SINGAPORE – At this year’s STB-NATAS Travel Agent Industry Forum, a lot of talk was on anticipating the future with priorities that include supporting the creation of novel ideas, drawing fresh talent and enabling technology.
“In the last two years, we’ve seen a lot more millennial tour operators offering curated local tours for visitors,” observed Steven Ler, president of NATAS.
The association has seen its membership grow by over 50 to reach more than 400 this year.
“From NATAS’ perspective, we try to see how we can help them market on a regional perspective and engage more consumers via our social media channels to find out about their tour offerings. At the same time, we also work closely with our inbound committee to drive higher traffic to Singapore, which will in turn benefit this group of operators,” he added.
On Singapore Tourism Board’s part, they introduced niche travel agent licences in 2018 that required businesses to have a lower financial capital of S$50,000 in comparison to S$100,000 required for a general licence.
“This gives passionate travel entrepreneurs an opportunity to tell the Singapore story in a unique way and cater to quality travellers seeking deeper and more meaningful experiences,” said STB’s chief executive Keith Tan in his opening speech.
So far, 18 travel agents have taken up the niche travel agent licence. For instance, Lionheartlanders offers tea-centric tour “Melting Pot of Tea”, which interestingly uses tea to draw insights into Singapore’s multi-cultural society. Since its launch in January, they have led tours for over 600 visitors and 2,500 locals.
To anticipate the demands of growing segments such as digitally-savvy travellers, solo female travellers, disabled travellers, sustainability and “hyper-personalisation”, which STB has dubbed “T2030”, Mr Tan also challenged agents present to think about “whether your products and experiences can meet their needs and aspirations”.
ATTRACTING NEW TALENT
To ensure the industry’s overall survival,it is essential for businesses to constantly attract new talent. One way to do so is via internship opportunities, of which 20-30 travel agencies currently provide, according to Mr Ler.
While there is no formal internship programme at the moment with opportunities currently arranged directly between the agents and polytechnics, NATAS wants to change that.
“As a middleman, we hope to help facilitate the right matches so that students will be able to look at the (travel agent) business differently,” said Mr Ler.
This means engaging them on a deeper level by getting them involved in areas such as marketing, product development, partner negotiations, supply-chain management, destination servicing as well as digitalisation, according to the travel association chief who said they are in talks with STB to hopefully put in place the scheme next year.
ENABLING DIGITISATION AND TECHNOLOGY
Helping the industry upskill its existing talent base also continues to be a key focus for both STB and NATAS.
Last month, the tourism board launched Tech College, in collaboration with Singapore Management University, offering modules that aim to equip industry stakeholders with the necessary knowledge and tools to utilise technology in their businesses.
“Unlike other programmes out there, it is very workshop-driven, very hands-on and have a lot of application in terms of teaching travel agents how they can look at existing technology that’s out there and applying them to their area of work,” said Kenneth Lim, STB’s director, travel agents and tourist guides, who added there are modules catered towards senior management as well as those that are suitable for front-line staff.
UPCOMING INITIATIVES
While online travel fairs have been in the talks, this has not come into fruition as “a single Alibaba platform may not be the most effective for now”, said Mr Ler, when most travel agents are expressing challenges in selling group series outbound packages – still a key focus for many – online.
Instead, digitisation efforts are designed to draw more consumers below 40 to NATAS travel fairs, which take place every February and August. At the same time, the travel association is exploring an additional thematic fair in April or May, targeted at consumers with a shorter buying period. For instance, those who are looking at purchasing packages for their June holidays.
Also in the pipeline is a revamped NATAS website that will be more consumer-friendly with features such as experiential travel ideas to trigger consumers’ wanderlust.