Why the Chinese Market is Important: Puamau
When Eroni Puamau started with Fiji Visitors Bureau in 1994, for him, the world then was very different compared to our lives now and what is to come!
One thing for sure, the general manager for the Rosie Travel Group and Discover Fiji, noticed that the expectations of people and response times have dramatically changed. “And will continue to become even more shorter than before (I downloaded a 2.5 hour documentary movie in Shanghai a few weeks ago in 5.6 seconds on my 5G bandwidth!).
“As the world becomes more impatient and harassed for time, I see a great opportunity for Fiji to redefine the true meaning of happiness to the world. This is through how we live and the authentic experiences that we have to share as long as we don’t lose these experiences as we try and become like everyone else,” Mr Puamau said. “We created Rosie Living as our platform to identify and develop these authentic experiences where we are working with our local communities to present these experiences in a way that will inspire our international visitors.
“We also need to personalise our experiences.
“One thing I have seen done very well in Asia is how they are very good at personalising experiences.
“Everyone is different in terms of their preferences and what they are looking for and personalisation is going to be the new frontier of tourism value and success for those who do it well.”
Mr Puamau continues to be responsible as GM for the marketing worldwide of Rosie Holidays products but his major legacy is the development of China as a sourcemarket for Fiji. Below are excerpts from an extended interview with Mr Puamau:
1. How has the China market fared this year?
2019 has been a very challenging year for our China inbound market not just for Fiji but for the overall outbound leisure travel market from China in general. The Chinese outbound travel market has shrunk by 15 per cent year on year and outbound traffic from China to and via Hong Kong has declined by over 50 per cent in recent months. This is based on our own monitoring through our office in China.
The protracted trade war between the US and China and the ongoing protests in Hong Kong have had a direct negative impact in our business from China this year. Additionally, the withdrawal of the three weekly Korean Air Services have also had an impact especially from the Northern region of China. I understand that many other destinations have been similarly affected and this shows how sensitive the tourism environment is to these external disruptions which are well beyond our control.
What we have also seen is an increase of domestic tourism within China where the Chinese are traveling more within their borders to their own tropical destinations like Hainan Island. We remain hopeful that there will be pockets of opportunities in 2020 that we can develop that will allow us to continue delivering growth from the land of the dragon especially during our low and shoulder season where we need help the most.
2. Was there an increase in visitors from China?
Table 1 was presented by Tourism Fiji at their Forum event in Chengdu, China last month andclearly shows the general decline in visitor arrivals from China. Whilst Fiji is showing a very minimal decline, this will become more in line with our competitor destinations as our October arrivals from China were down 20 per cent and for November down by five per cent according to the Fiji Bureau of Statistics.
One thing that these statistics do not capture are the many lost quotations that the tour operators have lost where the Chinese tourist is opting out of Fiji and choosing to travel within China.
3. Which cities in China now are connected to the Rosie Holiday network?
Since 2004, Rosie Holidays was the first Fijian tourism company to deliberately target the Chinese market well before Fiji was granted ADS by the Chinese Government.
We identified a growth opportunity on the Korean Air network into China which allowed us to establish our first market in China which was Beijing. A mega city of over 300 million residents!
For the past 15 years, we have been engaged in both destination marketing as well as product development.
So it was a very encouraging sign that Tourism Fiji have now established a permanent office in Shanghai with their Regional Director, Vincent Zheng overseeing all the destination marketing work. China on a map resembles the profile of a rooster and given the vast expanse of territory and populace. We quickly realised that operating out of Beijing would not be adequate and so we developed a more regional strategic focus where:
■our Beijing office would cover the Northern China region (head of the rooster),
■our Shanghai office covers the Central and Eastern China region (chest and main body of the rooster),
■our Guangzhou office covers the Southern region of China (lower body and legs of the rooster),
■a■d our Chengdu office covers the Western region (back of the rooster).
4. What has it been like as far as promotions this year in China?
It has been a very busy year for marketing and promotions especially with the current outbound climate.
Our sales teams have had to work three times as hard to win new business and get bookings across the line.
We have worked very closely with both Tourism Fiji and Fiji Airways to aggressively go after as many opportunities as we can secure but it hasn’t been easy as we are up against competitors with bigger budgets and who are after the same business.
CONTINUES TO PAGE 14