#9 The future of tourism will be more personalised and digitalised
Hello! Welcome to all new and existing subscribers of Head’s Up, a weekly newsletter that comes out every Monday and Friday on all things SME, Startup, and Social Enterprise in Malaysia (and maybe in the region in time to come).
It’s been a busy couple of weeks preparing content for the newsletter but I can assure you, I am going to try to be as frequent as possible. There are definitely some exciting tie-ups and that will all be unveiled in time to come.
For today’s issue, I spoke to Rickson Goh, the CEO & Founder of Tourplus on the future of travelling in a post-Covid world.
If you enjoyed this edition, do subscribe and share it to as many people as you want.
Thank you!
“We tried pivoting to various business models that will bring in revenue. We tried grocery and frozen food deliveries to stay afloat while hoping for the situation to recover,” Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Tourplus, Rickson Goh tells Head’s Up on how the online marketplace for travelers stayed on in one of the hardest hit industries during the pandemic.
The pandemic crippled both inbound and outbound tourism activities and there was no foresight if travelling, both internationally and domestic could take place in the nearest future.
“After weighing all the predicaments, we decided to venture into domestic tourism which we believed to be the only avenue for us to maintain afloat within the next 12 months. Hence, we enhanced our Tourplus App 2.0 to include a function that allows domestic travelers to discover local hidden gems that are shared by local people,” he says.
The startup also ventured into a new business extension helping local SMEs digitise their business and allow travelers to discover them online. Goh believes the future of tourism will be more personalised, on demand and digitalised.
“I have no doubt that the industry will continue to flourish again. The future of travel will be more free, involve easy travelling and less group tours, as the younger generation are mostly digital nomad,” he highlights.
As a result, Tourplus is now targeting these customer segments that are keen to venture into digital technology for their travel needs. “The world has changed, and the industry will have to evolve too to suit the needs and requirements of the travelers.”
Innovation: Key To Sustainability
Goh iterates that travel tech will be key to forming the new travel industry in a post-Covid world as more people get used to online shopping and app features like QR code scanning when paying for a purchase.
These behaviours, he says, will be the foundation for the future travel trend. Whether its using QR code tickets for a paperless ticket solutions to enter the attractions to prevent touching and ensuring social distancing or checking in into hotels using mobile apps without having to go to the hotel reception, all these, according to Goh, are the foreseeable travel technology that impacts consumer travels.
“However, it will also impact how businesses operate, like A.I. customer support, big data on analysing customer behaviour, streamlining the business process with technology like e-ticket, e-wallet cashless payments, and VR technology among others,” he says.
Optimism Ahead
With the arrival of the first batch of Covid-19 vaccines and the recently launched National Covid-19 Immunisation Plan, Goh says once this takes effect, people will look forward to travelling again especially after being cooped up since early 2020.
“The vaccination will become a ‘passport’ so to speak. I’d also like to reiterate that travel attractions around the world are already adjusting to the new normal to cater for a new customer experience that is safer,” he tells Head’s Up.
He also believes there will be a surge again and it will continue an upward trend as domestic travel is the only option for Malaysians to travel before international borders re-open. “When most are vaccinated, I believe in the next 12 months domestic travel will be the key to recover the country’s economy and to strengthen our domestic travel assets,” he says.
He highlights that demand will spike during seasonal period like holidays and day trips to rural domestic areas such as Sekinchan, Port Dickson, and Kundasang will be favourable.
Government Aid
Tourplus has also highlighted how Government agencies can further assist to promote domestic travelling. Goh urges agencies to provide grant and funding to local players to build the basic infrastructure like washrooms, walkways, hotels, bus stops and taxi stations.
“All these are tourist friendly infrastructures that are important to grow domestic tourism experiences.”
Goh also highlights the importance of providing easy access to digital infrastructure. “The Government should work with local players to promote domestic tourism in digital format, using short videos or perhaps using short dramas to create awareness.
“Another effort will be to create content for digital media to push for domestic tourism awareness instead of buying physical ads or running commercial ads, which do not have any user sharing capabilities thus lacking awareness,” he points out.
The Malaysian market, he says, is a good training for tourism players, as the multicultural country offers different markets to explore.
Tourplus’ next step is to captive the Malaysian market and later expand beyond. “We are also building a personalised engine where we show different content to different users as part of the plan to grow into ASEAN countries,” he says.
The online marketplace is looking to expand into the ASEAN region starting at the end of this year and plans to cover the whole region within the next five years.