Northstar

FEATURE www.travelweeklyweb.com The Opening Forum was held on June 3, 2013, the eve of the region's leading luxury travel event and centred its focus on how to anticipate the demands in global luxury travel, going beyond merely recognising and profiling the tribes and demographics of the current elite travellers. The first session, "Trends among Pan-Asian travellers" saw speakers, Janet Tan-Collis, chief executive of East-West Planners and David Chai, director of product development at Tidesquare delving into the key missing elements in the service and delivery of luxury experience to the elite consumers. "It is important that international luxury properties present their offerings to potential travellers in developing markets such as China, Russia and South America in a way that makes them feel comfortable in selecting a destination, particularly language, cultural traits and needs. End to end support and understanding is the glue to personalised service. Social media also plays a role in overcoming concerns particularly if fellow nationals are seen expressing their views on a hotel offering and their experience of it," said Tan-Collis. Dr Pierre Xiao Lu who is an international expert on luxury brand management and a professor in luxury brand marketing at Fudan University also presented his thought on the need to convince the luxury travellers, particularly in China, to immerse them in the luxury brand experience. Social media is not for everybody On the second topic, "Building loyal communities among Asian Travellers", Engel said "the luxury experience has its foundation at the individual property level. Success is not driven by loyalty point programmes – it is important to provide a personal touch and reach out to guests, listen to them and build a long term direct rapport. A luxury property cannot be everything to everybody. Social media is not the key driver to promote luxury property offerings: while it is necessary to provide base information, luxury clientele are driven by knowledge and experience." It's true that twitter or social media has helped in reaching a mass audience, or in helping a travel community in delivering key messages in real time. More so for tourism service providers, to ensure customer relations and satisfaction. But the approach is not much of a big deal to the luxury group, which makes the idea of having loyalty points system for the crème de la crème a potential misfit. Controlled usage of social media, according to Micheal Hobson, chief marketing officer of Mandarin Oriental, is instrumental in maintaining and ensuring that the right messaging and information reaches the right audience. "A luxury image and the provision of service is based on a sophisticated CRM programme, which enabled valuable customers to be recognised no matter which hotel they booked into around the world. This ensures consistency and a delivery of treatment on a personal level. Loyalty point programmes cheapen luxury brands. Social media should be part of the marketing mix, but be used with discretion and control," said Hobson. "Loyalty point programmes for luxury hotels would not work. Luxury hotel operators needed to be more discerning and committed to customers' personal needs. They must know each of their guest's idiosyncrasies. Through listening to clients, operators must strive to build properties and provide services that they want. Staff must also www.travelweeklyweb.com understand the brand and be empowered to deliver it," said Marissa Sukosol Nambhardi, executive vice-president of Sukosol Hotels. Delving deeper into needs "This is a picture of one of China's wealthiest man. This is how he looks like," said Dr Lu. The following statement was followed by laughter from the crowd. Not because one of China's wealthiest is spotting a look that provides a comic relief in the midst of a serious discussion. If there's anything to prove from that crowd's reaction, a crowd made up of people of various backgrounds, all related to the travel trade, it proves exactly Dr Lu's point – that we do not recognise the needs, what pleases and what disses the new age billionaires when it comes to their travel demands. Profiling the current elites is not enough to solve a situation which sees a need for more coming from the industry, to tap into the luxury market's demands – do we or do we not know how to maximise the information retrieved from all the profiling done, and offer services that makes sense, to the luxury traveller? China, being the second largest market for luxury goods, sets an example for the need to craft services and products tailored to the expectations and wants. Using the Chinese as an example, Dr Lu charted out the psychographic segmentation of Chinese luxury consumers as luxury lovers, luxury followers, luxury intellectuals and luxury laggards cross with geographic factors to show the regional distribution difference of the four groups in various parts of the Mainland Chinese market. Like social media, one template does not fit all. Even in the ranks of luxury tier, every need requires customised options, fine-tuning and deeper understanding before a solution or two, can be matched. Working with a consortium of service providers may help in spreading an agent's reach to target the precise answer to every demand. Dimension 1: Conspicuousness / Functionality Dimension 2: Individualism / Collectivism Dimension 3: Impulsive / Analytical Thinking Lovers Conspicuousness Collectivism Analytical Followers Conspicuousness Collectivism Impulsive Intellectuals Functionality Individualism Analytical Laggards Functionality Individualism Impulsive The psychographic segmentation of Chinese luxury consumers JUNE 2013 | TRAVELWEEKLY ASIA ■ | 5

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