Australian travel and tourism businesses have been advised to protect their cash cows to avoid the impact of the global economic crisis.
Ravi Ravinder, Senior Lecturer Tourism Management University of Technology and Sydney-based tourism management and marketing expert presented ‘A Snapshot of World Tourism’ at the Australasian Economic Travel and Tourism Resilience Forum held last Saturday at the International College of Management, Sydney.
Mr Ravinder agreed with the Forum’s previous academic and financial speakers that smart businesses should not cut prices but rather maintain the value of their product.
“There is no point in dropping prices. Businesses should protect and reinforce the value of their product by targeting toward particular niche marketsâ€, said Mr Ravinder.
He added that businesses should protect their short-haul markets as well as protect product positioning.
Mr Rvainder’s tips for “smart business†to weather the crisis included, protecting “cash cow†products from competitors, add value to their existing offerings, cutting non-customer related costs, as well as considering non-traditional avenues for additional revenue.
Additionally, in his analysis of world tourism, Ravinder pointed noted that freight downturn started earlier in regards to a chart sourced from CAPA (Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation) on Asia Pacific international freight traffic growth and freight capacity growth from Nov-07 to Oct-08.
This reflected the slowing of GDP and trade and a possible indication that business travel would slow down. Thus, freight traffic was a lead indicator of when tourism would drop and diversely, whether recovery would happen.
A Report by The Mole from Forum media partner eTravelBlackboard
