Current State of the Travel Industry in Singapore
PRICE COMPETITION IS TOO INTENSE IN THE TRAVEL INDUSTRY AND GROSS MARGIN IS ERODING
Price competition is inevitable and perfectly normal in any industry. It is not surprising that the price competition is extremely intense in the local travel You may also consider, Australia: My Country , Saratoga Springs, NY: A European-Style City in a Uniquely American Setting industry where there are more than 500 travel check out, How To Get Low Airfare , Overview of Costa Rica for ers agents (including tour You may also consider, Haledon, New Jersey: A Renaissance In The Making? , Dubai, Wiping Away Misconceptions operators). The number has remained rather stable over the last few years - while there are travel Try also, The Thai Hospitality , Drakensberg Diaries: The Drakensberg Boys' Choir in South Afria agents exiting the industry, there are also new players coming in at the same time. This indicates the availability of opportunities in the travel also related, Nungwi and the Northern Tip of Zanzibar , Say Goodbye to those Lonely Hotel Nights industry.
To stand out among your competitors is not easy and yet not that difficult either. What is needed is a strategy and patience to see through the changes you would like to have. I always believe that focus should not be on price alone (the cause of the price competition) but also on providing good customer service. I am not advocating free and good service though it would be good if the business can afford it. In fact, good services Try also, The Thai Hospitality , God's Country do come at a certain price. Free service does not equate to good service. And here is my definition of good customer service:
"It is about delivering what the customer needs at the right price. And the right price does not mean rock bottom price."
"The ultimate goal of providing services also related, Cruise the beautiful Arctic , Stag Weekends Spent in Nottingham Both Naughty and Nice! is to help customers spend their time, effort/or money See, Cruise the beautiful Arctic , Hello from Chicago - Chinatown and Second City efficiently."
Another definition on "Good Customer Service"
Giving customers more than what they THINK they are paying for.
Not charging customers based on exactly what they are getting.
Further Readings
Guidelines on Good Customer Services
Defying Expectations. How Good Customer Service Can Turn a Negative Into a Positive
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CUSTOMER RETENTION -- A NEGLECTED STRATEGY
Travel agents who have been in business for some time should have collected a sizeable amount of customers details in their company databases. And most of them would have made use of the database to retrieve customers' information only when these customers return to purchase more goods and services. See, Tourism Is Back In Full Swing In Cancun, Mexico , Seeking the most up-to-date assistance regarding cocoa beach Unknown to these companies, the real value of this database is actually measured by what the company could do with it to profit the business. Instead, they made use of customer data to complete registration and fulfill administrative needs but totally missed the opportunity to inform their existing customers about current promotions offered on a regular basis. Travel also related, Coastal Vacations Rewards Employees with Paradise and Beyond , Hello from Tarragona agents need to realize that these previous customers are actually taking less risk to purchase from an agent whom they have purchased services check out, Hints for Car Hire in Western Europe , Tourism Is Back In Full Swing In Cancun, Mexico before. Hence, getting more business by creating customer loyalty is definitely a cheaper and more effective means than general advertisement on papers and magazines. And also, bear in mind that existing satisfied customers are good referrals too, they help to bring in more sales.
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A SINGLE SALESMAN COMPANY
There are a fair number of small travel You may also consider, Australia: My Country , Australia: My Country agencies in Singapore that are run with only one salesperson, that is, the boss himself/herself. While this may be a normal way for these companies to start out, many amongst them have reached a point where their businesses growth is hindered by the fact sales is very much dependent on just the owner. In a situation like this, when making purchases, customers recognize only the salesperson or the owner and not the company or brand it sells. As a result, the owner cannot sell the business to another party. Sales simply cannot be effectively transferred to the new owner without also buying over the services goto, Must Know Travel Tips For Any Vacation , China Tour Operators of the existing owner.
Similarly, owners of travel view, Seeking the most up-to-date assistance regarding cocoa beach , Noise Cancelling Headphones Are Not Just A Accessory...They're A Travel Necessity agencies which depend solely on the competence of a single salesman to sustain the business run into the same risk of being held ransom by the salesman. Should the salesman leave the company, he is also likely to bring all the company's customers along with him. To address this challenge, the company must seriously think of a way to build up the brand of the company so that the company can become an independent entity and its sales will not easily taken away by anybody.
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ABOUT OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY
In my analysis of the local travel Try also, Tourism Is Back In Full Swing In Cancun, Mexico , Hawaii Family Vacation Prices Continue to Skyrocket in 2005 industry, I noticed that staff salary has gone down significantly in 2003 and then started to climb up gradually. What happened was salary has increased correspondingly with sales growth. However, there has been no indication that the companies are making use of these staff more efficiently by increasing their productivity level. By that, I do not mean longer hours for the staff, but rather producing more work at a shorter period of time. Without this, the staff salary will continue to increase. In time to come, labour cost would become unsustainable and may cause the business to go into the red. And this also can happen in situations where sales are still growing. It is not strange for travel check out, Australia: My Country , Halloween In Siberia - Sort Of agencies to fold up their businesses even if the sales are good.
To forestall that, business owners must make sure that as the salary of staff increases, the productivity of the staff also increases correspondingly. This ensures that staffs are adding more value to the business while their salaries increase.
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THE USE OF THE INTERNET
I wish to highlight that Internet is a tool that has been unfortunately neglected by most of the travel See, Disneyland Paris , Stag Weekends Spent in Nottingham Both Naughty and Nice! agents. Interestingly, SynergyWorks website which publishes the names of participating travel check out, The Victoria and Alfred Waterfront - One of my most favourite places on earth , Antietam National Battlefield agents of the NATAS benchmarking study has somehow attracted many surfers while they were searching for the websites of these travel view, Blooming Brilliant Chelsea Flower Show Packages , Haledon, New Jersey: A Renaissance In The Making? agents. One reason is that these travel check out, Dubai, Wiping Away Misconceptions , Greek Facial and Hand Gestures - Does "No" Mean "Yes"? agents do not have a website of their own. If SynergyWorks was their competitors, we would have tried to convert these potential customers into ours. As more and more users become internet savvy, companies with good websites (can be found by the search engine) will definitely have an upper hand in increasing their market shares.
PS: Take the test. Key in your company name in full (e.g. XXX (S) Pte Ltd) into google and see whether my company is ranked higher than yours.
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THE NEED TO HAVE A BASIC SYSTEM
I discovered that many agents do not have a good system that they could rely on to monitor their businesses. Some of them could not even see the value of a good system. (Note: A good and suitable system does not equate to expensive system). As such, they are not able to evaluate their performance on a regular basis. They rely on their gut feel, which may not provide them with reliable information about their own businesses. This also means that they may not know exactly where their sales are coming from, unable to consolidate their businesses and develop on their key strengths. Neither would you be able to get repeated businesses from your existing customers. Evaluating your businesses based on sentiments is not accurate -- it is relative and cannot be quantified. Take for example, sales in November were very good, but in December, sales turned very bad. Based on gut feel, a travel view, Essential Tips On Hiring a Car In Spain , Tips if Your Arrested Whilst Abroad agent might conclude that his business is not too good. However, the fact is that the high sales in November have actually more than compensated the poor sales in December.
SynergyWorks was hired by NATA as a consultant to work on a project called "Singapore Travel goto, Must Know Tips For Any Vacation , Drakensberg Diaries: The Drakensberg Boys' Choir in South Afria Industry Benchmarking" which started in June 2002 with the objective of understanding the travel See, Tourism Is Back In Full Swing In Cancun, Mexico , Cruise the beautiful Arctic industry better. As the principal consultant of this project, I had the opportunity to meet with many travel check out, Coastal Vacations Rewards Employees with Paradise and Beyond , Abroad: Plan a Better Trip in 5 Simple Steps agents and therefore had in the course of it learned the common issues or problems faced by them.
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