Web In Travel (WIT) Europe 2016

WIT Europe was held for the first time in Europe in London on 30 June 2016 in Tate Modern, with STB as the presenting partner. A cocktail session was held in the evening at Town Hall Hotel (by Loh Lik Peng/ Unlisted Collection) hosted by Momondo Group.

The theme for WIT Europe was Reboot Asia, and it shares insights into how companies in Europe can work their way into Asia.  Speakers were aplenty including panel discussions with Priceline, Sabre, AccorHotels, Circos Brand Karma, and Venture Republic (Japan), TideSquare (Korea), GetYourGuide (China), and CarTrawler, Skyscanner; state of the market reports from China, Japan, South Korea; spotlights on China, low cost carriers, Contiki Holidays; destination case studies from Singapore, Australia; coffee chats with Momondo Group, Unlisted Collection; and ending with the signature great WIT debate on the proposition: Europe is finished, the future belongs to Asia. 

It was an intensive enriching session, facilitated mostly by the WIT Founder and Managing Director Yeoh Siew Hoon, as well as others.

Morris Sim, CEO & Co-founder of Circos Brand Karma shared the new trends including Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality.  Watch the Tilt Brush by Google and Whale by Magic Leap videos which can be used to complement classroom learning. 

Hugo Burge, CEO of Momondo Group shared its company’s vision Let’s Open Our World with The DNA Journey video to show how we are more connected than we think.

STB and Thomas Cook also shared their partnership to increase visitor days of its visitors from UK to Singapore from the average of 3.5 to 5 days, but exceeded its target to reach 7 days with the Get Into Singapore campaign.

presentation by Tan Yen Nee, STB

coffee with Loh Lik Peng, Unlisted Collection

the Great WIT Debate

Tree 2010 by Ai Weiwei in Tate Modern

Town Hall Hotel

Special Interest Tourism/ New Tour Business Products

The 10 best special interest holidays for 2016 according to The Telegraph:

· Steam dreams – participate in the Festival of Steam in the Somme with trains, tractors, buses, steamrollers and steam-powered saw-mills.

· Ballroom and Latin American dancing in the Tenerife - daily dance tuition with experts who are on hand to teach the steps, hold, posture, footwork and professional techniques.

· Choral singing in Andalusia – with artistic director of the BBC National Chorus of Wales as the singing tutor.

· Cranes and Champagne – bird-watching with some extra fizz.

· Holland in bloom river cruise – a visit to Keukenhof Gardens and a gardening expert to talk about the best new varieties and the garden’s history in Hortus Bulborum.

· Kumbh Mela in India – the festival rotates around four different holy sites in Haridwar, Allahabad, Nashik and Ujjain.

· Painting in Croatia – painting tuition with excursions by boat to several islands.

· Morocco Sketchbook – takes in Marrakesh, mountains and the coastlines, and help you develop your drawing skills.

· Blossoms in Japan – a botanical journey from the capital Tokyo to the imperial city of Kyoto during either the Spring Peony Festival or the Autumn Chrysanthemum Festival, and also includes an Ikebana class to learn the Japanese art of flower-arranging.

· Fishing in Northern Argentina – a fishing and conservation tour, and opportunities for horse-riding and bird-watching with expert insights from scientists.

Shakespeare Aloud at Stratford-upon-Avon:

Brexit - Regrexit

Brexit has led to a fall in the pound (at one stage 10% to its lowest since 1985), which means that buying goods or services (including holidays) from other countries will become more expensive for Britons (“How will Brexit affect your finances?”, BBC).  So a summer holiday will cost more (“What does Brexit mean for you? Holidays, homes, jobs”, The Guardian).  But if you are booking a trip to the UK, then the drop of the pound may make a trip to London more cost effective than normal (“What Brexit means for you, and your financial plan”, Huffington Post). 

Singapore’s tourism arrivals from UK will be affected, for sure. 

outside 10 downing street

A Case Study Of Tourism Case Studies

• GREAT Britain Campaign: Creating impact for Britain around the world

The Task: The GREAT Britain campaign is the Government’s most ambitious international marketing campaign launched in 2012 to stimulate jobs and growth, to encourage the world to visit, study and do business with the UK. 

The Problem: There was no consistent approach to country branding or promoting Britain overseas. Instead Government organisations used their own brands, logos, and names. There was also little coordination between tourism, trade, and investment, and educational organisations when promoting the UK overseas. 

The Solution: Define the brand principles, then design the brand identity, assets and guidelines, with a great degree of organisation, control and the production of high-quality imagery, to successfully motivate and align stakeholders from 17 Government departments and 350+ private and public partnerships in 144 markets around the world. GREAT delivery partners use the freely available brand assets and guidelines as the basis for their marketing activities, which currently run at between 80-100 initiatives per month around the world.  

The Result: A comprehensive, flexible, easy-to-use and easily recognisable framework which enables communication of the UK’s key attributes across dozens of different communication applications e.g. outdoor advertising, TV, exhibition and events, social media, PR etc.

• Visit Britain: Great Chinese names for Great Britain

The Problem:  Chinese tourists spend more than any other country’s, due to its growing affluence. However the UK was missing out on this lucrative market amid perceptions that it was not as friendly as other parts of Europe. 

The Solution: Visit Britain addressed this with a campaign that invited Chinese people to come up with names for 100 British attractions that had never officially been translated into Chinese. 

The Result: Millions of people watched an associated video and visited the campaign online, and 13,000 new names were submitted.  Some of these names have since been adopted by Google Maps. Chinese tourism to the UK increased by 27% during the campaign.

• British Airways North America: Visit Mum

The Problem: How do you get more people to fly on British Airways from North America? UK bound traffic was not forecast to grow at a significant rate and the competition was getting tougher.  Research showed British Airways that it’s never been about a flight, but about making the effort to take the journey. 

The Solution: Get mum to deliver a message of nostalgia, memories and a visceral longing to return home.  

The Result: British Airways was able to engage North American Indian expats in a relevant, emotional and completely original way.

• MasterCard: The Priceless Engine

The Problem: To stand out and to add value to its consumers, but the information about the consumers themselves is guarded by the banks who issue the cards. MasterCard did not have the means to interpret all the data and simply pushed more and more irrelevant merchant offers and content to consumers through banner ads, social media, pop-ups etc. 

The Solution: MasterCard launched ‘The Priceless Engine’, a combination of people, process and more than 20 technology platforms to crunch data, track trends and insights, and study social media conversations as they happen. It turns big data into usable data and to deliver the right offers and messages to the right people at the right time. 

The Result: The Priceless Engine was put to work to power MasterCard’s ‘New Year’s Eve’ campaign, featuring Hugh Jackman, across the region. His involvement created an emotional spark with consumers through the local MasterCard Facebook pages, allowing MasterCard to connect to consumers’ hearts. It encouraged people to share who they would want to spend their New Year’s Eve with and why, sharing elaborate and emotional stories, and providing MasterCard with valuable data and insights to optimise the campaign further.  Those insights were then used to provide customers with Priceless Surprises and Priceless Experiences they truly cared about. Subsequently, these Priceless Moments then became a catalyst for even more engagement, allowing MasterCard to get even richer insights. 

Source: WARC

STB Trade Engagement Session London

STB Trade Engagement Session London was held on Thursday 16 June at the very classy OXO Tower overlooking the River Thames.  This was the last leg after two sessions in Paris and Milan prior to this session in London.  21 partners from Singapore attended the event comprising attractions (Gardens by the Bay; UK visitors liked its gardens which house different plants from their English gardens at home), hotels (One Farrer Hotel & Spa; they liked its cultural location in Little India), travel agents (Asia Travel Designers; used to target Indian visitors to Singapore, now has started to look at UK visitors to Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietnam, and Singapore) and airlines (SQ, Finnair).

Ms Lisa Tang, STB’s Manager Northern & Western Europe gave a presentation and shared that the international visitor arrivals to UK in 2015 was 473,810, and we hope to up the figure to half a million this year.  New recent attractions include UNESCO site Singapore Botanic Gardens, National Gallery, and cultural precincts such as Peranakan in Katong and Joo Chiat.  Talking to the UK trade showed that they generally like Singapore for its clean and green image, and its vibrant modernity. But increasingly trade partners are also looking at new unique experiences for their clients that are off the usual itinerary, such as visiting a wet market or hawker centre, learning to cook a local dish, behind-the-scene tours, historical sites guided by lecturers or historians.

A mixologist from Nutmeg & Clove Mr Colin Chia, was invited to host a cocktail demonstration of his classic cocktails re-interpreted with a Singaporean twist e.g. featuring nutmeg, cloves, hawthorn dates, pandan etc.  Apparently such ‘entertainment’ is necessary to attract trade partners to attend at creative venues as they are invited to many similar events all the time.

oxo tower overlooking river thames

champagne, wine, beer, cocktail included

virtual reality

presentation by lisa tang

mixologist colin chia from nutmeg & clove

Walking The Streets Of London

Walk the streets of London with London Walks - £10 each, no need to book, just meet your guide outside the designated tube station, rain or shine, each tour lasts two hours, a hundred (or more!) different walks to choose from, in and around London (Bath, Cambridge, Cotswolds, Oxford, Stonehenge etc.), from themes on history, literary (Shakespeare, Dickens, Oscar Wilde, Sherlock Holmes), music (The Beatles), film (Harry Potter), street art, pubs, ghost (Jack the Ripper), the legal & illegal, the darkest, secret, hidden … 

• Old Westminster – 1000 years of history, where kings and queens are crowned, where they lived and were buried. ‘And to see it with a great guide is to have that past suddenly rise to the surface’.
• The Lure Of The Underground – 150 years of engineering and artistry from the inside.
• Along The Thames Pub Walk – London’s last remaining galleried coaching inn, its best riverside walkway, its oldest market, the most sensational art gallery in the world, lots of pub lore and its most stunning skyline panorama.
• The Street Art Walk – ‘People say graffiti is ugly, irresponsible and childish … but that’s only if it’s done properly’ – Banksy.  This outdoor gallery (Shoreditch and Spitafields) gets ‘rehung’ every few months. ‘Six months is the average life span of street art in east London, so the walk – true to the scene – changes all the time.’
• A Soho Saunter – Everything humming with life: ‘shutters going up, flower boxes being watered, freshly baked bread carried into restaurants, waiters in white aprons serving Turkish coffee at pavement cafes, Chinatown bestirring itself, the colour and clamour  of Berwick Street market’.
• Old Kensington – ‘Royal Kensington is London at its best – picturesque, stimulating, and full of character.’
• Old Hampstead Village – London’s most picturesque neighbourhood with its perfectly preserved Georgian village crowning the top of a handsome hill.
• Foodies London Walks – Epicurean, Gourmet’s, Foodies’ London; Pie Crust to Upper Crust Culinary Destinations; Foodies’ London The West End; Biscuits & Banquets. 

old westminster

lure of the underground

old kensington

street art

thames pub walk

A Chat With Lizi Ross, British Museum

1. What do you do in your work?

I work in the British Museum, in the Human Resources department.  I am in charge of recruitment and there are about 1,000 staff in the museum.  I’ve been working there for about three years now.

2. Have you been to Singapore before?  What is your impression of Singapore?

No, I’ve not been to Singapore.  But my parents have, when they were in Myanmar for a one-month mission trip, they stopped-over in Singapore.

My perception of Singapore is that it’s a modern, developed city, quite small, and very clean.

3. What is your perception of the other Asian countries e.g. Thailand, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Dubai?

I think Hong Kong is the same as Singapore, perhaps more developed and bigger. I’ll probably only go to Dubai to escape the cold weather in England, and sit by the hotel pool.

I’ll love to go to South America, Mexico, South Africa, and then Asia.

Thank you, Lizi.

* * * 
Chats With Other Britons

Q: Have you been to Singapore before?  What is your impression of Singapore?

A: It is: highly developed, modern, clean, green, traffic jams, just a city, many cultures, everything works, Raffles Hotel, Singapore Sling, classic, professional, sophisticated, beautiful city, friendly people, luxury shopping ... 

A Different Kind Of Discrimination

While Dubai has its Women & Children cabin, London has its Quiet zone.

A different kind of ‘discrimination’. 

The Singapore Brand Story

STB destination brand YourSingapore launched in 2010 was designed to be customised to each individual and market segments e.g.

•     Australia: Get Lost and Find the Real Singapore
•     China: New Discoveries
•     India: The Holiday You Take Home with You
•     Indonesia and Malaysia: Only in Singapore, Right Now!
•     Philippines: Singapore - See where the World is Heading
•     Thailand: Experience Many Worlds in One Place
•     Vietnam: New Fun is Singapore Made

However, industry feedback was that the branding was not personal and the message was diluted across the various markets. 

A new marketing strategy was shared at the Tourism Industry Conference 2016, of Stories,Fans and Channels with the three Strategic Thrusts:

1.       Telling a Great Singapore Story

2.       Targetting the Right Fans

3.       Enhancing Our Delivery

Yee (2010) gave a history of the tourism destination branding over the years in his dissertation paper ‘Nation branding: A case study of Singapore’ from ‘Instant Asia’ in the 1960s-70s, ‘Surprising Singapore’ in 1985, ‘New Asia - Singapore’ in 1996, ‘Uniquely Singapore’ in 2004 to ‘Your Singapore’ in 2010. He suggested that the word ‘unique’ does not capture the essence of Singapore because every country is unique in their own ways. 

Henderson (2006) in her paper ‘Uniquely Singapore? A case study in destination branding’ discussed the Uniquely Singapore branding including its limitations. She discussed that the campaign was well-planned with active efforts to engage and involve the trade partners and local community.  However, the single destination brand may paint a uniform, bland, and over-general image.

More recently, STB shared its Destination Brand Story with Skift CMO Interviews on 3 May 2016 where Lynette Pang shared how data and real-time marketing are very relevant for engaging consumers.

Project LON #2: Perhaps it’s time to re-look the branding once again? 

Profile Of UK Tour Operators

Who are the tour operators in UK who have the largest volume of people travelling to Singapore / Asia?

Some of the big tour operators in UK include Cox & Kings, Flight Centre, Premier Holidays, Thomas Cook, Trailfinders etc. The Telegraph Travel Awards 2015-16 lists Britain’s best tour operators, namely Audley, Trailfinders and Scott Dunn, as well as for escorted tour operators i.e. Trafalgar, APT and Wendy Wu.

Some of the UK tour operators that specialize in Asia tours include Asia Inspirations (tailormade arm of Wendy Wu), Selective Asia, Visit Asia and Wendy Wu.  Unfortunately, some of these do not even include Singapore in the Asia itinerary e.g. Audley, Selective Asia, Trafalgar and Wendy Wu.

Volume and capacity is also determined by airlines’ seat numbers and their top operators. There are 45 flights a week from London to Singapore and the most popular airline flying from London to Singapore in May 2016 was Singapore Airlines.  The six non-stop daily flights are by Singapore Airlines (4 flights) and British Airways (2 flights). There are also connecting flights via Amsterdam, Bangkok, Colombo, Copenhagen, Doha, Dubai, Frankfurt, Guangzhou, Hanoi, Helsinki, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Kuala Lumpur, Mumbai, Muscat, Paris, Rome and Zurich.

Project LON #1: So, who should we work with in our trade campaigns?