Northstar

www.travelweekly-asia.com 26 | ITB ASIA OFFICIAL DAILIES news highlights CHASING THE 'YOUTH DOLLAR By Lee Xin Hui TENTED FAN VILLAGES PLANNED FOR QATAR WORLD CUP BY IAN JARRETT And it involves more than just easing visa restrictions. Destinations that do not have a strategy to cater to the youth and student travellers will lose out, warned David Chapman, director general of the World Youth, Student and Educational (WYSE) Travel Confederation, who was speaking at ITB Asia 2016 yesterday. In 2015, millennial travellers – those from ages 15 to 29 – made up 272 million people, with a total spending of US$283 billion while they were abroad. This figure is expected to grow to US$400 billion by 2020. Despite compelling statistics, many destinations are still choosing to overlook this potential segment travellers' – Chapman shared that more than 50 percent of trips taken by youths are actually non-holiday – many are on trips to volunteer a service, learn a language, gain work experiences, study, or be an au pair. In order to create destinations that appeal to this segment, Chapman urged governments and tourism boards to go beyond easing visa requirements or providing a working holiday visa, which is typically capped at age 25. He said, "It's easy to design a tourist product for the youths, but that's just part of the solution. The policy needs to encompass every element of youth travel." Rashed Saeed Al- Qurese, chief marketing and promotion officer with Qatar Tourism Authority (QTA), said accommodation in the tented fan villages would be full service, and the villages would be temporary, "or put to use as desert camps for tourists". He said the World Cup would be an "accelerator" towards the country's 2030 vision. "The legacy of the World Cup is very important. We don't want to ask more hotel groups to come in and build properties if we can't fill their rooms after the World Cup. New development must be sustainable," said Al-Qurese. QTA said the country received 2.18 million visitors from January to September 2016.That is down about 70,000 people from last year, when it counted 2.25 million by the end of September. Homegrown travel brands are making waves in their home markets through unique marketing and innovation to stay ahead of the global competition. Two of these local agents of change are China's Alitrip and Japan's Rakuten Travel. Alitrip, formerly Taobao Travel and part of the Alibaba group, is an independent one-stop online travel platform that serves about 50 million travellers in a year. Tony Duan, vice president of Alitrip, attributed its success not just to its products but also its customer service. Alitrip's yearly Singles' Day on November 11, and marketed as China's online shopping day, is one of its biggest generator of business for the company. Last year, online sales (conducted mainly on mobile devices) attracted 30 sellers with 1.5 billion transactions in just 24 hours. Some 800,000 outbound products, 860,000 hotel rooms (per night) and 300,000 international plane tickets were snapped up during the sales. "This year, Singles' Day will be very different. We'll use new technology based on big data. Consumers will see different products and different interfaces on their mobiles." At Rakuten, executive officer of travel business Takanobu Yamamoto said the company sold products amounting to US$4.7 billion in 2015 and is still growing at a pace of 16 percent year-on-year. Room nights sold totalled 39 million. On strategies to compete with global brands, Rakuten's Yamamoto said: "We differentiate ourselves as we see Rakuten Travel not as a booking platform but a marketing platform matching consumers with suppliers. We analyse customer behaviours and recommend the best products at the right price." Duan said for the Alibaba group, "the global strategic priority is to establish an ecosystem for international guests to use our platform". And what advice would they give the many foreign companies wanting to do business in Japan and China? Alipay's Duan advised them to "learn to speak Chinese, eat Chinese food and understand what Chinese are thinking." "Don't compete against Rakuten – in fact, don't come to Japan," was Yamamoto's tongue-in-cheek answer. Football fans attending Qatar's World Cup 2022 could be housed in Bedouin-style desert camps. Organisers are assessing the feasibility of constructing temporary tented villages to complement the planned hotel development for capital city Doha. Currently, Doha has 21,500 hotel rooms and this number will be increased to 45,000 rooms to accommodate World Cup visitors. Each of the villages would have on-site entertainment including large screens to show the matches. often deemed as "low value". Speaking to Travel Weekly Asia, Chapman said, "While traditional tourists are easy to recognise, they typically spend their dollars at corporate-owned attractions, where much of the profit is likely to return to an international company." "In contrast, youths stay locally, use local businesses and seek out authentic experiences. In fact, they spend up to 60 percent of their travel budget in-destination, at cafés or seeking cultural experiences." During his presentation – ironically titled 'How to ignore a quarter of the world's international INNOVATION NAME OF THE GAME FOR RAKUTEN, ALITRIP David Chapman, director general of the World Youth, Student and Educational (WYSE) Travel Confederation BY CORINNE WAN PHOT0 CREDIT: ISTOCK

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