Chapter 70. Travel Agency

     After Fang Xinhua learned that Xingzhou Island wanted to open a special tourist line, he ran to Li Yaolin and said, “Mr. Li, why didn’t you come to me for this?”

 

     Li Yaolin asked back, “Mr. Fang also invested in the passenger transport company?”

 

     Fang Xinhua said, “That’s not the case, but I also invested a little in the travel agency under the Wenhua Group.”

 

     Li Yaolin felt that his slightly complacent expression did not seem like he had only invested “a little” money.

 

     Fang Xinhua added: “Wenhua Travel Agency has obtained a road passenger transport business license. It not only cooperates with passenger transport companies, but also has its own tourist buses and minibuses, which are responsible for receiving group tourists coming from the airport or high-speed rail station. If Xingzhou Island can cooperate with Wenhua Travel Agency, then the travel agency’s cars can pick up tourists from all over the world!”

 

     Li Yaolin remembered that one of the reasons why she agreed to open a diving shop with Fang Xinhua was because of the Wenhua Group behind him. Unexpectedly, he really came in handy.

 

     With Fang Xinhua as a matchmaker, Li Yaolin sent the little mermaid to represent Xingzhou Island to discuss this cooperation with Wenhua Travel Agency.

 

     In the general cooperation relationship between scenic spots and travel agencies, the most intuitive is the reciprocal model, that is, the travel agency brings a large number of customers to the scenic spot, and the scenic spot gives the travel agency discounts in tickets, accommodation, food, etc.

 

     For scenic spots, more tourists can promote various consumption in scenic spots, which is a win-win situation; for tourists, various basic expenses are reduced, and travel agencies are responsible for arranging travel plans, so they don’t have to worry about it, which is a win-win situation, for travel agencies, the more tourists they bring, the greater the profit margin, which is a win-win situation.

 

     But this model is not suitable for Xingzhou Island, because the owner of Xingzhou Island is a weirdo, every tourist attraction hopes to have more tourists, but Xingzhou Island limits the number of people who can go to the island every day.

 

     Except for convenience stores, buffet restaurants and cultural and creative products, there are no more shops to consume on the island. The holiday cabins are limited, which shows that under the traditional cooperation model, travel agencies can’t make much money.

 

     But it is also difficult for travel agencies to give up cooperation, because Xingzhou Island has risen too fast, and its development prospects are very good. If they can cooperate with Xingzhou Island, there will be no disadvantages.

 

     Under the premise of Li Yaolin’s insistence on “three nos” of no joint venture, no monopoly, and no middlemen, after negotiations with Little Mermaid, the travel agency finally gave two more reasonable plans: 

 

 

 

     1. Route monopoly. Except for Wenhua Travel Agency, Xingzhou Island no longer accepts travel route cooperation with other travel companies and travel agencies.

 

     Wenhua Travel Agency will have the priority to sell tickets online and be responsible for arranging routes from various places to Xingzhou Island, such as flights, high-speed rail, shuttle buses, etc. Although the investment is large, it is not difficult for Wenhua Travel Agency. As the largest travel agency in the province, they have already developed some mature routes.

 

 

 

     2. Local reception mode. Travel agencies set up local reception agencies at high-speed rail stations and airports to receive tourists traveling independently. Travel agencies will provide one-stop services such as ticket hotel reservations, through buses, tour guides, etc., so that tourists traveling independently can also enjoy this trip without worries.

 

     Travel agencies help Xingzhou Island promote and increase its popularity, and Xingzhou Island will give travel agencies discounts or freight subsidies for helping to transport tourists.

 

     Li Yaolin chose the second option. It’s because the tickets of Xingzhou Island are tied to the real-name ticketing system, and whether you can get a ticket depends on your internet speed and luck. If a part of the tickets are distributed to travel agencies to sell, it may increase the cost of buying tickets for tourists.

 

     – For example, when grabbing train tickets now, some APPs trick people into applying for membership, or forward links to ask people to help increase the success rate of grabbing tickets, which is pure IQ tax.

 

     Li Yaolin doesn’t want Xingzhou Island to get into trouble over these things and attract bad reviews.

 

     The second option is that the cooperation between the local travel agency, Xingzhou Island and tourists has a higher degree of freedom, and there is no bundled consumption. Tourists can choose only the through bus service or the service with a tour 

 

     And it’s not just Xingzhou Island that cooperates with the local travel agency. Even if Xingzhou Island does not provide priority for ticket and hotel reservations, they can also recommend hotels that have cooperation with travel agencies to tourists!

 

     At that time, we will send tourists to Xingzhou Island for a day trip in the morning, stay in a hotel on the shore at night, and then go to other tourist attractions the next day…

 

     However, Li Yaolin does not completely agree with the second option, because the cooperation between Xingzhou Island and the travel agency is a two-way choice:

 

 

 

     The travel agency transports tourists to Xingzhou Island, which improves the tourism quality of Xingzhou Island. It is understandable that this part of the income belongs to the travel agency.

 

     However, the travel agency arranges tour guides to carry out activities on the island as scenic spot staff. If the travel agency or the tour guide forces tourists to consume or causes public dissatisfaction for the sake of profit, it will not only affect the tourism image of Xingzhou Island, but Xingzhou Island will also be directly responsible for this.

 

     It makes no sense for Xingzhou Island to bear the risk and pay money.

 

     Besides, the general situation of giving subsidies is that the scenic spot needs the travel agency to attract tourists and promote consumption in the scenic spot. But Xingzhou Island does not need travel agencies to attract tourists. Li Yaolin only needs a means of transportation to quickly and conveniently transport target tourists to Xingzhou Island, so this freight subsidy is unreasonable.

 

     After several rounds of negotiations failed to reach an agreement, the representative of the travel agency came to talk to Li Yaolin in person. He said: “If we don’t have more convenient and high-quality services, we can’t stand out from the many travel agencies. In terms of passenger transportation, our profit margin is not much. The demand for tour guides in island tourist attractions is not high. Xingzhou Island does not give preferential treatment such as receiving group tourists. If we don’t give even a little privilege, we will have no competitive advantage!” 

 

     Li Yaolin asked: “Then what privileges does your agency hope to get?” 

 

     The representative of the travel agency flashed his eyes and said: “We also know that Xingzhou Island’s tickets and holiday cabin rooms are limited. Whether you can grab them depends entirely on the tourists themselves, and this ticket price and room rate are already the most favorable, so we will not ask your island to provide these discounts and booking priority. “

 

     “But we hope to open some booking priority to us in entertainment projects, such as boat fishing and diving, so that tourists don’t have to book online or queue up. “

 

     “In addition, the profit margin in catering is actually very large. We hope that Xingzhou Island can provide catering services. In this way, when we formulate service plans for tourists, we can strive to get more tourists to choose the local service package that has a larger profit margin for us. “

 

     “Of course, the catering service I am talking about refers to employee meals. We book employee meals from your Island as a ‘privilege’ for tourists who have purchased related services. ” 

 

     Not all tourists are willing to spend hundreds of yuan to eat seafood buffets, but Xingzhou Island has no other restaurants except the buffet restaurant. So if tourists can be allowed to eat employee meals on Xingzhou Island through travel agencies, then in the end, a win-win situation of ‘Xingzhou Island and travel agencies make money together, and tourists get more convenient and affordable services’ can be achieved. 

 

     Li Yaolin: “…” 

 

     If she wanted to make more money in the catering project, she would not open only a seafood buffet restaurant. Employee meals were originally the internal employee welfare of Xingzhou Island. The amount of food that the chef needs to cook every day is not particularly large, and the current staff can barely cope with it. After providing employee meals to the outside, The cost of ingredients, water, electricity and gas will decrease appropriately as the number of meals increases, but the kitchen is a little short of manpower, and hiring more people will increase the cost of employment…

 

     The final cost remains unchanged, but the nature of the business has changed.

 

     In addition, the original cost standard of employee meals is 25 yuan per person per meal. Li Yaolin added meal subsidies as a benefit to employee benefits, and finally the cost of employees per meal is only 10-15 yuan.

 

     For tourists, the price of employee meals is more than 25 yuan. Since they are supplying meals to the outside world, if they are not aiming to make money, wouldn’t they be doing charity?

 

     If she sets the price of employee meals at 30 yuan, if the travel agency also wants to make money, it will have to charge tourists 50 yuan per meal. In the end, tourists may complain about Xingzhou Island ripping off tourists, just like they complain about the high-speed rail lunch boxes being too expensive.

 

     When tourists ask around, they will find out that Xingzhou Island employees only need to spend 10 yuan to eat, but they have to spend 50 yuan. They will inevitably feel unbalanced. Even if they know that the internal and external prices of employee meals are different, there will still be some psychological gap.

 

     If the price is too low, neither Xingzhou Island nor the travel agency will make money. If the price is too high, they will be known as ripping off tourists. In this case, why should she bother herself?

 

     The travel agency representative didn’t seem to understand why the cost of employee meals on Xingzhou Island was so high. After he went to the employee cafeteria to eat once, he was silent: It turns out that the employees of Xingzhou Island usually eat so well?

 

     The meat dishes in the general canteen, such as stewed chicken with potatoes, are really full of potatoes, with only one or two pieces of chicken. However, the meat dishes of Xingzhou Island are full of meat. In addition to the most basic chicken, duck, fish and pork, mutton soup and mutton stew will be provided from autumn.

 

     Meat dishes are 5 yuan per serving, vegetarian dishes are 2 yuan, rice is 1 yuan for all you can eat, and soup is all you can drink. People with small appetites can eat one meat dish and one vegetable dish and drink soup to be full, while people with big appetites can eat three meat dishes and one vegetable dish and eat two more bowls of rice to be full.

 

     The representative of the travel agency said: “Make the employee meal into a box lunch, and only put a little meat in each box lunch… Your meat dish can be divided into two portions in a general fast food restaurant, and it can be divided into three portions if you have trembling hands. It is profitable to make three portions of money from one employee meal, right?!”

 

     Li Yaolin said: “If you choose to cooperate with restaurants outside, won’t the profit be greater? Xingzhoudao does not prohibit tourists from bringing in food and drinks. ”

 

     Travel agency representative: “…”

 

     Why do you look so passive and lazy, as if “selling lunch boxes is too much trouble”? Which scenic spot owner would have such a negative attitude towards making money?

 

     No wonder Fang Xinhua told him not to look at the owner of Xingzhou Island with the eyes of ordinary businessmen when describing her to him, because sometimes she is like a shrewd businessman, and sometimes like a philanthropist. It is difficult to figure out her style of doing things, and it can only be summarized in four words: “rich and willful”.

 

     The only thing that can be confirmed is that whether she wants to make money or do charity, judging from her desire to improve transportation convenience, her ultimate goal is to take the development of Xingzhou Island to a higher level. What’s more, she has hard power, and cooperating with her is not afraid that she will go bankrupt and run away at any time like the previous island owner.

 

     When the two parties finally signed a cooperation agreement, the travel agency gave up the catering business.

 

     They are responsible for promoting Xingzhou Island’s online and offline tourist routes, transporting tourists to Xingzhou Island, and letting more tourists know that they can provide local reception services at Youshi High-Speed Railway Station, Passenger Station and Wushi Airport. Mandarin Travel Agency has opened quite a few local reception agencies and tourist routes in Youshi, which saves costs in this regard.

 

     In contrast, Xingzhou Island must also indicate its cooperative relationship with Wenhua Travel Agency on its official website, and try to remind tourists who do not want to bother making a strategy to choose Wenhua Travel Agency.

 

     The benefits of choosing a local reception agency are of course not only that you can spend less money than taking a taxi and get a more time-saving through bus service than taking a bus. You can also experience all the recreational projects of Xingzhou Island in a one-stop manner at the local reception agency, with professional tour guides leading the team to buy tickets, without having to spend time and energy to queue up on your own, and there are no consumption and shopping requirements.

 

     The local reception agency can also help solve the problem of three meals, saving tourists from the trouble of having difficulty in dining when they are reluctant to leave the island and are reluctant to spend 318 yuan to eat a seafood buffet.

 

     In addition, if Xingzhou Island has any cooperation related to tourist route services in the future, Wenhua Travel Agency has the priority right to cooperate.