By Asina Pornwasin
The Nation
Twitter.com: @lekasina
Industries join in bid for expansion
Efforts to build up both the software and tourism industries have led to plans for a major industry fair in Bangkok at which tourism-related businesses such as hotels and travel agencies will be able to meet software companies with a view to doing business.
The first Asean e-Travel Mart has been organised by the Tourism Technology Association (TTA) and the Asean Tourism Association (Aseanta). It will take place at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Centre between March 23 and March 25.
The main objective of the event is not only to allow tourism organisations from all over the Asean region to get together to discuss business, but also to bring them in contact with Thai software companies.
TTA president Apichai Sakulsureeyadej said that his association, as a board member of Aseanta, was keen to encourage the tourism industry across the region to adopt an IT platform that would enable borderless electronic transactions.
Currently, only 10 to 15 per cent of all hotel businesses and only 5 to 10 per cent of all tour agents in the 10 Asean countries plus China, Japan and India are online. Nevertheless, hotels and tour agents together represent about 90 per cent of the tourism business in the Asean region, he said.
The aim is to increase the ratio of online deals in the Asean tourism industry to between 40 and 50 per cent of all transactions within the next year.
Apichai said that at the Asean e-Travel Mart, his association would officially launch an Asean e-travel standard - a data exchange standard for the Asean tourism industry that was compatible with the Open Travel Alliance (OTA). This alliance is a trade group that is developing a common standard for the exchange of information within the travel industry.
"This Asean e-travel standard is to be used among tourism businesses across the region in order to facilitate an increase in online transactions. It was developed by TTA and submitted to Aseanta for endorsement," Apichai said.
Aseanta's membership includes more than 50,000 tourism operators covering about 80 to 90 per cent of the region's entire tourism industry.
He said that when the data exchange standard was made available it would encourage many more tourism businesses to go online. Therefore, the scale of market opportunities open to software companies amounts to about 90 per cent of tourism businesses across the region - those who have not yet gone online.
"Many Thai software firms have been recognised globally in the tourism business. They can offer software solutions to serve at every point in the tourism ecosystem, from front end to back end. Next month's event will be a good chance for them to meet their target customers," Apichai said.
It is expected that the Asean e-Travel Mart will generate revenue of between Bt80 million and Bt100 million from software trading, as well as facilitating tourism-business deals worth between Bt300 million and Bt400 million.
"This event will allow three parties to meet and make business deals. The first two are from the tourism industry - the buyers from the hotel business and the resellers, or tour agents - and the third will be software firms. Once the buyers and sellers in the tourism business have made a business alliance, software solutions will be the answer and the final piece of the jigsaw for their collaboration," he said.
He said about 500 tourism vendors were expected to attend the event, half of them Thais and half foreigners. About 20 software companies from the Thai Software Export Promotion Association (TSEP) will join in the e-travel mart.
"Thai tourism businesses will gain benefits from having the chance to expand their connections with prospective business partners, and at the same time, get the right software solutions to help them grow," Apichai said.
Although Thailand has about 4,000 travel agents, only 500 of them have websites as online channel to deal with tourists. Meanwhile, 50 to 60 per cent of Thai hotels were not yet online.
"If these businesses are not yet online, they have to change immediately. The behavior of tourists has changed. Today, they go online to look for tour destinations, to create tour plans, even to make reservations and payments. If tourism businesses do not have a presence in the online world, there's a big chance they will lose business opportunities in the new game," Apichai said.
He said there were more than 100 types of software solutions needed by modern tourism businesses. The main ones are electronic systems for property management, Web and content management, ticketing, customer-relationship management, central reservations and travel management.
The Asean e-Travel Mart will include seminars, working and trade sessions and exhibitions. The event will be supported by the Software Industry Promotion Agency, Software Park Thailand, the International Institute for Trade and Development, the Pacific Asia Travel Association, the World Tourism Organisation and the Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau.
Credit: The Nation (www.nationmultimedia.com)
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