It’s been a crazy old time to be in the travel industry these past couple of years. Many of us reading this live in a time when ‘discounting rules’ and nearly everything else is forsaken just to get that passenger on the company stat sheet.
We have companies regularly offering 35% to 55% off. I’m not sure of the margins some companies are working with, but seriously… 55%?
Today we have more distressed stock sales than we have brochured availability. Combine that with the various group buying activity sweeping the internet, mutually-agreed discounting to support partner campaigns, and yield management by wholesalers, we may well see the full retail price of anything go the way of the dodo.
G Adventures has not been immune to the discounting virus that has infected the market since the GFC gave everyone the sense that Armageddon had arrived. We admittedly played our role, either in supporting partner initiatives, being defensive of competitor activity or self-inflicted brain snaps that at the time seemed reasonable. However, there is a better way forward. A better way for our trade partners, for customers, for operators – a better way for everyone involved.
Innovation.
Innovation is the key. Innovation will take us all to a place that has everyone winning as the product offering is taken beyond the perception that cheaper is better.
To the operators wanting to play in the ‘cheapest price’ market: I wish you well as you try to deliver on a promise that has been compromised by cheapening it.
You’re chasing the customers that will never be fully loyal to a business. They simply do not care, unless you can offer the absolute cheapest every single time.
Innovation changes the ballgame, and opens up doors to potential customers that will support you in the long term. Give them a product that’s worth paying for and they will be yours, long after the companies that continue to push out two-for-one specials are relegated to the annals of history.
Innovation has been at the forefront of our own success. Without making this all about G Adventures, in the on-line space, we launched the “You’ll Never Forget It’” campaign in November 2011 and our Facebook “likes” have jumped from 90,000 to almost 200,000 since that time. The key to this was an innovative concept to find the right people to grace the cover of next year’s brochures and appear in our “I’m not a tourist” videos. The engagement has been huge.
Innovative product and service concepts, such as Lifetime Deposits, My Own Room and Local Living have changed the way that our customers engage with us, and I believe are the way forward for all of us. Innovation will protect us from a homogenised product offering and losing more than we already have done. No one can continue to offer the best travel experience, service levels or innovative product if the diminishing returns continue to spiral downwards. It’s just a race to the bottom.
Our customers deserve more than the lazy rollout of higher discounts that eventually lead to lower service and a poorer quality product offering. They deserve the best, and if we ignore the call to innovate, we’ll all be looking for work.
