Under the programme, Banyan Tree identifies and solicits the top travel consultants, qualifies and profiles them, engage and educate them, motivate them to book Banyan Tree holidays and recognize and mentor them.”
Arthur Kiong, Banyan Tree’s senior vice president and managing director of sales and marketing, said the programme started out as an experiment in UK but “it was so successful that this year, we rolled it out globally”.
It has created a website and sends out a bi-monthly newsletter which is “reader-centric”, said Kiong. (Disclaimer: Yeoh Siew Hoon writes a regular column for the newsletter)
“Within a month of the launch, we have hit 75% of our annual goal – we wanted 1,000 agents – which either suggests our goal was too conservative or we can afford to be more targeted,” said Kiong.
It used online travel media to launch the programme and its 19 regional marketing offices around the world also made cold calls to travel agencies.
As a conservative estimate, Kiong said, up to 70% of Banyan Tree’s business was processed through travel agents.
“We can’t tell where the decision lies – whether the travel agent sold it or whether someone has made the decision and asks the travel agent to book it – but we know they are in a position to move the business away or toward us,” said Kiong. “Our business is discretionary leisure travel unlike corporate travel.”
He sees the XTC programme working in tandem with Banyan Tree’s online strategy. “A lot of people who shop online, book offline and some shop offline and book online. Today’s travellers are extremely savvy. The frightening thing is, a lot of customers are probably smarter than the ones who are selling.
“Because they are shopping online and offline, they have a more holistic view and deeper insight into what they are buying.
“So in a situation like this, we cannot afford to be so narrow and say the best rates are available in XYZ website – we cannot force the traveller to book with us. Our Best Rate Guarantee may not have certain benefits they are looking for.”
XTC, he said, was neither channel nor rate or package specific. “It’s more of an knowledge play, to give travel agents the right information to sell a Banyan Tree and it doesn’t matter how the travel agent wishes to book.”
Kiong said he was seeing evidence of a renaissance of travel agents where a confused customer is seeking out the personal touch of a professional.
He cited the case of a wholesaler in Japan that was creating a new brand for high end retail travel. “He’s taken a large space in the middle of Ginza and he’s creating a retail travel experience to draw affluent customers into the shop to touch and feel the product. Banyan Tree is building a villa in the retail space so customers can get a first hand experience of our product.
“People today want not only high tech but high touch. It’s a very interesting evolution.”
Kiong recalls that in 1989, a senior sales and marketing person from a major hotel management company said to him, ‘Within five years, the GDS will kill off the travel agent’.
“People have been preaching the demise of the middleman since the early days of my career but some travel agents have survived and evolved and are working with what is the new hybrid model.
“Perhaps with XTC, Banyan Tree will create a virus-resistant travel agent.”
Featured image credit (Businessman selecting online shopping cart) : iStock
