Wednesday, June 20, 2012

ENGAGING THE TRAVEL AGENTS

Unlike most airlines in this age of the internet, AIRASIA is looking at ways of tweaking its highly successful B2C model and is considering engaging travel consultants as part of its distribution network – especially in less developed markets such as Indonesia and the Philippines.
According to Dharmadi, AirAsia Indonesia President Director, the low cost carrier is considering introducing a commission structure for travel consultants. “We are discussing this internally,” he said.
This move should be welcomed by the travel industry who still play an important role in the distribution channel for airlines.
AirAsia group CEO, Tony Fernandes, have said: “(Travel consultants) are a very important growth (channel) for AirAsia. They should not consider us as the enemy. We will make some exciting announcements (with regards to increased cooperation with travel trade) in the coming months.”
As for Malaysia, its home country, AirAsia is quite content with its existing distribution channels – 95 per cent of its business comes from seats purchased directly by consumers on the AirAsia website. In fact there are already one brand reseller for Air Asia all over the smaller towns in Malaysia.

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