After a two-and-a-half year hiatus away from the industry, Wee Hee Ling, the new CEO of MISA Travel, Singapore, knows she has her work cut out for her but as always, the petite, soft-spoken executive is up for the challenge.
Wee Hee Ling: Believes online travel is the future.
Taking over from Kenny Chew, who retired after the acquisition of the agency by ZANA Capital, Wee returns to run an online travel business, and she knows the learning curve will be steep.
Her entire career in travel has been spent in the traditional travel agency environment, and in group tours. She built Commonwealth Tours into a leading contender in the packaged tour market, doing particularly well with cruises.
“It’s exciting to be back but, at the same time, I feel a little nervous because the current job is very different from the last 27 years of my career. Now I am jumping into online. I want to learn new things and this is the future.”
She’s nervous because she knows this is the land of the giants. “We are like the last of the Mohicans – a small local play – and we have to look at how we can carve a niche. We don’t have millions to spend like the Expedia and the Ctrip but we will look at carving a space for ourselves.”
She inherits a fairly solid online business – airfares.com.sg, set up by MISA Travel, is a good example of a hybrid business set up by a traditional travel agency which went online and found a way to keep its customers loyal with customer service and uniquely local offerings.
Its relationships with airlines allowed it to offer competitive and special air fares to suit local market needs – for example, it offers good labour fares for the migrant worker population in Singapore.
“It is a solid business, we are the top five in terms of OTAs in Singapore,” said Wee.
She’s staking what she calls the “last stretch in my career” on online because she believes it is the future. “In the last two years, have observed that it’s getting tougher to survive as a traditional agent in Singapore.
“The shift from groups to FITs was very apparent last year – two years ago, the market was 50/50 but early this year, the ratio swung to 80/20 in favour of FITs and the group segment includes MICE – this is a very rapid shift.
“Tourism boards recognize this trend and now want to target the FIT market which means traditional tour packages are going to be affected.
“The Singapore traveler is definitely more savvy and more are shopping online rather than going to a travel agency.”
Cruises is one market that MISA Travel will develop, (Image credit: Costin Constantinesc/Shutterstock)
Wee said she would look at how to develop content. The acquisition of MISA Travel also includes other verticals such as cruises and rail. “We are undecided at the moment as how to develop those verticals – what’s clear is we have to develop clearly differentiated content.”
MISA Travel currently employs 80 staff. While all bookings are fulfilled online, there is a big call centre operation for customer service – it charges a service fee “and the service is appreciated by clients who are prepared to pay a little more for it”.
Wee said, “That could be our differentiator.”
Another area she could develop is cruises, a market she knows well. “We are getting bookings for cruises and the hybrid model works well for this market – we have travel designers working with clients on their bookings. If you’re going to spend $10,000-$15,000, you want to talk to someone. But for shorter cruises, people are buying online.
“The cruise market is booming so this is an area of growth we can tap into.”
In the area of content, she is most curious about Abacus ContentPlus, a new product the Singapore-based technology company rolled out at its conference in Abu Dhabi this week.
“It’s most interesting and it’s going into the last frontier of the travel booking chain. I have many questions though. What happens to our individual relationships with suppliers?”
In an age of commoditization, relationships will be what differentiates small businesses from the big boys and this is clearly an area that MISA Travel has developed well and Wee wants to protect.
• Featured image (Indian tepee) credit: aeropw/iStock
