The weekly news roundup: Travelport’s two new organisations, robust China outbound travel, travellers’ choice of top museums in Asia
TECHNOLOGY: Travelport creates two new organisations to meet customers’ evolving needs
Fiona Shanley heads the new Customer and Marketing Organisation.
Travelport has set up two new entities – Travelport Digital and a customer and marketing organisation – to “heighten its investment in customers’ product and service needs”.
According to the company, Travelport Digital will optimise the investments that it has made into various digital assets and products over the past few years to grow its range of digital services.
Last year Travelport acquired MTT, a provider of mobile and digital solutions to the travel industry, as well as its investment in Locomote, a corporate travel management platform.
Bryan Conway, a Travelport executive, is appointed head of this new organisation.
The customer and marketing organisation “aims to redefine travel commerce and deliver a market leading customer experience,” is how Travelport describes the second new entity.
It is led by Fiona Shanley in the newly created position of chief customer and marketing officer. She is reponsible for “developing and executing a holistic product and customer services strategy, as well as lead Travelport’s marketing and communications functions”.
Both Conway and Shanley report to chief commercial officer, Stephen Shurrock, who joined Travelport from Telefonica Digital at the beginning of the year.
“Travelport Digital will play an important role as we look to develop a comprehensive range of digital products and services with today’s ever-connected, mobile- savvy customers in mind. We know we need to do this to support the growth plans of our OTA, travel agency, corporate and travel content provider customers,” said Shurrock.
TRAVEL: China’s outbound travel soared in 2015, registering world’s highest growth
City trips are getting to be popular with Chinese travellers. (Image credit: thehague/iStock)
China saw a huge growth in outbound travel last year with a 23% increase in foreign trips, consolidating its position as one of the world’s most important source markets for international travel.
Despite the average duration of trips having halved since 2007, the huge increase in foreign travel resulted in turnover having almost tripled in the same period.
The findings (below) are from a special analysis by the World Travel Monitor conducted by IPK International and commissioned by ITB Berlin (2015 statistics):
Highest growth in outbound travel
- The Chinese went on 45.2 million international trips with overnights not including trips to Macau and Hong Kong. Compared to the previous year this represented an additional eight million trips and a 23% increase.
- China’s growth in foreign travel is several times the global average of about 5%.
- China is the world’s fourth largest source market behind Germany, US and UK (fifth is France). More than two-thirds of trips are to Asia – Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand and Japan.
- US is China’s fifth most popular destination with about 2.6 million trips made by Chinese travellers. Preferred European destinations are Germany, Switzerland, France, Spain and Austria – making up 20% of Chinese outbound trips.
Holidays main reason for travel
- Holidays account for over 80% of foreign trips by the Chinese. 76% travelled just for holidays (without visiting friends or relatives) compared to the global average of 57%.
- For some years the most popular type of holiday are round trips, but city trips are now gaining ground. Compared to 2007 the average length of stay abroad has halved to about about five nights. Despite this sales rose to almost 77 billion euros during the same period.
Choice of accommodation, mode of travel, booking methods
- Over 80% of Chinese choose to stay in hotels on their travels abroad. Four and five star are the preferred categories, accounting for 62% of accommodation on all trips compared to the global average of 40%.
- Planes are the preferred means of transportation, making up for over 80%, significantly higher than the global average of about 60%.
- Travel agency and catalogue bookings, currently at 74%, have declined since 2015 but they still account for double the global market average, making China the leading source market for these mode of bookings.
DESTINATIONS: Traveller’s choice: Asia’s 10 top museums
The mighty Terracotta warriors and their horses preserved for posterity. (Image credit: Arjen-Briene/iStock)
Meeting the mighty terrracotta warriors and their powerful horses face to face in the Chinese city of Xi’an is guaranteed to take your breath away as they are a magnificent sight to behold. It did mine.
It is thus no surprise that travellers worldwide have chosen the Museum of Qin Terracotta Warriors and Horses in Xi’an as #1 in TripAdvisor’s Travelers’ Choice awards for museums.
This fascinating attraction is one of the world’s greatest archaeological finds and is designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site. Often referred to as the ‘eighth wonder of the world’ it is filled with life-sized terracotta sculptures of soldiers who once served Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China.
Coming in second is Vietnam’s War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh that houses thousands of photographs, artefacts and films – grim reminders of the country’s sombre past.
Rounding up the top three is Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia – a former high school converted into a prison during the Khmer Rouge regime under Pol Pot where about 30,000 people were tortured and killed.
TripAdvisor said the award winners were determined using an algorithm that took into account the quantity and quality of reviews and ratings gathered over a 12-month period.
The top 10 museums in Asia are:
- The Museum of Qin Terracotta Warriors and Horses – Xi’an, China
- War Remnants Museum – Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam
- Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum – Phnom Penh, Cambodia
- Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum – Hiroshima, Japan
- Vietnam Museum of Ethnology – Hanoi, Vietna
- Hellfire Pass Memorial Museum and Walking Trail – Saiyok, Thailand
- National Palace Museum – Taipei, Taiwan
- Islamic Arts Museum – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
- Hong Kong Museum of History – Hong Kong, China
- Pinang Peranakan Mansion – Penang, Malaysia
Click here for the complete list of Asian winners from the 2016 Travellers’ Choice Museums.