Overseas Travel Symposium in Tourism EXPO Japan 2016 was held with a theme of Future for the Japanese Outbound Tourism Market, joined by Jungo Kikuma, Vice President, JATA, Chairman & CEO, World Air-Sea Service, as moderator, Hiroyuki Takahashi, President and CEO, JTB, Akira Hirabayashi, President, H.I.S. and Seiji Matsuda, President, Hankyu Travel International as panelists.
They talked about lower competitiveness of package tour products and M&A at a news conference after the symposium.
H.I.S. Hirabayashi mentioned issues of package tour amid an increase in direct sales by suppliers and growing OTA: “Package tour contents are excellent, however they do not catch up with the world’s distribution. One of the reasons for lower competitiveness than before is the current whole sale’s business model giving part of profits to retailers.”
JTB Takahashi said, “A different strategy is required for price-oriented products. I believe that whole sale can survive by strengthening business approaches for FIT combining locally creating attractive products.”
Hankyu Matsuda said of improvement of planning ability, “We are looking for opportunities to tie up with specialized travel companies, though planning recipe is a key for travel whole seller.” World Air-Sea Service Kikuma agreed with the opinion, saying that travel products may be attractive by sharing planning concepts or focal points with others.” Hirabayashi said, “Like airline alliances, an idea of global alliance among travel companies may come up in the future.”
JTB Takahashi said of M&A, “We are very positive to extend our global network if we judge M&A is faster than original development to establish a business model of global outbound and inbound travels.”
In Japanese
