What is a travel agency product?

Travel agency products are all products and services that travel agencies provide to tourists by purchasing and integrating individual service products such as scenic spots, transportation, accommodation, catering, shopping and entertainment according to market demand, and operating their own services through these products and services. Travel agency products are a kind of tourism products, which appear in the form of solidified "product package" and integrate the commitment and service of travel agencies.

Travel agency products have a strong service nature, but they cannot be simply understood as equivalent to services. There are no examples of selling only "services" because they are divorced from specific products. Service is an accessory of the product, which is included in the product. Only by purchasing a specific product can we get the corresponding service. For example, if you buy a refrigerator, you can enjoy home delivery or after-sales maintenance service. In fact, modern marketing has attached great importance to the service process of products. At the same time, services depend on products. Without products, services themselves are abstract. "If the skin doesn't exist, the hair will attach." Undeniably, service is the most important function of travel agency products. Moreover, excellent service can improve the quality of travel agency products and the reputation of travel agencies.

The most important reflection form of travel agency products is actually produced by travel agency employees through market research, screening, organization, creative planning, service procurement, advertising design and other links. When tourists buy this "tourist route" and get legal approval (the invoice and contract are valid), the "tourist route" becomes a "travel agency product" by concretizing or becoming "tangible". Later reception services (tour guide service, logistics support, etc.). ) began to be released and integrated into the whole process.

Travel agency products are also individual travel service products necessary for tourism activities of scenic spots, transportation, accommodation, catering and other projects purchased by travel agencies from various travel service product suppliers, and these individual products are combined into various package travel agency products and sold to tourists in order to obtain operating profits. Combination and package products are the core of travel agency products and the main source of travel agency profits. However, with the constant changes of social and economic activities, the demand for personalization, fashion and humanization is increasingly apparent, which puts forward newer and higher requirements for travel agency products, and the connotation and extension of the products themselves are constantly enriched and extended. Personal sales of travel agency products have also become very important.

One of the main functions of travel agency products is to provide services related to tourism activities, and its output mainly appears in the form of services. According to the service classification scheme of Datong-low contact service, medium contact service and high contact service. The service products provided by travel agencies are highly contact services, because in most cases, tourists participate in the whole process of travel services provided by travel agencies from beginning to end. The so-called high-contact service is a concept relative to low-contact service and medium-contact service. It means that in the process of service promotion, customers participate in all or part of activities, and at the same time, it also shows the degree of tourists' dependence on services, because tourists may not be able to successfully complete this process due to the lack of certain services (such as language barriers, unfamiliar roads, unaccustomed habits, security, accommodation arrangements, etc.). Therefore, it is particularly important to provide tourism services.

[edit]

Characteristics of travel agency products

Tourism products are the business objects of travel agencies and the starting point of all business activities of travel agencies. When it comes to the combination of travel agency products and successful redemption, the service will run through the whole process of tourism activities. Therefore, travel agency products and services have the same attributes, but also have their own characteristics. Mainly in the following aspects.

1. comprehensive. This is the basic feature of travel agency products. The composition and function of general products are relatively simple, while travel agency products are mixed products composed of various tourist attractions, means of transportation, hotels, restaurants, entertainment places, services and social products, and are comprehensive products that meet the needs of tourists in food, housing, transportation, shopping and entertainment. Secondly, travel agency products involve many industries, such as transportation, hotel room service, scenic spots, entertainment, tour guides, insurance and other services to meet spiritual and psychological needs. Because there are many industries involved, and the dominance of a single service product is beyond our control, travel agency products are only used partially or temporarily in the process of combination, which does not exclude other tourism industries and other social units from using their tourism products and social products. Therefore, the development, design and service procurement of travel agency products must rely on other tourism products and social public products. Coordinating the relationship between industries is one of the important tasks of travel agency business.

2. it is not easy to detect. This is the most important feature of travel agency products as service products. It can be understood from two different levels. First, compared with general consumer goods such as refrigerators and air conditioners, service-oriented products are the condensation of human non-materialized labor. People can't really realize the existence of tourism before it starts. Secondly, under normal circumstances, human labor activities will not cause the transfer of some kind of physical ownership of products, and will not lead to changes in the physical form of products. Therefore, when tourists end their travel activities, the "products" of travel agencies no longer exist for them, only "memories" remain. The inseparability and non-storability of travel agency products come from the insensibility of travel agency products.

3. indispensable, also known as the identity of production and consumption. Tourism is different from other product production industries. In the process of production, circulation and final consumption, general products often go through a series of different links, and their production and consumption activities are separated in time and space. Suppose that when we buy air conditioners, the enjoyment of the products will not be reduced because of the unfriendly attitude of the installers. After the installer leaves, we can still enjoy the comfort brought by air conditioning. Travel agency products, as service products, are different. They have an inseparable feature, that is, the production process of products is also a consumption process. In other words, when tourism producers provide products to tourists, that is, when tourists consume products, the two are inseparable in time and space. Because the most important form of travel agency products is service, and in a series of service processes, tourists and service providers will inevitably have direct contact, so the service process is the production process, that is, the consumption process. It is precisely because of the inseparability of service-oriented products that tourists can finally consume products and enjoy services only when they arrive at the tourist destination and in the process of providing services and producing products by travel agencies.

4. Not storable. This is another important feature that distinguishes general products from service products. Because travel agency products are imperceptible and production and consumption are carried out at the same time, it is impossible for travel agency products to be stored like general consumer goods for future sales. And in most cases, tourists can't take tourism products home to put them. When buying travel agency products, tourists can only buy the right to use the travel agency products at a specific time and place, rather than occupying the ownership of the products. As mentioned above, tourists only leave "memories" after their travel activities. Of course, all kinds of equipment for providing services may be prepared in advance, but if the products are not consumed at that time, losses will be caused (hotel beds, seats in planes, cars, ships, etc. However, this kind of loss is not as obvious as the loss of general products, and it is only manifested in the loss of opportunities and the generation of depreciation. Therefore, the non-storability of travel agency products requires all travel agency enterprises to solve the contradiction between supply and demand of tourism products caused by this. In other words, in terms of supply, it is rigid for a certain period of time and it is difficult to increase or decrease. Therefore, it is very urgent for travel agencies to coordinate and handle the relationship between the production units of tourism products.

5. heterogeneity. Also called "heterogeneity". This means that the content and quality level of services cannot remain unchanged, and it is difficult to define the quality standards in a unified way. Suppose you can buy the same product as your neighbor's refrigerator. They not only have the same appearance, but also have the same working methods and product quality, with little heterogeneity. But travel agency products may be different in nature. This is because travel agencies are people-centered service industries. Because of the existence of human personality, it is difficult for people to adopt a unified standard for the quality evaluation of travel agency products. On the one hand, even the services provided by the same service provider may have different levels due to the influence of the service provider's own factors (such as psychological and physical conditions); On the other hand, it is because of tourists' own factors (such as knowledge level, hobbies, etc. ), they will have a different understanding of the quality of travel agency products and services. For example, some people are happy and forget to go back, while others are disappointed. And the same tour guide's explanation, some people are full of enthusiasm, and some people are sleepy. For another example, if you are traveling to Jiuzhaigou, if you are in the "Golden Week", tourists will be busy, and it is likely that half of them will see the scenery and half will see the "head"; If it is golden autumn in October, the mountains are full of red leaves and blue waves, and the breeze is blowing gently, and there are few tourists. Even if you stay in the same hotel, take the same car and explain with the same tour guide, your experience may be completely different.

6. volatility. The process in which travel agencies provide products and services and tourists realize tourism activities involves many units and factors. Moreover, any change in these units and factors will directly or indirectly affect the smooth realization of the production and consumption of travel agency products. Travel agencies can't grasp and control many products (such as hotels, airlines, restaurants and social products) provided to tourists. ), which makes the operation of travel agencies very fragile. In addition, the volatility of travel agency products also shows that tourism activities involve natural disasters, war risks, political turmoil, international relations, government policies, economic conditions, exchange rate fluctuations and geo-culture, and the variables of these factors will cause changes in tourism demand, making the production and operation of travel agency products highly unstable.

7. Sequela of quality. Different from the quality evaluation of other general products, the quality evaluation of travel agency products can only be judged after tourists have experienced the whole process of tourism activities. Before buying travel agency products, tourists don't know the quality of the products, but only know a kind of "expected quality". This kind of expected quality is the expected quality judgment of the travel agency's product quality according to the relevant information obtained. Only when tourists know their own tourism activities and evaluate the quality of travel agency products through actual feelings can the expected quality become the real quality of travel agency products. Therefore, tourists' understanding of the quality of travel agency products is the result of the interaction between "expected quality" and real quality. Of course, the marketing of travel agencies is a continuous process. After the end of tourism activities, it is necessary to conduct market tracking survey, analyze feedback information, improve travel agency products and make products and services better.

[edit]

Product Form of Travel Agency [1]

According to the products and contents of travel agencies, the forms of travel agency products can be divided into package tours, package tours and individual services.

1. package tour. Package tour is a combination of individual elements (accommodation, transportation, catering, scenic spots, etc.). ) each tourism product, plus the services and added value provided by the travel agency itself (consulting service, tour guide service, logistics support, formalities, insurance purchase, etc.). ), and give the brand a whole travel agency product. Package tour means that tourists pay all or part of the travel expenses to the travel agency in advance and sign a travel contract before the start of tourism activities. Travel agencies arrange activities such as eating, living, traveling, shopping and entertainment according to the planned itinerary. Package tour can be subdivided into group package tour, half package tour, small package tour and zero package tour.

(1) Group package tour is also called all-inclusive tour. Including two meanings: first, groups, that is, tourists who participate in tourism generally form a tour group with more than 10 people; The second is the package price, that is, the tourists who participate in the tour group take the form of one-time prepaid travel expenses and entrust all the related travel services to a travel agency. The service items of group package tour usually include hotel room, three meals and drinks a day, fixed city tour bus, translation and tour guide service, reception service in transportation distribution center, 20 kg luggage service per person, tickets for scenic spots and entertainment activities, and full escort service.

For travel agencies, the booking period of group package tour is long and easy to operate. Batch operation can improve work efficiency and reduce costs, and at the same time, batch purchase can get higher discounts. For tourists, participating in group package tours can get more favorable prices, predict travel expenses, and get all travel arrangements and full escort services at one time, which is simple and safe. These are the advantages of group tours. However, due to the identity of the package tour arrangement, that is, taking the same flight, the same tourist bus, staying in the same hotel, * * going to the same restaurant, visiting the same scenic spot and watching the same program, the accuracy of the time means that tourists have to give up their individuality and adapt to the * * * nature of the group.

(2) Half-package tour. Semi-package tour is a product relative to all-package tour. It refers to a package tour that deducts lunch and dinner expenses on the basis of a package tour. Its purpose is to reduce the intuitive price of travel agency products, improve the competitiveness of products, and better meet the different requirements of tourists in dining.

(3) package tour. Small package tours, also known as optional tours, are generally below 10 people. It consists of non-selective part and selective part. The non-optional part includes transportation, accommodation and breakfast, and the travel expenses are paid in advance by tourists; Optional parts include tour guide, sightseeing, program viewing and flavor meals. Visitors can choose freely according to their own interests, economic situation and time schedule, and the fees are paid. Small package tour has the advantages of economy, clearly marked price, simple procedures, flexibility, peace of mind and reliability.

(4) package tour. Package tour is more common in developed countries. Visitors who take part in this kind of tour must go to and leave the tourist destination with the group, but the activities in the tourist destination are completely free, just like individual travelers. Therefore, package tour is also called "group entry and exit, scattered tour". Tourists who take part in the zero package tour can get the preferential price of group air tickets and the convenience of travel agencies to apply for tourist visas in a unified way.

2. Combined tourism forms. Combination tour is a flexible travel agency product. Also known as "decentralized visits, group travel." It came into being in 1980s, and it is popular in areas where hotels, transportation and tourist service facilities are relatively developed and tourist attractions are relatively concentrated. Its main form is tourist routes. The operator of this product is the destination travel agency. According to the investigation and analysis of the demand of the tourist market, they designed some fixed tourist routes. Through the promotion, publicity and sales of tourist source travel agencies, tourists can arrive at their destinations on time, and then the destination travel agencies will gather them into groups to realize tourism activities. The characteristics of combined tourism are as follows: first, the number of combined tourists is unlimited, which changes the past practice that less than 10 people do not form a group; Second, the group time is short, and tourists can go as long as the traffic permits; Third, there is no need to accompany and follow, saving costs; Fourth, joining tour groups is selective and flexible. After the end of the tourism activities, the tourism groups are dissolved locally, and tourists can freely arrange or return to their places of residence.

The reason why combined tourism is flexible is that destination travel agencies gather tourists scattered around the world to form tour groups, which avoids the disadvantages that some travel agencies in tourist source areas cannot organize groups alone because of the small number of tourists. In addition, the short tour time with the group is beneficial for travel agencies to attract a large number of tourists in a short time.

For destination travel agencies, the larger the number of tour groups, the lower the marginal cost and the greater the profit. Therefore, travel agencies should try their best to expand the publicity network and establish extensive external sales to ensure enough customers. Moreover, travel agencies must also do a good job in service procurement, establish an efficient and low-cost procurement network, and ensure the full supply of tourism service products.

3. Single service form. Personalized tourism products are various paid services with personalized colors provided by travel agencies according to the specific needs of tourists. The diversity of tourists' needs determines the possibility and universality of personalized service of travel agencies. Traditional individual services mainly include tour guide service, pick-up service in transportation distribution center, hotel reservation and transportation ticketing service, visa agency, travel insurance purchase and so on.

The personalized services provided by travel agencies are very extensive. In addition to the general scattered tourists, some business guests are also using this service in large quantities. Of course, the special requirements of individual tourists in package tours should also be regarded as individual services. Individual service is also called agency service in the tourism industry, and tourists can entrust it to travel agencies in different ways, such as local entrustment, joint entrustment and international entrustment.

Among the traditional single service projects, the single service content of modern travel agencies is more abundant. For example, the popular form of homestay in Japan and some western European countries is that students go to other countries to eat, live and study together during holidays and experience a kind of life. Parents usually entrust travel agencies to make arrangements. There may be only one family or several families participating in this activity. In addition, the popular study tour now only needs the travel agency to arrange some projects, and the rest are carried out by tourists themselves. More personalized, humanized and international individual travel service has become a highlight of travel agency management and has been paid attention to. To this end, many travel agencies have also set up personal departments or comprehensive business departments to handle personal services.

[edit]

Travel Agency Product Classification [1]

Any product may change with the change of market demand. Therefore, it is difficult to put forward a stable product classification system for travel agencies. However, by summing up, we can still make a basic classification.

According to the purpose of tourism, travel agency products can be divided into sightseeing, cultural tourism, business tourism, holiday tourism and special tourism, which are introduced one by one below.

1. sightseeing. Sightseeing is a traditional and most common travel agency product. It is a tourism activity with sightseeing, viewing natural scenery, cultural relics, ethnic customs and urban features as its main contents. Traditional sightseeing takes natural endowments, historical sites or urban and rural scenery as sightseeing objects.

With the improvement of people's living standards and rich experience in sightseeing, traditional sightseeing cannot meet the needs of society. In the second half of the 20th century, some large-scale theme parks, amusement facilities, artificial "wild zoos" and new tourism products developed by high-tech means, such as underwater sightseeing and virtual space sightseeing, emerged one after another. These products not only enrich the products of traditional travel agencies, but also have high ornamental value and are deeply loved by tourists.

2. Cultural tourism. Cultural tourism is a tourism activity with the main content of understanding the destination culture. Including academic study tour, art appreciation tour, study tour, religion tour, root-seeking tour and nostalgia tour. Because the products of cultural tourism mainly attract cultural people or people who need to understand culture, it is necessary to accurately grasp the cultural characteristics when planning the structure. With the improvement of tourists' cultural quality and rich experience, the requirements for the cultural taste of tourism activities are getting higher and higher, and the cultural connotation is becoming more and more diversified. Tourism will become a universal social education activity. For example, in recent years, various "summer camps", "red tours" and "study tours" organized by domestic schools, especially students' holiday study tours, are even more colorful. For example, some travel agencies in Guangdong have launched history education and learning routes with the themes of "Modern History of China", "Sun Yat-sen in Sun Man" and "Whampoa Military Academy". A local cultural investigation route with the theme of folk culture and folk scenery in northern and western Guangdong; Modern education, study tour routes and study abroad with the construction of sightseeing cities and modern enterprises as the content. Cultural tourism is the hot spot of tourism in this century.

The cultural factors of travel agency products should be expressed through the cultural atmosphere created by their products and all aspects of product implementation. Although the scale of a travel agency is small, its cultural products, if reflected in its bookish product name and product composition system based on cultural products, may have great tolerance. The cultural development of product connotation should be based on a deeper cultural understanding.

3. Business travel. With the development of world economic globalization, business tourism has also become a new growth point for travel agencies. The increase of economic and trade exchanges, frequent business exchanges, the promotion of exhibition business, the rise of incentive tourism and the development of various inspection activities have all provided protection for business tourism. Compared with other forms of tourism, business tourism has more obvious characteristics. First, the travel frequency is high. Because of the regularity of business activities and not affected by climate and off-season, we should go out often. Second, the consumption level is high. Business travelers' travel expenses are company expenses. For business needs, the standard of tourism consumption is often higher than other types of tourists. Third, it requires high-quality tourist facilities and services. Business tourists generally require hotels to have perfect modern communication facilities and convenient transportation, and expect high-quality service personnel, high-grade entertainment and fitness equipment, meetings and financial places. Compared with travel agencies, business travel is the latest and most important source of corporate profits.

4. Holiday travel. Holiday-oriented tourism refers to a kind of tourism that uses relatively little mobility in a local holiday to cultivate and entertain. In recent years, it has been favored by tourists and occupies a large share in the tourism market. The emergence of holiday tourism is closely related to the acceleration of urbanization in modern society. On the one hand, economic development has accelerated the pace of people's work, study and life, and fierce competition has caused people's psychological depression; On the other hand, the influx of a large number of people into cities has increased the residential density of residents, increased the burden of urban public facilities, polluted the environment and reduced the quality of life. In order to escape from this situation temporarily, people choose to go to those empty, beautiful and quiet environments to fully relax and cultivate their self-cultivation. People use their holidays to go to forests, seaside and places near streams and lakes to rest their tired bodies and minds. In the past, traditional holiday tourism mainly enjoyed 3S (sunshine, sea water and beach). In the second half of the 20th century, the forms of holiday tourism in some economically developed countries have changed. Such as summer sunshine holiday, winter skiing holiday, forest camping holiday, luxury cruise holiday, seaside country holiday, gourmet holiday, golf holiday, wedding honeymoon holiday and so on. There is a "honeymoon time in Maldives" route, which issued such a "honeymoon invitation".

Although holiday tourism is also a leisure tourism activity, it is different from sightseeing. First of all, unlike tourists, holiday tourists often choose a relatively fixed holiday destination and live there for a period of time; Secondly, vacationers usually travel as individual tourists, usually with family and relatives as units, instead of traveling in groups like tourists; Finally, holiday tourists have a high consumption level and need more comfortable holiday facilities.

5. Special tourism. Compared with other tourism modes, special tourism has obvious characteristics of novelty, novelty, risk and scarcity. The passion of human beings to explore, get close to and overcome nature has been surging. For the unknown, I always hold a hope to understand it and experience it. Explore, climb, hike, drive, cross, cross the jungle, cross the canyon and even go to space in the future. These seem to show the human spirit, especially in the modern competitive economic environment, people need the strength to overcome difficulties, and this confidence can be obtained through the realization of special tourism activities.

Special tourism belongs to sports tourism, and their meanings are inseparable. Therefore, it is deeply loved by teenagers and brave people. The development of characteristic tourism in China is in the ascendant and has become a brand-new hot spot of travel agency products. The special tour designed and developed by the travel agency takes advantage of people's curiosity and desire for novelty, and meets people's psychological needs of tempering their will, challenging themselves and showing off their value. However, due to the high risk, high investment, singleness and timeliness of special tourism, the crowd involved is narrow, especially the preparatory work and development work in the early stage is very difficult. So its development needs a gradual process. However, the trend of special tourism has emerged.