Subsidise tourism in the European Union for the benefit of the small and medium tourist enterprise instead of the big tour operators and whole sellers

The crisis is not anymore a ghost, it is a reality especially for the small and medium tourist entrepreneur, Cyprus is defiantly not the exemption, despite that the minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism Mr. Antonis Paschalides was assuring the Hoteliers and Travel industry that we would only have a 10% decrease the reality is completely different. The best numbers talk about a 20% decrease in occupancies and the worst numbers talk about 30%.

What that is all mean? It mainly means that the big tour operators are not fulfilling their compromise with the industry. The tour operators that last winter were asking for help and took from the industry subsidies of some million Euros are now not fulfilling their compromises. The crisis excuse is simply perfect, easy to pronounce and very easy to demonstrate that the crisis is responsible. Now , if someone digs a bit deeper you find out that things are not that easy, and let me bullet point my thoughts.

1. Big tour operators support the destinations in the Mediterranean that are outside the Euro zone since their currencies are not subject to euro ? dollar relationship and therefore are at least 35% cheaper in airport taxes and ground tourist services such as transfers and accommodation.

2. The money they use to push those destinations is the money they got from the bleeding destinations like Cyprus, who did not have other alternative than subsidizing arrivals. Conclusion, the rich European destinations subsidise through the private sector the development of tourism to their direct competitors.

3. The EU rules put barriers to direct subsidies but not in Turkey or Egypt. Over there things are done according to ?market rules?. Therefore the big guys have more manoeuvre space and can with not much trouble pull the strings to the suppliers for lower prices.

4. Low cost airlines are not interested in covering long hall flights from central and northern Europe . The costs are far too high and they cannot enter in the subsidy dance since most of them do not work with package deals. This keeps the Tour Operators alive in the aviation map since the destinations consider them indispensable for bringing in mass tourism even thought low cost airlines transport many more passengers than charter flights.

Suggestions:
1. Independent hoteliers and small hotel chains that do not have corporate liaisons with tour operators could create a new business model that would fit the Low Cost airline model and make a pressure group in the market place.
2. The state instead of subsidizing tour operators could use that money to reduce the airport taxes, increase online presence in an effective manner towards the direct user.
3. Incentivize the tour operators with indirect incentives such as tax reductions, VAT exemptions that have impact on their profit and loss account and not on their cash flow, like this they keep the pulse of sales but without using direct cash benefits.

Online reservations in 14 laguages with Social Media facility

Sybelio, the non commissionable online booking system built in Spain has the capability to publish content on Social Media. The hotel can create its Special Offers and let its followers know instantly on all Social Media. Sybelio can know boost direst sales of hotels, hotel chains, incoming agents and any other accommodation facilities your company may have.

Sybelio online booking system

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The University of Seville - Spain introduces Sybelio Online Booking System in its Curricular for Master and Degree Students in Hospitality

The University of Seville and Sybelio Online sign a collaboration agreement for
the tourism degree.

The University of Seville and Sybelio have signed a collaboration agreement so that students of tourism learn and put into practice on line commerce using Sybelio, one of the most comprehensive online booking engines that exist in the tourism market and the use of which, completely configurable, is open to hotels, tour operators and travel agencies.

Online sales, the importance of which has grown in the last few years, have nowadays become a subject that is studied at universities.

The University of Seville has recently offered a specific module on new information technologies applied to on line sales with no middlemen, directly from the web pages of the tourist establishments. This module has been taught in the Tourism Degree, in the Hotel Management Master Degree and in the training course on Management and Marketing of Tourist Establishments. Over the last month, 450 students have taken the above mentioned courses and have used Sybelio online booking engine for that purpose. Sybelio has become a basic tool in order to design, program and execute tourist sales through the Internet.

With this agreement Sybelio wants to contribute in the curricular of the University so as the new directors of hotels and tourism companies in Spain become familiar with online tools in order to boost the use of online in their daily job in a very normal and natural manner. From the other hand site Sybelio will be permanently becoming even a better tool due to the input the company will receive from the university students.

The Role of the Tour Operators in the new era of Tourism where internet is getting stronger

Many of us who defend the disintermediation of tourism and that the traditional tour operators had no place in the tourism market as intermediates, it is now proven that we are wrong. We are wrong since customers need a Big Guy to place their complaints. Here are some examples of REAL customer complaints. This was sent from a Major UK Tour Operator - listing some of the British guests' complaints during the year 2008.

"I think it should be explained in the brochure that the local store does not sell proper biscuits like custard creams or ginger nuts."

"It's lazy of the local shopkeepers to close in the afternoons. I often needed to buy things during 'siesta' time - this should be banned."

"On my holiday to Goa in India , I was disgusted to find that almost every restaurant served curry. I don't like spicy food at all."

"We booked an excursion to a water park but no-one told us we had to bring our swimming costumes and towels."

A tourist at a top African game lodge overlooking a waterhole, who spotted a visibly aroused elephant, complained that the sight of this rampant beast ruined his honeymoon by making him feel "inadequate".

A woman threatened to call police after claiming that she'd been locked in by staff. When in fact, she had mistaken the "do not disturb" sign on the back of the door as a warning to remain in the room.

"The beach was too sandy."

"We found the sand was not like the sand in the brochure. Your brochure shows the sand as yellow but it was white."

A guest at a Novotel in Australia complained his soup was too thick and strong. He was inadvertently slurping the gravy at the time.

"Topless sunbathing on the beach should be banned. The holiday was ruined as my husband spent all day looking at other women."

"We bought 'Ray-Ban' sunglasses for five Euros (£3.50) from a streettrader, only to find out they were fake."

"No-one told us there would be fish in the sea. The children were startled."

"It took us nine hours to fly home from Jamaica to England, it only took the Americans three hours to get home."

"I compared the size of our one-bedroom apartment to our friends' three-bedroom apartment and ours was significantly smaller."

"The brochure stated: 'No hairdressers at the accommodation'. We're trainee hairdressers - will we be OK staying here?"

"There are too many Spanish people. The receptionist speaks Spanish. The food is Spanish. Too many foreigners."

"We had to queue outside with no air conditioning."

"It is your duty as a tour operator to advise us of noisy or unruly guests before we travel."

"I was bitten by a mosquito - no-one said they could bite."

"My fiancé and I booked a twin-bedded room, but we were placed in a double-bedded room. We now hold you responsible for the fact that I find myself pregnant. This would not have happened if you had put us in the room that we booked."

I hope you enjoyed the quotes. This post has as objective to amuse the readers as well as show in a funny way that Tourism needs all of us since our customers' needs vary so much.

The role of the Professional Tourist Associations in attracting new tourists online

Cyprus with the two Hotel Associations, Pasyxe (www.cyprushotelassociation.org) and Stek (www.acte.com.cy )is another tourist destination where the two Associations have no presence concerning online Sales & Marketing. Their static websites which promote the activities and objectives are definitely not adequate for the development of any online strategy.

The financial dependence of the members of theAssociations upon the big Tour Operators “scares” their Governing Boards to take “courageous” decisions towards making serious steps online in order to seduce the end user.

Cost is not a matter, and the Associations know that. The websites that are officially managed by
the Associations should be the ones that inspire travel and I bring as an example the exquisite websites of the Hoteliers Association of Barcelona, Spain, www.barcelonahotels.es, the website of the Association of Small Hotels of Playa del Carmen in Mexico, www.hotelesplayadelcarmen.com , the Hoteliers Association of Costa Daurada in Catalonia, www.costadaurada.travel , the website of the Hoteliers Association in Bermuda, www.experiencebermuda.com and the so called “Association ofTurkish Cypriot Hoteliers” , www.northcyprus.net that also has a decent presence on the web.

The breakdown into regional Associations, as it happens in Pafos, gives the capability to upsell the hotels and tourist products locally. This up-selling should already be upgraded since the formation of the Regional Boards of Tourism, but unfortunately this does not happen yet. Taking as an example the Pafos Hoteliers Association, www.pafoshoteliers.com , we very quickly realise that the site is Palaeolithic. It has been built 9 years ago and is based on ancient technologies and is almost impossible to make a booking in any of the hotels listed on their online booking system.

The site is organically positioned due to its content and comes up in the first page in Google with the keywords “Hotels in Pafos”. For this reason the site receives more than 70,000 unique visitors a year (approximately 192 per day) out of which 70% are from the United Kingdom. Translating this into real money we find that the site loses approximately 2000 bookings a year of an average of 6 overnights which means 24,000 bed nights. Calculating that each overnight spends 50,00 Euro per person per day (considering collateral expenses not only accommodation of “cheap web attracted customers”) then we find out that 1,200,000 Euros do not fall into the cash registries of the Tourist Enterprises from direct customers only in Pafos the
last year.

At the Limassol Hoteliers Association (www.limassol-hotels.com) thesituation cannot be described as anything else but as an online tragedy, since they still list hotels which have been converted into offices and apartments for some years now.

The question now is, what is the role of the Professional Associations in the new era of tourism and how could they be a player in a time of crisis?. The internet offers a unique opportunity of disintermediation of online sales on both hotels and airlines and many destinations have proven it. Can we prove it as well? Where are the listeners in the boards of the associations? Have they realised that the “we know it all era” is over?

I would like to call the 2 Cypriot associations to open their wings in the new internet era and fly with the fair winds towards the end user and put their small but very important brick on the online wall against crisis.

From attracting to seducing, the internet has changed tourism as well

The Internet has become the means of attraction of tourists for many “inexistent” Tourist Destinations worldwide. Places like New Zealand, Slovakia, Montenegro or regions such as Murcia or Extremadura in Spain almost did not “exist” before the Internet Revolution. They took very seriously their online potential and invested time and money on their online actions and strategies. Here below I try to will give you a different approach with 3 different methods of how Destinations could or do use the power and the potential of the internet to seduce visitors.

1. T.U.I: Traditional Uncovered Influence.

In T.U.I mode the destination gives to Thomas Cook, Thomson-Tui, American Express Travel or whoever other Big Tour Operator, lets say 3,5 million Euros each in form of “marketing expenses” and seeks ROI. This money is used by the tour operators to “market” the destination and of course to market it online since 50% of the sales of the big tour operators are now made online and almost 98% of total sales are confirmed using online tools. Thomsons-Tui for example last week was promoting Tunisia on their UK site and defiantly they were not doing it for free. If Cyprus for example is an expensive destination and Turkey or Tunisia are not so expensive then obviously the tour operator will prefer to promote an easy to sell destination than a hard one, since we are in S.H.I.T, (Stupid Hospitality Industry Turbulence) caused by real estate speculation

2. D.I.Y.O: Do It Yourself Online:

D.I.Y.O is a rather new way of attracting visitors. As all other D.I.Y methods, this requires new skills, new way of thinking, new strategy, new planning and especially lots of courage and faith in what you are doing. It works the same way as D.I.Y for plumbing. If you do not have enough confidence in what you are doing or if your skills are not yet well developed then you may end up with the house flooded. In politics flooding is dangerous, voters can punish you severely, just look what happens in the UK. Ministers fall over their chairs one after the other, but anyway that is in the UK, those things do not happen in the southern areas of the ex British Empire.

3. N.E.T: Neo-technological Effective Tourism:

N.E.T has 3 legs: The Destination, The Suppliers and The Customer all working in a team.

1. The Destination: a.k.a the Tourism Board: With N.E.T the Destination belongs to all and not all to the Destination. It needs to have proven flexibility, credibility and ability, not proven incapability. It needs to give answers online and not orders from-the-line. It needs to share valuable content and in an easy, indexable, universal and accessible environment and not hide content behind bureaucratic monsters and technological myths. In N.E.T “mood” the Destination to has a regulatory role and not a regular role.

2. The Suppliers Travel Professionals : In a N.E.T environment the airlines have online services and not online barriers, the taxis are booked online together with public transport and not “hitched hiked”, the hotels have online price parity and not online price asperity, the incoming agents are destination experts and not the destination desperates, in N.E.T suppliers practice online customer care do not customer scare.

3. The Customer: a.k.a the One who Pays Our Salaries.: The Customer is not only the receiver anymore but also the transmitter. He/She determines online how he/she wants to receive the service, he/she feels the value from home on the PC screen and he/she Pay Palls it. He/She is not scared to share and shout it loud. How does he/she does all that? By Blogging and not Blocking, by Commenting and not Complaining , by Face-booking and not Face-hiding, by Twittering and not Twisting , being on Youtube and not on Our Tube, by Trip Advising and not Trip Forgetting, by being Seduced online and not Ignored even online.

The article was originally published on the Cypriot Newspaper
Financial Mirror on Wednesday 1^st July 2009.