For a travel & tourism company these changes regard both our business-to-consumer attitude, as well as our business-to-business one. We are not only selling a travel package, a plane ticket or booking a hotel room, we are travel consultants. We help our customers to find a travel package (both for business or holidays purposes) suitable to their needs and budget, optimizing it while offering them the necessary advice so that they choose the right option and staying in touch for any request or consultancy during their trip.
In the past two years, the behavior of the Romanian tourist in terms of holidays is starting to change. We are facing now a better-informed consumer, which takes more time to choose its holiday destination, who prefers several trips per year rather than just one and with better services included. More and more Romanian tourists book their holidays ahead, taking advantage of the early booking offers. For example, if a family books their summer holiday in January – February, they could get up to 45% discount on the travel package. The Romanian traveller is not looking anymore for the cheapest option, but he is seeing the holiday as a well-calculated investment. This, in my opinion, is underlining a more mature vision of traveling.
Another challenging environment is in the Corporate Business Trips department as for this kind of services the time of response and the price are the most valued aspects in the decision making process of a client. our mission is to guide and help our corporate clients to control their travel expenditure. There are cost-monitoring tools which are nowadays compulsory for any company and which are provided free of charge to corporate clients. It is important to invest in human resources and technology and not to undersize the department although margins in this segment of travel are constantly being reduced.
But this is not the only change we are facing; modern Corporate Travel agencies are developing new departments for specialized services, such as the M.I.C.E. department (Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Events), which is an important complement to the travel offer. These departments handle conferences and events hosting from few to hundreds of participants, with limited or large budgets and, in all cases, with innovative ideas.
Their biggest advantage is the ability of a professional team in developing a concept, fulfilling the clients need while using their corporate and/or leisure travel connections to access to better prices, conditions and suppliers. Last but not least, a trend that Happy Tour is proud to have introduced in the Romanian travel industry is the affiliation system for travel agencies across the country. Basically, through this affiliation system, we have had the opportunity to geographically expand our brand by helping small to medium sizes local travel agencies to improve and develop their business. We offer to our Associated Agencies our know-how, tech licenses, special conditions from our partners, and we invest in developing a common business and brand together. Our partners, Associated Agencies our know-how, tech counted in more than 92 points of sale located in more than 50 cities all over Romania.
We live in a very challenging environment and, as the leader of the travel market in Romania, we have no choice but to adapt to keep fulfilling client’s demands while settling the trend of this industry.
“THE ROMANIAN TRAVELLER IS NOT LOOKING ANYMORE FOR THE CHEAPEST OPTION, BUT HE IS SEEING THE HOLIDAY AS A WELL-CALCULATED INVESTMENT.”
