Delivering more content to customers, investing in the right technology to boost business, and improving online sales strategy are the top three business priorities of travel agents in China.
 
This "wishlist" was revealed in a survey conducted by Amadeus among 300 agencies during its recent series of workshops, "Shaping the future of travel in China 2013", held in Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai.
 
The three identified priorities in detail:
 
More content: 69% of attendees surveyed ranked "more choices to meet their needs" as the top expectation from their customers. This was ranked higher than low prices and top-quality service delivery.
 
With travellers becoming increasingly diversified, travelling for a much wider range of reasons and with different requirements for the travel experience, travel agents today need to be able to cater their offerings to these diverse groups.
 
Investment in technology: China travel agents identified the top three challenges facing them as: (1) pricing pressure from competitors; (2) costs of running the business; (3) lack of technology to support growth
 
But 93% of the agents surveyed indicated that technology has the potential to transform their businesses.
 
Online sales: Over 90% of the agents in the survey said that online sales were important or very important to their company strategy. However, 48.6% were currently dissatisfied with their companies' online business strategy.
 
Bart Tompkins, managing director of Amadeus China (pictured right), said the insights revealed at the workshops would help the company develop and deliver products and services, which would cater to its customers' needs in China as the market opens.
 
"China is arguably one of the fastest-growing and most important markets for travel in the world today, and travel professionals here are now recognising the importance of investing in technology to capture growth and take their business to the next level," he added.

Original article