“The entry barrier is still quite high though for new agents wanting to get online and do it effectively,” he told WIT during a recent trip to Taipei.
As such, the top five travel agents doing the most online business remain the same and they are getting bigger. These are eZ Travel, Star Travel, ezfly, Lion Travel and COLA TOURS, the brand used by Polaris.
“All of the above travel agents are strictly speaking, multi-channel travel agents with a significant online presence, with the exception of ezTravel and Star Travel which started off as OTAs, and became multi-channel, the other agencies were traditional travel agencies that developed a significant online presence.”
He said that some travel agents were also starting to form fan pages on Facebook. “People are trying out the social media channels.”
Lau said that more travel agents in Taiwan were also diversifying from outbound to inbound services, to cater for the burgeoning mainland Chinese market.
The opening of direct cross-strait flights between the mainland and Taiwan has led to a surge in Chinese travellers to the republic. China now accounts for a quarter of the four million visitors it receives a year.
It’s a hugely competitive market however with some agents offering tours at $40 a day – to be made up by commissions of course.
“The issue is yields and with such a low price, we can’t give them good service – so will they come back again?” said Lau, expressing a concern harboured by most tour operators who fear getting into this cut-throat market segment.
But demand for travel between the two countries is so strong that the authorities are now talking about going beyond the 270-flights-per-week ceiling set at the beginning.
Just as mainlanders are flocking to Taiwan, so are Taiwanese visiting China.
A report in the People’s Daily Online on May 12 said that the Chinese government would adopt new measures to facilitate cross-Strait travels, including opening more outlets to issue travel and entry permits to Taiwan travelers.
According to the report, travelers from Taiwan can get travel and entry permits upon arrival at three new air terminals in Tianjin, Ningbo and Jinan starting May 25. The move will increase the number of such terminals in the mainland to 23.
At the press conference, Yang Yi, the State Council’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman, also confirmed that the mainland’s and Taiwan’s air service associations would soon hold a meeting to discuss other matters, including adding more direct cross-Strait flights.
Lau said that Amadeus data showed an increase in all China-bound flights except on Cathay Pacific and Air Macau. “People are getting used to the direct flights and even though there is a price difference, people are preferring to fly direct.”
Initially, Amadeus had also expected to lose revenues from the loss of air segments. “We thought there would be segment drop of four to two but a lot of it has been from four to three – so it’s not that drastic a drop,” said Lau.
He said it had opened up opportunities for Amadeus to work more closely with travel agents. “We can see how happy travel agents are when we introduce partners to them because there is an increased demand to explore cross-border ticketing and agents are looking for partners in say, Singapore and Hong Kong.”
Lau noted that low cost airlines had yet to take off in the same way they had in other places in South-east Asia. “We have AirAsia and Jetstar Asia flying here, but they haven’t had that big an impact yet.”
Meanwhile, outbound demand from Taiwan is picking up. Most tour operators that WIT spoke to said they saw a big rebound in the last quarter of 2009, which continued into the first three months of 2010.
Featured image credit (Taipei night scene): Ockra/iStock
