Alcamp tourism panel 26; Companies are not innovative and governance creates limitations

“Travel startups” panel; Tourism style success story” was held on the second day of Elcamp 26 exhibition with the presence of CEOs of tourism companies. In this panel, the owners of these businesses, while explaining the state of the country’s online tourism industry, also expressed the weaknesses, mistakes and errors that caused their lack of growth in this field.

Farid Yakani, SnapTrip’s chief marketing officer, considered one of the main challenges of online tourism businesses to be the restrictions that have made it difficult for online tourism companies, especially in the domestic flight sector: “Our main problem in the domestic flight sector is regulation. The 60% restriction on flights made our market smaller. Due to the existence of these restrictions, our domestic flight sales are now far less than during the Corona period and have decreased by nearly a third.” According to him, these damages are more than the damages that these businesses suffered during the Corona era.

Yekani considered the lack of interaction between the companies active in the field of online tourism as one of the main mistakes in the field and said: “One of our mistakes was that the older startups never had a proper interaction with each other, we have fought together and even though it was necessary to compete But in addition to this competition, we have not had the necessary alliance to deal with regulations and cumbersome laws.”

Of course, he considered another mistake is not paying attention to the issue of innovation in business, which has caused the lack of creative products in this field: “Our other mistake was that we did not pay much attention to the issue of innovation. In 2018, when we entered the field of flight, we paid attention to the experience-oriented process of travel, but as a company gets bigger, its problems increase and it gets conflicted to such an extent that it cannot be creative and innovative.

The chief marketing manager of SnapTrip says that the concern in the field of human resources is one of the issues that made tourism companies think about earning more money instead of innovation: in fact, it is by providing income from human resources that these people can be encouraged to stay and continue. Kurd, and according to him, this issue makes these companies think more about earning more money and market share and enter into competitive fights.

Kamiar Irani, CEO of Flytiv, was another panelist who discussed the conditions of online tourism in the country. He believes that although “in the old companies and startups in the field of tourism, there is a knowledge of technology, and besides that, we have a database of customers, and the analysis of their behavior allows us to offer our products based on the needs of customers, but this amount of knowledge It is not enough for the customer.”

The CEO of Flytiv believes that a kind of synergy and cooperation should be formed with new companies in this field, and this position can be very effective. He explained in this regard: “We want to cooperate with start-up and new companies to provide growth opportunities for these new companies and to find a broader analysis of customer behavior.”

He continued by adding: “The point is that we have met the minimum needs of the people in the field of tourism and the provision of such services has now reached the saturation point. We now like to create value and innovate. We tend to pay attention to new user needs and provide new services to our customers. We have to offer new values ​​to our customers so that they are attracted to our business and welcome it.”

Pointing out that the view of travelers in the world’s tourism industry has changed and the travelers themselves have also undergone changes, he said: “We must categorize travelers according to these changes, understand their new needs, and offer products to people accordingly. “We are far behind in this area.”

Of course, the condition is to address the new needs of needs assessment, which, according to Kamiar Irani, “the need assessment of customers is one of our weaknesses.” According to him, companies should pay serious attention to needs assessment and provide infrastructure to better understand the needs of travelers and respond to them.

In the end, he stated: “If we focus on customers instead of focusing on each other and other companies, we can be more successful.”

Tawheed Ali Ashrafi, vice president of marketing of Alibaba Group, in explaining the problems and challenges of the online tourism field, pointed to the country’s economic situation, which, according to him, makes travel no longer one of the main concerns of the people. He said in this regard:

“The main problem is that economically, access to travel has changed despite inflation and reduced purchasing power. What we are witnessing is that leisure trips are less than before and the duration of the trips is shorter. “Also, trips are made closer to destinations and one-day trips without accommodation have increased.”

Ali Ashrafi stated that “as long as the government wants to make travel accessible to all classes, but the economic situation of the people is declining, all the measures are related to housing and do not improve the situation of the tourism industry” to a big challenge called supply in the industry. Tourism pointed out and said:

“We are facing a supply problem in this industry. Airplanes and buses are less available than before, the capacity of trains has decreased by one third. We need investment in the field of tourism, but the investment is more limited than before. Because the future and a favorable perspective for the field of tourism is not defined and there is no desire to invest.”

He described another problem: “We are stuck between several large regulators that are not coordinated with each other.” From the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development to the Supreme Council of Cyber ​​Space, FATA Police, Ministry of Communications, etc., all institutions are involved in this field. This issue causes confusion and wastes a lot of energy for online tourism companies.

Alibaba’s vice president of marketing explained the way to develop this industry as follows: “In our field, we have the advantage of being able to change the tastes and expectations of travelers and tourists. We have to raise people’s expectations and expectations so that the regulator can’t even regulate and legislate about it and finally adapt itself to the people’s wishes. In fact, we need to strengthen the consumption and consumer sector to create a course for the promotion of this industry.”

Bahram Mashrafe, the founder and CEO of Utopin, considers the main challenge to be the actions taken by the government and adds: “It is better if nothing is done by the government. The field of tourism is not unsupervised, it is mismanaged. “The challenges we have are supply problems, which means we need to invest in the tourism industry.”

Mashrafe also points out the issues that cause these businesses to miss the golden periods for travel: “For example, renting a bus for 24 hours is 8 million tomans for us, but the government spends 16 million tomans for it. At the time of Arbaeen or on the eve of Nowruz, the bus leaves for pilgrims of Noor. “In this way, we miss the golden periods of travel and we cannot provide buses and meet the needs of customers and we lose the market.”

Mashrafe also believes that in addition to the issue of supply, which makes us unable to offer trips with a medium to high standard, the issue of wrong policies is also an obstacle. In addition, in the opinion of the CEO of Utopin, competitive errors have in some cases prevented the further growth of companies and lowered the expectations of travelers and caused the decline of the tourism industry.

He believes that with correct standardization and classification of customers, products can be considered and presented according to the needs of each group to improve the performance of companies.

He continued: “Travel is the only service that people pay for to feel good, not for investment, they pay for travel. “Because the customer spends money, he must have a good experience and feel good, otherwise he will have a bad experience and have a negative opinion of the tourism sector.”

Soheila Armek, the founder of the tourism business of Karifan Experience, criticized online tourism companies in this panel and said: “For years, all tourism businesses have been operating in the field of ticket sales, but creating innovation is important and necessary.” A dangerous thing that is happening in our tourism industry is the fading of innovation. Big companies are only looking for ticket sales. They still have problems with the airlines, there is still no proper service for the hotel. “Companies are not looking for current trends in world tourism, and they are not doing anything about issues such as tourism for the elderly, tourism for the disabled, the role of women in the tourism industry, etc., which are up-to-date issues.”

According to Armak, the conflict of Iran’s tourism giants is over the challenge with airlines and how many commission percentages are more, while they should pay attention to these trends and create innovation in this industry. He further said:

“Currently, the war is at a stage where companies are looking to gain more market share and are not looking to solve the fundamental problems. There are still challenges in the field of providing flights, trains, buses, etc. These problems have existed for years, and these companies could use their influence to improve this situation. But this effort was spent on competition and fights with the regulator, which cannot be resolved.”

The founder of the tourism business Experience Karifan considered new startups to have made a mistake and said: “Another mistake is that startups are attracted to big companies so that they can grow, but in the end nothing happens and only these small businesses have been solved in big companies.”