Travel agencies: No CNY boost for outbound tours

Given the economic downturn, local travel agencies do not see outbound travel surging for the upcoming Chinese New Year holiday.
In fact, they expect the downturn to continue, affecting the outbound interests of residents for the rest of the year.
“The number of residents signing up for tours for Chinese New Year has dropped slightly by around five per cent compared to the same period of last year. Most of them have already travelled during the Christmas holiday so they may have decided not to travel again during the Chinese New Year,” Siu Chi Shing, general manager at Hong Thai Travel Services (Macau) Ltd., told Business Daily in a phone interview yesterday.
Local travel agency EGL Tours (Macau) Co. Ltd.’s general manager, Sabrina Iong Ut Iong, also told us that the agency saw the sales of package tours hover at the same level as last year.
“That may be due to the holiday period as most of the local schools are shorter than that for last year,” the travel agent said.
Chinese New Year falls on Monday February 7. According to the two travel agents, most outbound residents would depart on February 6 for a five-day tour with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand their major destinations.our fee
The President of the Macau Travel Industry Council, Andy Wu Keng Kuong, told Chinese language newspaper Macao Daily on Monday that package tour fees decreased by between 5 and 10 per cent for Japan and South Korea during Chinese New Year as airlines will increase their flight frequency during the period.
Both of the travel agents, however, denied that there are decreases in the fees for tours to Japan and South Korea.
“South Korea and Japan are very popular amongst local residents. There is no discount from hotels and airlines there. As such, there is no drop in the tour fees for the two countries,” Hong Thai’s general manager said.
EGL’s Sabrina Iong indicated that tour fees for Japanese tours have even been raised as the country is a hot destination whilst Chinese New Year is a hot travel season.
Nevertheless, Mr. Siu added that fees have decreased for tours to Thailand and Malaysia as those countries have recently been affected or threatened by terrorist attacks.
Cautious 2016
Wrapping up the outbound tourism in 2015, Ms. Iong said the agency’s performance was still “acceptable” given the economic downturn, adding that the number of outbound tourists to Japan had grown.
Hong Thai’s Mr. Siu, however, indicated that his agency’s sales of package tours had started to register year-on-year drops of some 10 per cent from the third quarter of last year.
According to the official data of the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC), the total number of outbound residents using travel agency services reached 1.38 million during the first eleven months of last year, down 1.48 per cent compared to some 1.4 million for the same period in 2014.
Given the downturn may continue, both of the agents claimed they would cautiously observe market development, hoping to maintain the same number of customers as in 2015 for the whole of 2016.
“We will be more down to earth this year. We don’t hope there will be growth [in outbound package tour sales] this year but we would like to keep the number from dropping,” Mr. Siu told us.
In addition, the two agents indicated that they would seek co-operation with hotels and airlines to release cheaper package tours in order to attract more customers during the ongoing economic adjustment phase.
“We will start negotiating with hotels after Chinese New Year. We aim to decrease average package fees by between 5 and 10 per cent for 2016.
However, this is not [solely] up to us as it needs the assistance of hotels and airlines,” Hong Thai’s general manager said.