Fliggy announced last week to make the Maldives a destination IP (key destination) of its "Global Tour" strategy, after Russia and Aurora Borealis. On the day before heading to the Maldives, Fliggy’s CEO Shaohua Li attended the launching ceremony of Fliggy’s Alipay Hotel 2.0 and its smart audio device Bot Tmall in the Westin Sanya Haitang Bay Resort, and he had an interview with 36 Kr.
Alipay hotels and destination IP have revealed three trends that Fliggy is working on to capture in the future tourism market for young people: mobile application, content and destination.
Mobile application: technology drives changes in tourism
When asked whether Filggy will follow the offline store push in China, Mr. Li said “no” and that Fliggy would focus on mobile-oriented customers. Fliggy believes online transactions will dominate the future consumption decision-making and buying behavior of young people.
This reference to the mobile end by Mr. Li may also be interpreted as driving business development through technology. He revealed that Fliggy has created 100 billion gross merchandize volume (GMV) last year, achieved with only 900 staff members.
One of the impressive moves of Fliggy is the expansion into electronic visa business, which is very different from business-oriented SaaS systems.
Another example is the cooperation with hotels. Hotels working with Alipay hotels can tap into more technological elements such as technology for checking in and checking out, in-room voice assistance, and connection of operating systems like Customer Relationship Management (CRM) with Fliggy.
Content: travel itself is a content product
Unlike retail products, travel is a non-standardized content-based product, and customer satisfaction hinges on whether the expectations are met. Therefore, travel product sellers should shape users’ expectations with their description (content) of the products.
Mr. Li calls it stimulating consumer's inspiration through content.
Fliggy has been adopting the content strategy, for content can help with consumers’ decision-making and can facilitate business marketing. Data show that Fliggy currently has 4,000 travel specialists who can produce 5,000-6,000 Professional Generated Content（PGC）in a week, and users themselves also produce content. Fliggy said that half of its traffic was acquired through content so far, and that it has accumulated 35 million active users every month.
Destination: one-stop service chain
How is Fliggy going to differentiate in the landscape of destination products? Destination IP strategy is all about integrating destination and content. In marketing, destination IP is to tie up the most distinct local products with destination activities; in supply chains, destination IP is to work with local suppliers and to get a hold of unique resources.
Mr. Li told 36Kr that after the introduction of Aurora Borealis IP last year, the booking of aurora tours on Fliggy has nearly tripled (up 280%) in 2016. Up till now, more than 1,200 bookings have been made on the 50,000-yuan chartered Antarctic tour this year.
Mr. Li concluded the ultimate goal of Fliggy is to support customers in all kinds of scenarios with a one-stop service chain. If traditional tourism-linked platforms are to be categorized as e-commerce (as per Ctrip, Alitrip), content (as per mafengwo.com, qyer.com) and lifestyle (as per dianping.com, Yelp), Fliggy aims to be a 3-in-1 platform.
