(100% reward, answer online, etc.) Travel agencies have weak brand awareness, what is a good solution! !

The construction of my country's travel agency brand management system

Author: Liu Ying, School of Liberal Arts, Central South Branch, Wuhan University of Science and Technology

[Abstract] The current situation of my country's travel agency brand management relative to The strong development momentum of the tourism industry is far out of proportion to its development prospects. This article analyzes the necessity of brand management for travel agencies from the perspectives of the intangibility of travel agency products, tourism demand, and the cultivation of travel agency core competitiveness. And pointed out that the construction of travel agency brand system should be carried out from several aspects such as establishing brand awareness, corporate brand leadership, brand expansion and brand consolidation.

[Keywords] Travel agency brand management system

Philip Kotler, the famous marketing guru, believes that a brand is a name, term, mark, symbol or design, or a combination of them, with the purpose of identifying a seller or sales group's product or product. services and differentiate them from those of competitors.

Whether it is one of the world's top 500 companies or China's top 100 companies, almost all outstanding companies have independent famous brands in specific fields. These brands not only mark the company's quality, image, products and competitiveness, but also accumulate huge intangible assets over long-term operations, save a lot of marketing and advertising costs, and ensure the company's continued prosperity.

1. The Current Situation of my country’s Travel Agency Brand Management

Although China’s tourism industry has made world-renowned achievements since its development in 1978, it is undeniable that most of these achievements are just in terms of quantity. The foundation of China's tourism industry is relatively weak, and it will take time to achieve intensive growth. Take the travel agency industry as an example. In China, there are no multinational companies with great appeal and influence in the industry like Japan Transportation Corporation, American Express, and British Thomas Cook. The three most powerful ones are National, China and Qingdao. Due to the non-market-oriented operation of travel agencies in their early establishment, their only advantageous brands have been plagiarized by latecomers and have almost become public welfare. The brand management of China's travel agency industry is summarized as follows:

1. Indifferent brand awareness

Most travel agencies do not pay enough attention to the brand in terms of marketing, and focus on advertising travel routes, which is a waste of money. Power, but half the result with half the effort. However, the routes of each travel agency are roughly the same and can be easily imitated. There is no one that is unique and impressive in the entire page of travel route advertisements in newspapers.

2. The brand is confusing and lacks individuality

In the early stages of development, the three major travel agencies of China, China and Qingdao had exclusive monopolies in their respective markets. Their corporate brand names were somewhat generic and could not be Reflect your own characteristics. After the travel agency market was opened, due to the influence of the horizontal division of labor system, some new travel agencies also added words such as "China" and "International" to their names out of considerations of free riding, causing confusion among consumers in terms of identification.

3. Improper brand positioning

The purpose of brand positioning is to establish a distinct image for the company, strengthen customer awareness, and stand out in the market competition. The brand positioning of my country's tourism enterprises is often a reflection of the executive's will, but market research is insufficient. Brand positioning that is divorced from consumers will inevitably be difficult to continue operating and will eventually be eliminated by the market.

4. Brand homogeneity and lack of creativity

The easy imitation of travel products makes homogeneity easier in the travel agency industry. As long as there are enough funds and manpower, there are several With cases available for imitation, similar tourism products will be overwhelming. This is a common phenomenon in the advertising pages of domestic newspapers: First, a travel agency launches a new route. After it is recognized by the market, the full-page advertisements of each travel agency's products have become twin sisters, - similar routes, similar schedules Arrangements, similar offers. The travel agency industry's inability to protect new products makes imitation more profitable than innovation because it can save research and development costs. On the other hand, the homogenization of travel routes has made travel agencies compete more intensely for customers, and in the form of vicious price competition, it has dragged down the industry profits of travel agencies.

The tourism industry has huge economic potential in promoting China's economic and social development. However, as the core enterprise of the tourism industry, my country's travel agencies can be said to have greatly improved in terms of brand management, brand awareness and brand building operations. Lagging behind other industries, the tourism industry has almost no well-known trademarks. According to this current situation, whether it can support the bright future of China's tourism industry is worrying.

2. The necessity for travel agencies to implement brand management

Tourists' needs are becoming increasingly diverse, putting forward higher requirements for tourism products. Abundant funds and advanced technology enable travel agencies to provide tourists with the same travel routes and services at the same low prices, but they cannot provide the same brand and customer satisfaction. The value of a brand lies not only in its distinguishing functions from similar products, but also in the intangible benefits it brings to consumers. The importance of brand management implemented by travel agencies is reflected in the following aspects:

1. From the perspective of the particularity of travel agency products

The products of travel agencies are mainly tourist routes, which are not material products. , with the characteristics of non-transferability, non-storability, synchronicity of production and consumption, etc., it does not have search-type attributes like material products. The experiential attributes of tourist routes lead to travel agencies not being able to physically display their products; tourist routes in To a large extent, it is informational. Tourists cannot distinguish the differences of tourism products and experience the quality and service level of tourism products before making tourism consumption. This makes the travel agency's brand play an immeasurable role in conveying information about travel products.

2. From the perspective of tourism demand

In the development trend of global tourism, tourism consumption is reflecting the characteristics of personalization, diversification and multi-level, and more and more Tourists are beginning to pursue their own value of existence, participate in special tourism activities, and tend to choose travel agencies with strong strength and good reputation. Their requirements for hotel star rating, transportation comfort and other items are also gradually increasing. Brands not only meet the needs of tourists for self-realization, but also increase the added value of travel agency products and enhance their competitiveness.

3. From the perspective of cultivating the core competitiveness of the enterprise

Creating a product brand can give tourists a distinct impression before consumption and enhance the charm of the product. The personalized brand logo gives people affinity and promotes the image of the travel agency through hats, guide flags, vehicles and other carriers during group travel, expanding the influence of the travel agency. Through customer loyalty, product premiums and capital operation on successful brands, travel agency brands can have competitive advantages that other companies cannot imitate, and in the continuous brand management, this advantage can be strengthened to form their own core competitiveness.

4. From the perspective of industry structural adjustment

As far as the current development status of travel agencies in my country is concerned, it is basically "macro-reports of good news and micro-reports of worries" - the industry is experiencing year-on-year decline The growth is gratifying, but the economic benefits of each travel agency continue to decline. This is not unrelated to the inability of my country's sightseeing tourism products to effectively attract repeat customers, and the short-term operating behavior of travel agencies cannot maintain tourists' brand loyalty. In 2002, Chinese citizens participated in 878 million domestic tourism trips, of which only 38 million domestic tourists were received by travel agencies in groups, accounting for 0.49 of the country's domestic tourist trips. Through brand building, travel agencies can use brand appeal to cultivate consumer loyalty and increase the number of repeat purchases, thereby expanding the customer source market. For example, the Hawaiian Islands in the United States receive tens of millions of tourists every year, of which more than half are repeat visitors. Many tourists have been there seven or eight times. In addition to the unique sunshine and beaches, more should be attributed to the deeply rooted brand of "Hawaii" .

5. From the perspective of responding to international competition

After joining the WTO, the tourism market will face extensive opening up in breadth and depth. Large foreign multinational tourism operators will gradually enter the Chinese market. With their capital, network, brand, management and other advantages, they will have a huge impact and threat to China's travel agencies. If Chinese travel agencies are still stuck in low-level price competition, they will be unable to cope with the trend of domestic competition from international competition.

For this reason, it is urgent for my country's travel agencies to find market segments with potential and ability to support them and quickly construct their own brand systems.

In recent years, many large travel agencies have begun to create their own brands, such as Guangzhou's "Guangzhi", Zhejiang Zhongshan CITS's "Travel World", Shenzhen CITS's "New Scenery", CITS Headquarters The "Global Travel" of the Youth Travel Alliance and the "Oriental Students" of the Youth Travel Alliance have begun preliminary attempts at brand management of travel agencies.

3. Construction of the travel agency brand management system

World According to the Tourism and Travel Council, the prospects for China's tourism and travel industry in the next 10 years are very optimistic. It is expected that the annual growth rate of the tourism and travel industry will be 10.9 by 2013. In 2013, China's tourism industry contributed more than 840 billion yuan to GDP. According to the prediction of the National Tourism Administration, the total revenue of the national tourism industry in 2020 is 3.3 trillion yuan, equivalent to 8% of the gross domestic output value, and has truly become a pillar industry of the national economy. In order for China's tourism industry to develop as predicted and to actively respond to competition from international tourism multinational groups after joining the WTO, the travel agency industry should make breakthroughs in brand management.

1. Establish brand awareness

The construction of the brand system should start with awareness. The tourism consumer goods market is a market with a high degree of information asymmetry. For tourists, due to the intangibility of travel agency products, tourists cannot predict consumption targets; the comprehensiveness of travel agency products determines that tourists have higher search costs. Therefore, travel agencies have an information advantage over tourists. If there is no brand that signals high-quality products to tourists, tourists will determine the "average price" based on their consumption experience, which will eventually lead to the phenomenon of "bad money driving out good money".

2. Led by corporate brand

Existing research results show that for intangible products, product brand is the most important; while for intangible services, corporate brand is the most important of. Referring to this conclusion, the travel routes provided by travel agencies are intangible, and customers lack intuitive feelings and objective evaluations of the services they will enjoy before purchasing. Therefore, the strength, reputation, and word-of-mouth of a company should become important factors that influence consumers' purchasing decisions and evaluations. They are also the quality guarantee for tourists to obtain returns to make up for their time and monetary costs.

The corporate brand-led brand management strategy can adopt the form of "travel agency name destination" in the naming of tourist routes. In this way, tourism products can be naturally registered by registering a travel agency, solving the property rights problem of tourist routes. . The significance of branding tourism routes also lies in the positioning of enterprises and governments respectively in the "travel agency name + destination" model. The former and the latter are added together to establish their respective responsibilities at a new level of development.

3. Achieve brand expansion

After the core brand of a travel agency is established, it should focus on the brand expansion strategy, which can be achieved through the following forms.

"Scattered ", small, weak and poor" are the weaknesses of China's travel agencies. Small and medium-sized travel agencies can avoid these weaknesses and take the road of joint management. Several travel agencies have joined forces to operate the same brand. For example, different travel agencies in Yangzhou have joined forces to form "Tiantianyou" ", "Easy Vacation", "Going Quartet" alliance, many social organizations promote a brand, many sign up, jointly launch a group, and share the benefits, forming a win-win situation.

Secondly, large travel agencies can use capital, mechanism, talent and brand advantages to launch integrated brand promotion strategies, establish a unified CIS image recognition system, and create a unified logo, unified image, unified service standards, and unified business Operational procedures, chain sales departments with unified business philosophy and unified marketing methods, establishment of brand flagship stores, taking the road of brand chain, expanding brand sales network, and consolidating consumers' brand loyalty. CYTS took the lead in introducing the concept of chain operation into travel agencies in August 2000, and the first batch of CYTS chain business offices opened in Beijing. Currently, CYTS has 17 chain sales offices in urban Beijing, and its chain operation has achieved initial results.

Finally, franchising is a good way for brand management and development strategy, and it can also effectively realize the network development of travel agencies.

Franchising is not only a brand issue, but also a process of management output. Travel agencies can enhance their voice in the industry during the franchising process. In addition, as travel agencies are non-capital-intensive enterprises, franchising can achieve the lowest cost expansion.

4. Consolidate brand quality

Travel agencies must also pay attention to protecting their own brands and cherishing their brands during brand expansion. Many brands in our country have collapsed due to the blind development of joint factory production. Shandong Tsingtao Beer is among the unified Lu Beer companies. Although it implements unified technical supervision and quality standard testing for its products, in order to ensure the purity of Tsingtao Beer, it insists on not using the Tsingtao Beer brand on other beers. The brand of Japan's Sony Corporation is highly respected by many companies around the world, and many companies are willing to spend huge sums of money to borrow trademarks or jointly process with them. For reasons of brand protection, they were all rejected by Sony. These are all to prevent the risk of the brand being damaged.

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