Covid-19 has accelerated the speed of digital disruption, and the travel industry has been hit as never before. At the same time, consumer behavior has undergone fundamental changes. At the 7th GDMS – Global Digital Marketing Summit, Lawrence Wan, CEO of UM China, hosted a fireside chat joined by Fred Luan, Tourism Australia Regional Marketing Director, and Matt Liao, Shangri-La Group China Marketing VP, discussing how brands should confront the challenges of digital disruption and seize opportunities to futureproof their business growth in the travel industry.
Lawrence Wan, CEO, UM China said:
“After the Covid-19 outbreak, the travel industry has been hit as never before. According to United Nations World Tourism Organization, the pandemic had led to a 74% drop in the number of international tourists in 2020 compared to 2019. Asia, which was first hit by the pandemic, had experienced the largest decline. The number of tourists traveling to Asia and the Pacific decreased by 84%. The global tourism industry lost 1.3 trillion USD in revenue in 2020, which became the ‘worst year in the history of the tourism industry’. In the meantime, the pandemic has accelerated digital disruption, reshaped consumer behavior, disrupted the way businesses work, and driven brands & marketers to pivot and innovate. In the new normal, how should brands in the travel industry confront the challenge and futureproof their growth?”
“UM has a unique philosophy – Futureproof. The traditional models won’t work in a rapidly changing reality like Covid-19. The future is full of unknowns, what we need is an insight-driven solution that can give full play to our potential and can react and adjust with agility before the next change comes. The solution is the Futureproof model by placing growth at the center. We believe the Futureproof model will help our clients Tourism Australia and Shangri-La Group navigate the digital disruption in the post-pandemic world and futureproof their business growth.” Wan added.
In addition to the GDMS fireside chat host, Lawrence Wan is also a judge at the first VCON Festival and VCON Awards for local new fast-growing DTC brands. Wan said: “Fast emerging local DTC brands in China are uniquely born and based on the new digital economy. They are data, tech, social & e-commerce driven at the core by innovating with future-proofing best practices. It was an honor joining the esteemed judging panel and new DTC brands in the first VCON awards shows.”
Fred Luan, Tourism Australia Regional Marketing Director, said:
“Digitalization is a key driving force to the travel industry. For Tourism Australia, it is very important to tell the stories consumers want to hear and strengthen the destination products’ front-end seeding capabilities. Due to the pandemic, outbound travel destinations have leveraged more social short videos for marketing, cooperated with agencies to develop content that consumers like, used third-party technologies to break data barriers, and achieved very good results.” As for what comes first between content and data, Luan said, “It’s key to find a good partner to make the available data volume larger and make the data more meaningful. Both content and data are indispensable.”
Regarding the suspension of outbound travel due to the pandemic and how to maintain a good consumer experience for overseas travel destinations, Luan believes that “marketers should utilize the storytelling way to maintain good communication with consumers in China so that they will always have a good impression of Australia as a travel destination.” To this end, Tourism Australia launched a series of videos – 8D Escapes last year, using technologies to produce 8D sound effects, so consumers can enjoy an immersive experience without going to Australia. “Long-distance outbound travel is a behavior that needs to be cultivated. I believe Tourism Australia and the other national tourism administrations are win-win. When we are all able to tell a good story, we can cultivate a good outbound travel market together. The blowout for the travel market after the border is opened is just around the corner.” Luan added.
Matt Liao, Shangri-La Group China Marketing VP, said:
This pandemic has accelerated hotel industry’s understanding and embrace of digitalization and has begun to use more digital tools and embrace more digital channels and content. Due to the uncertainty of the pandemic’s impact, a trip without planning has become a reality. In the face of such changes, apart from the third-party platforms, hotel-owned platforms also need to respond quickly, reaching guests who want to book a room today and meet their booking needs. For marketers, content, data, and channel are equally important. You can’t have one without the others.”
In terms of competition, Liao believes that “the hotel industry has seen a golden age of development in recent years. More and more international brands are developing business in China, which is a benign competition for Shangri-La Group. Currently, some hotel groups have been going high-end, but hardware is not the key criterion for measurement, the most important thing is people and service. In addition, many people choose B&B nowadays. Learning the quintessence of B&B and meeting the one-stop demand of the whole family trip can be opportunities for us to learn from the competitors. His advice for hotel marketers is: 1) the hotel business includes rooms, meetings, catering, weddings, and SPA, etc. It’s necessary to see the big picture, instead of just focusing on how many rooms to sell; 2) to learn from the retail industry, pay attention to the customer’s response, how to meet his needs, and realize the “retailization” of the hotel in terms of products, price, content, and experiences; 3) to learn from e-commerce, take the whole consumer journey into account, and consider how to find the pain point of each touchpoint and then solve it.”
