1. Marketing & Branding
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. STB is aware of this and is in
the midst of a re-branding exercise.
A new marketing strategy was shared at the Tourism Industry
Conference 2016, of Stories,
Fans and Channels with the three Strategic Thrusts: Telling a Great
Singapore Story; Targetting the Right Fans; 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.
2. Airlines
Business
The reason
for the rise in the Middle East air hubs could be attributed to the vision and
political will of its rulers. According
to industry sources, the rulers adopt a non-intervention approach which allowed
the airline executives freedom to take risks and leverage on its strategic
location. The government may not subsidize the airline but through an
investment arm they are the biggest shareholder, and because the airline is not
public-listed there is no pressure of return on investment. The airline’s
strategy is to grow code sharing arrangements where it takes up equity in other
airlines to break into new markets. ‘They
are like the precocious and audacious boy who has rich and forgiving parents.’
The rulers
understand that oil is not limitless and they want to diversify away from oil
revenues, and will do whatever it takes to build their airlines and airports
into global transport hubs. SQ is still a very good product with excellent customer
service, food, in-flight entertainment and overall great experience. They are a
hub to South-East Asia but now they are focusing on more direct flights to beat
the Middle-East airlines’ stopover programmes. SQ has proven its astuteness but
it needs to respond to the market more quickly. ‘SQ cannot be run by scholarly technocrats focusing on cost management
rather than revenue growth.’ The
Middle East airlines hire people from all around the world to do its bidding,
take risks to beat the odds. ‘This is
full throttle globalization.’
3. Hospitality Business
Web In Travel (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. Town Hall Hotel is located in Bethnal Green and was a former council hall, bought
by Mr Loh. Its grand architectural styles
include stately sweeping staircases, marble flooring, high ceilings, generously
proportioned apartment-style rooms, and a decadent brass, marble-clad swimming
pool, inside an Edwardian façade.
4. Tour Business
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,
research showed that 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.
5. Attractions
The
Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site, a quaint little urban village,
comprises the historic town centre, Royal Park and related institutional
buildings, and was inscribed by the World Heritage Convention in 1997. Visit
Greenwich is the Royal Borough of Greenwich Destination Management Company,
a partnership based, not for profit, Community Interest Company. It is a
public/private partnership, led by a board of tourism professionals,
representing different sectors of the industry, with an independent chair. They
work with partners e.g. visitor attractions, accommodation providers, transport
operators, meetings and events venues, the hospitality and retail sectors and
the travel trade and media. There is also a Business Plan, Business Plan
Launch, Annual Report, Destination Management Plan; read them here.
The Cotswold Way is a 100 miles route through the
small villages in Cotswold (e.g. Stow-on-the-Wold, Bourton-on-the-Water, Lower
& Upper Slaughter, Stanway, Stanton, Broadway, Snowshill, Chipping Campden
etc.) which have recently become very popular as tourists look for novel
authentic experiences. These villages have a long history in the way their
stone houses are built and maintained, and now protected.
Attractions such as Singapore’s Botanic Gardens (a UNESCO site) and Gardens by The Bay (inspired by the Eden Project in UK) appeal to the European visitors because while they have beautiful plant species in their own countries, it is different from Singapore’s tropical gardens.
6. Activities
Local markets are the best way to explore a city. They create a buzz, liven the
street scene, engage visitors with the local community. When the markets
develop their own unique character, they will start to have their own fans.
Markets in London include: Borough
Market (for food), Brick Lane Market
(for arts), Camden Lock Market (for
arts, clothes, food), Columbia Road
Flower Market (for flowers), Covent
Garden Market (for tourists), Greenwich
Market (smaller version of Covent Garden Market), Old Spitalfields Market (for arts, clothes), Portobello Road Market (in Nottinghill). Busking is allowed in the
city and around the markets, but they usually have to abide by a set of rules,
sign up on a schedule, and they are great crowd pullers and entertainment.
7. Planning & Policies
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). Generally, the economy is going into
recession, prices will go up, people are cautious, and the market is
pessimistic. Singapore’s tourism arrivals from UK will be affected, for sure.
8. Special Interest Tourism – Action Plan #1
You can 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
(Westminster, Kensington), 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.
Action Plan #1
– To include these ideas into the STB Roving Ambassadors Programme.
9. Big Data / Personalization – Action Plan #2
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 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.
Action Plan #2
– To personalize curriculum materials for students depending on their needs and
interests.
10. Further Education / School Exchange – Action Plan #3
The Emirates Academy of Hospitality Management opened in
2001, in academic association with Ecole hoteliere de Lausanne (EHL). It is owned by the Jumeirah Group and offers
a Bachelor of Business Administration in International Hospitality Management
(BBA), Master of Business Administration (MBA) in International Hospitality
Management, Study Abroad in Dubai and Professional Training & Development
programmes. A meeting was connected with
Dr Sanjay Nadkarni, Director of Research, who was a panellist at the Arabian
Travel Market 2016 seminar on ‘The role of big data, predictive and
immersive technologies in the future travel booking experience’. The meeting also introduced Dr Stuart
Jauncey, Dean and Dr Michael Newnham, Associate Dean of the Academy.
A visit was made to the University
of Surrey,
School of Hospitality & Tourism Management,
similar in intent to the Emirates Academy,
to discuss student and staff exchanges with Professor Graham Miller, Head of
School of Hospitality & Tourism Management, Dr Li Gang, Director of
International Relations, and Ms Rachel Enticknap Bickford-Smith, Regional
Manager of International Student Recruitment Office. The University of Surrey
is rated University of the Year and its School of Hospitality & Tourism
Management is ranked #1 in the UK. Read more about the University of Surrey:
Singapore meets Surrey blog.
The discussions explored opportunities for:
- Student programmes e.g. 2 weeks CDS on Global
Citizenship;
- Student internships with the Jumeirah Group
e.g. Burj Al Arab (30-40% Chinese tourists and they are looking for staff with
bilingual capabilities);
- Articulation arrangements for graduates into
its third final year (already in place for Surrey);
- Graduates with many years’ working experience
into its MBA (Emirates Academy);
- Short educational trips with briefings or
workshops.
Action Plan #3
– To develop student exchange programmes into educational trips.
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