BESIDES creating updated content, engagement and nourishing customer relationships are key for any tourism business to flourish in a digital age.
Sky Gavin, chief operating officer of wheninmanila.com, challenged tourism stakeholders in Cebu to go the extra mile in accommodating the new breed of travelers.
While content is important, travelers are also keen to be engaged and nurtured. If these are satisfied, this will translate to repeat bookings, better reviews and more referrals, said Gavin.
Gavin cited generation Z (Gen Z) and millennials as the leading market today. This new breed of travelers are eager to collect experiences through travels.
Gen Z are those born in 1995 or later. They are social, tech-savvy, interactive, digital natives but cautious travelers. Millennials, on the other hand, are those born after 1980. They travel six to seven times a year as opposed to the older generation’s frequency of one to two times a year.
Gavin said the social and interactive behaviors of these travelers bring in opportunities for Philippine tourism. She advised stakeholders to cash in on these behaviors to grow their respective businesses.
Gavin was one of the speakers during the Visayas Conference on Tourism and Digital Transformation held yesterday in Radisson Blu Hotel Cebu in celebration of World Tourism Day.
Warner Andrada of the tourism department’s Office of Tourism Development Planning, Research and Information Management, said this year’s summit emphasized the importance of technology to advance the promotion on sustainable tourism development.
Andrada cited the transportation and hospitality industries as among those that are affected by digital disruptions. He encouraged players in these industries to use technology to level up their offerings to improve tourism experiences.
Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed that the tourism sector accounted for 12.2 percent of the economy in 2017.
Tourism’s direct gross value added to the gross domestic product (GDP) amounted to P1.93 trillion in 2017, up by 24.2 percent from 2016.
Domestic tourism expenditure, which includes expenses of resident visitors within the country either as domestic trips or part of an international trip, grew by 25.5 percent to P2.64 trillion in 2017, from P2.11 trillion in 2016. Bohol and Cebu were ranked most visited leisure destinations by domestic tourists.