Win-Win Cooperation to Make a Big Pie of Tourism Industry-An exclusive interview with Robert G. Sullivan, President of Northstar Travel Media

Q & A

Q = World Tourism Cities

A = Robert G. Sullivan

Q: What’s your opinion about the new trends inworld tourism?

A: As we look at the global tourism industry as a whole right now, the industry and the destinations are becoming more and more accessible. With air service and the advent of information on travel, be it online or through consumer publications, today’s consumers have more access to information, hotels and destinations than ever before. So consumers are well informed on a global basis about what their travel options are, and picking countries anddestinations from PDAs and mobiles today. We see in China consumers can go to their mobile advice to look for information about hotels and airlines so that they can make smart choices. This is one of the predominant trends in the marketplace right now. It is the continuing evolution of mobile and the impact that is having on the travel industry as a whole.

Q: As a famous tourism media group, why does Northstar choose to join WTCF? What kind of role do you think WTCF will play at a time when modern tourism is developing rapidly?

A: WTCF is the only global travel organization to be focused on cities. Cities are a vital destination and component of business travel, meetings, and leisure travel. Cities are the hub of the travel universe. When you look at the travel industry, city tourism is continuing to be popular and to be the core of the travel market. Major city destinations like Beijing, Shanghai, Paris, New York and London really fuel the overall travel market as a whole. Anything Northstar Travel Media/Travel Weekly can do to help partner and to improve travel to these major cities becomes a significant benefit to the travel community and the travelers. Cities are a driving force in the overall travel experience and the more support that WTCF receives from the travel community and private sectors, the more the consumers and the entire travel community will benefit. By city tourism leaders being able to work together to share challenges, future opportunities and initiatives that are working well in terms of best practices, give the cities an opportunity to learn from each other and help educate themselves to build experiences for the travelers. The more our great cities around the world can work together, the more everyone wins. We are a big believer and supporter of what WTCF stands for.

Q: What is the orientation of Travel Weekly in the future? Compared with the old edition, what are the differences of the new edition of Travel Weekly China?

A: At the core of Travel Weekly is delivering unique valuable content to travel professionals and travel agents so that they can do their jobs better. This content can be delivered in print, online or through events and conferences. Our goal is to establish a unique relationship with our audience an community of travel professionals so we can make a positive difference in how they do their jobs. The OTAs and Online Travel suppliers do a superb job with the traveler who is going from point A to point B. As the complexities of a potential trip escalate, this is where the right travel agent can make a huge difference. If I’m going to visit my grandmother iShanghai from Beijing, I can go to an OTA and I can book there with no problem. But if I’m going to Hawaii for my honeymoon or for a family vacation, I’ll probably want to go to a travel professional so I can get their thoughts, recommendations and experiences about where to stay and how I can have the best vacation possible. Travel agent to tourists is what Travel Weekly is to the travel industry. Because travel agent provides information that they have from their experiences of going to a destination. In the same way travel agent can provide information to a traveler, Travel Weekly provides that unique information and service for the travel agents, whether it’s a new hotel resort opening or a cruise coming to Shanghai or a new lift to a travel destination, so that they could do their jobs better. After reformatting, both the format and the magazine size are different. The new edition also offers more content and better packaging in design and more information for our travel agent readers. For travel agents to be successful, they need to be more informed than the consumers they are working with, because if they are not, the consumers can just go to an OTA. So far the feedback from the marketplace has been very positive. Travel Weekly China keeps paces with its American and Asian versions in format, design style, columns to some extent. Meanwhile, it also reflects some Chinese characteristics. Actually, we are not only trying to make changes in format but we hope to present changes in content and maintain the features of print media. It is worth mentioning that some contents are shared by our Chinese, Asian and American versions which can provide our readers an international perspective. Nowadays print media are waning, we lay different emphases on our online and offline contents to offer fresh, extensive, in-depth and objective information in our print weekly, trying to strike a balance between speed and content.

Q: Are there any new trends or features in the Chinese tourism market? Do you have any suggestion to the tourism development in China?

A: From our data and observation, Chinese travel industry has been developing at a high speed in the recent two years. First, Chinese online travel market increases rapidly. Its market volume in 2014 was 307,79 billion yuan, a 38.9% increase compared with that of 2013, and accounting for 9.2% of the total income of Chinese travel industry. Second, mobile travel market enjoys obvious advantages. Online travel booking users are gradually turning to mobile platforms from PC. Third, both self-help travel and group travel are in high demand. Fourth, Outbound tourism market continues to be hot. Fifth, cruise tourism becomes a new growth point in outbound tourism. My suggestion to the tourism in China is to work together with each other in terms of cities and private sectors to build collaboration and support, because everyone wants to help make the industry better. By helping to grow the pie of the industry, all cities and suppliers within the industry will benefit together. So work together to build collaboration and competition. Even competitors can work together to ensure the industry as a whole to be successful.