soon passed another year. The situation of the tourism industry in 2018 feels that the off-season is even lighter and the peak season can only remain flat. Some revenue even declines, but there are still listed and put on the counter. Several companies have obtained venture capital investment and finance. Now they have just entered 2019. Will Taiwan’s overall tourism industry be better than 2018? And what trends will be?
2018, in addition to the number of consecutive holidays in Taiwan's tourism industry in the first half of the year, after the reform of military and public education annuity in July 1, 6 listed travel agencies, including Xiong Lion, Canxing, Yifei.com, Wufu, Phoenix , Shanfu Tourism, etc., were affected, including tourism on and off the island, and the revenue in July ranged from 4% to 35%, among which Phoenix and Yifei.com declined as high as 19.83% and 35.78%. In addition, the Tourism Bureau promoted the national tourism warm winter subsidy at the end of the year, and then expanded the "normal tourism subsidy" and a more large-scale national tourism plan to encourage people to travel on the island. But can such subsidies really improve the prosperity of the industry in the long run?
On the other hand, there is also some good news. After the tourism new KKday received a round B financing led by Japan's largest tourism group HIS in February 2018, it completed a round B+ financing led by Japan's LINE Ventures and Alibaba Taiwan Entrepreneur Fund in the second half of the year. In November, MyTaiwanTour (Feiya Travel Agency) announced that it had received US$1.5 million in strategic investment from Sanpu Tourism Group, and AsiaYo also announced on December 5 that it received another funding, completing approximately US$7 million in Series B financing.
In the part of tourism regulations, online new tourism operators gave birth to the fourth type of travel industry (Type C travel agency) with a lower threshold at the end of 2017, but was boycotted by traditional travel operators. At the end of 2018, the Tourism Bureau proposed to halve the capital amount of the actual revenue of Type B travel agency from the current 3 million yuan. It seems that there is an opportunity for new tourism operators with insufficient funds. However, if you look carefully, Type B travel industry can only attract or receive domestic tourists, which means repairing After the regulations are revised, you cannot directly sell tourism products to foreign tourists. Is this amendment in line with the expectations of newly-started tourism operators? The major international forecasting agencies in
believe that the global economic situation in 2019 should be similar to 2018, but other units have pointed out that the performance may not be as good as in 2018, and Taiwan's economy is closely related to the two major economies of the United States and China. If the economic growth rate will decline, Taiwan's economic performance will definitely not be too good. In addition to being affected by the economy, Taiwan's tourism industry may continue to have a fever last year, and changes in tourism consumption behavior are also one of the factors. For example, the increase in free travel has a great impact on the revenue of traditional travel agencies. Therefore, in 2019, the tourism industry must face these four trends:
1. Tourism consumption trend
In 2017, the proportion of group tours and free travel has reached 35%: 65%. In addition to increasing the number of people who choose to travel, low-cost airlines have also made faster purchase decisions, and the consumption mix and match models have also begun to appear. For example, people who book low-cost airlines may also eat Michelin restaurants and live in five-star hotels. According to a Google Research survey, 57% of consumers believe that travel brands should deliver information to them based on their personal preferences or past behavior. The same research also confirmed that if travel brands can help consumers customize their travel experience, 36% may pay more for their services. In addition, a travel news website Skift research found that 35% of travelers use their mobile phone to book travel or activities when traveling to their destination, while market research firm Phocuswright found that 38% of bookings were made one day or two days before the trip.
2. Travel experience trends
Skift Research's 2018 American Wealthy Travelers Survey showed that 67% of wealthy travelers would rather spend money to buy local experiences than stay in better hotels, while millennials want to immerse themselves in the local culture of tourism. They want to do what locals do, eat what locals eat, and pursue a unique experience once a lifetime. Walking tours of the destination are also one of the main experiences, which can communicate with other travelers and understand all local issues from destination experts. In addition, the US Millennial Travel Report states that 25% of millennials will travel alone in the next 12 to 24 months.
3. Tourism technology trends
Travel and activity software provider Trekksoft pointed out that the proportion of mobile phone bookings increased from 51.5% to 56.7% between 2017 and 2018, and the revenue of desktop bookings dropped from 73.2% to 65.8% in 2018. Although in Taiwan, when querying travel information or comparing prices and using fragmented time to use mobile phones, they will be transferred to desktops when making final decisions, but this situation will also increase the proportion of mobile phone bookings due to the optimization of the mobile phone interface. The application of chatbot Chatbot has been very popular in the past or two years, but to help customers solve problems, a large amount of information and in-depth machine learning are required. AI artificial intelligence is also the same. Although there are not many applications in the tourism industry at present, AI must be a key technology in the future for tourism planning and accurate recommendations, etc. In addition, blockchain technology will first dominate B2B in the next five to ten years, and at the same time gradually face and further affect consumers, and may change the development of the Internet.
4. Tourism cooperation trends
Currently, there are more than 3,000 travel agencies in Taiwan alone, and other related tourism industries are relatively competitive. Therefore, it is very important to establish a unique brand awareness. It produces relevant content based on its own advantages and products, and spreads the mass news media through the business of social media and packaging issues, and then cooperates with relevant focus media to find accurate consumer groups. According to the survey of the Ministry of Finance and Economics, on average, each Taiwanese citizen has four social media accounts, which are deeply influenced by social platforms such as Facebook and Instagram and instant messaging software. Skyscanner's "2018 Asia-Pacific Tourism Trends Report" survey also found that "word of mouth sharing" and "social media" have gradually become the tourism driving force for Asia-Pacific tourists, among which the opinion leader KOL (Key Opinion Leader) will affect consumers' decision-making reference. In addition, the government is also actively promoting the "design flip, local entrepreneurship" project. Through the diversified combination of regions, industries and outstanding talents, it can use value-added design techniques, and can drive industrial development and local culture improvement. This part can enable tourism innovation to develop more focusedly, and tourism operators will be able to cooperate with local new entrepreneurs to jointly promote Taiwan's tourism industry.
Author | Cai Zongbao, Kevin Tsai, graduated from the UK MBA, has been engaged in travel agency business, team leader, products for more than 15 years, as well as more than 10 years of experience in online media, marketing, planning, community, etc. He has led a group to 35 countries, and has a Taiwan tour leader certificate, a travel agency manager license, and a lecturer certificate from the Higher Education Department of the Ministry of Education. He specializes in online travel models and innovative community marketing.
