
local sightseeing booked on the spur
of the moment – than ‘newer’ desti-
nations the likes of Vietnam and Sri
Lanka.
“If you are established in (a desti-
nation), you probably have a direct
rapport with your main hotel part-
ners, so from a financial and opera-
tional view you have more control of
the booking, which in turn leads to
a better (and more seamless) experi-
ence for the clients,” said Kevan.
He added: “Most DMCs work to
set office hours and (outside of that
are) contactable via an emergency
number, but that would not include
booking tours. By contrast, the hotel
concierge is available at least 18 hours
a day and can arrange something to-
tally personalised within 30 minutes.”
But hotels’ encroachment into of-
fering personalised travel services
could pose existential concerns to
tour operators too, Kevan acknowl-
edged, while stressing that competi-
tion is not new in the travel sector.
“The days of tour operators work-
ing in tight collaboration with airlines
and hotels are gone; in many ways we
are competing against each other,” he
remarked.
While tour operators worth their
salt would have built up personal re-
lations with hotels and have some
kind of data protection agreements in
place to limit the scope that hotels can
approach clients directly” the reality
is that many of the hotels want direct
bookings, he opined.
Ultimately, the best form of in-
surance for business survival will be
“added value”, stressed Roemer.
“Any link in the value chain has
to provide visible additional value,
and that goes from the travel agent
to the DMC and the provider. The
client can nowadays book his hotel
and transportation directly without
travel agent. The added value however
makes the difference and has to prove
its value for money.”