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| agents feel the heat |
| Tour operators believe sustainability will be future differentiator |
 Bangkok – Mass market tour operators attending last week’s PATA CEO Challenge – an event focused on confronting climate change – believe sustainability will be a key differentiator in the competition for customers in the future, with TUI Travel PLC even starting to hire a “sustainable product manager” to “really up the game”, according to its head of sustainable development, Ms Jane Ashton.
Ms Ashton, in an interview with TTG Asia, said the new hire, to be announced soon, would be a first for mainstream tour operators. His role is to raise the overall performance of the supplier base for TUI UK, drive exemplary practices for the flagship product and raise the benchmark for innovative sustainable products. The person will be part of the commercial department and will work closely with product managers and purchasing colleagues – in other words, he will have the clout to influence and develop strategy.
The pressure point for product managers today is far from about being green, rather, it is to produce volume and lower prices, thanks to continued consolidation in the trade and stiff competition from online players. Asked if the day would come when product managers come to the negotiation table equipped with a checklist for sustainability, Ms Ashton said just as health, safety and insurance had become part and parcel of contracting, “it will go that way; not now, but in the next few years”.
With the Bishop of London saying “travel is a sin”, screamed by UK paper headlines, there is high awareness and growing concern about the impact of travel on the environment in the UK and other European markets. However, tour operators, giving their perspective at the Challenge, concur that at present, while customers are concerned about climate change, they are not as passionate yet when it comes to parting with their money to support the cause.
In TUI UK research last year, for example, customers said they were willing to pay between £10 (US$20) and £100 to help mitigate climate change. TUI UK launched a World Care Fund and charged customers only £1, which it matches dollar for dollar, towards the fund. The take-up rate by customers was only 35 per cent, even at £1 per person. “There is a disconnect between what people said they would do and what they would actually do. When it comes to parting with money, many aren’t. When they go on a holiday, they want to forget about sustainable development entirely. But we do believe sustainability will be the future differentiator,” Ms Ashton said.
‘Matter of time’
Expedia’s president Asia-Pacific, Mr Henrik Kjellberg, agrees, saying it was just a timing issue and within one to five years, customers would choose travel with the same discretion as they did with their food choices today. Mr Kjellberg said: “Twenty years ago, the organic section was just a small section in the supermarket. Today, you see customers wanting to pay for it,” he said.
“Even now, we’re seeing they are beginning to ‘vote’ for green products in Trip Advisor; their reviews have more details about their environmental perceptions and encounters – now that’s a more powerful, credible channel that will self-regulate consumers, far more powerful than an environmental audit by a product manager.”
Studiosus Reisen senior adviser environmental, Dr Klaus Dietsch, said Studiosus was driven to sustainable practices by pressure from European customers, and its own sense of social responsibility. He called on the travel industry to start sharing its success story as a responsible industry. “The worry is, nobody knows how much we are already doing. Our communication must be better.”
The tour operators’ perspective was just one of sectoral comments heard at the inaugural Challenge, which also saw airlines, hotel groups and NTOs sharing their practices and aspirations. The general consensus was PATA had pulled off the event, against odds that included bad press, association politics and a last-minute cancellation by keynote speaker Dr R K Pachauri due to health reasons.
Much was at stake for PATA, as the event replaced the five-decade-old PATA Annual Conference. But delegates TTG Asia spoke to generally concluded this was a worthy replacement of the PATA conference and its cross-sectoral discussions on climate change indeed made it unique, relevant and valuable.
Some 236 delegates paid to attend and the total delegate number was 349 including foreign and local media, and tourism officials. The event did bring back a cross-section of CEOs from the aviation, hotel and tour operating sectors to PATA, as well as those from tourism-related sectors, as PATA had hoped.
Accor Asia-Pacific honorary chairman, Mr David Baffsky, told TTG Asia: “For the first time, there is diverse participation on the issue, and the event taking place in Asia is very appropriate.
“Asia is starting from a low base (with climate change) and the opportunity to get it right from the start is therefore the greatest in the region compared with more mature markets.
“The biggest achievement of the conference is enabling people to talk openly, and not from a narrow perspective. No one sees this issue as competition or one upmanship, that I’m doing this better than you, or pointing fingers at who’s to blame, and everyone sees collaboration as a necessity.
“It was also fantastic that the voice of tomorrow’s travellers (represented by a panel of 17-year-olds from The Regent’s School, Bangkok) was heard, as it’s their future we are debating.” |
| Posted on Aug 27, 2008, Resource from TTG |
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