How do travel agencies face SARS?

"Tourism is really fragile!" "How did the travel agency spend this year?" "You can be idle during the May Day holiday this year!" This is what the author said most in the tourism circle during the May Day holiday this year. SARS, a sudden disaster, not only disturbed people's normal life, but also seriously threatened people's life and health. In the face of SARS, tourism is duty-bound, tourism business units are duty-bound, and people who care about tourism are duty-bound In order to prevent the spread of SARS from tourism to initiative, following the State Council's announcement that the May Day holiday system will not be implemented for the time being this year, tourism administrative departments at all levels made a decision to require travel agencies to suspend the organization of tourism business. Recently, the National Tourism Administration explicitly requested international travel agencies to suspend the business of receiving overseas inbound tourism teams in China through various channels. If it cannot be postponed, it must be strictly controlled, and tourism teams are never allowed to go to epidemic areas, western regions and rural areas. Faced with this situation, how should travel agencies respond? The epidemic of SARS not only brought serious disasters to human beings, but also brought enterprise crisis to travel agencies. However, "crisis" is also an opportunity. If China's travel agency enterprises actively participate in the actions to prevent and fight against SARS, and at the same time fully adjust themselves, practice their internal strength and lay a solid foundation, the enterprise crisis caused by SARS may be transformed into an opportunity to enhance the development potential of enterprises and build their core competitiveness. First of all, seize the opportunity and actively adjust the enterprise development strategy. The traditional enterprise nature of China's travel agencies is positioned as an intermediary service enterprise. The nature of intermediary service of travel agency enterprises determines the passivity of travel agency business operation. The characteristics of intermediary service enterprises are completely dependent on buyers and sellers. If the buyers and sellers change or the market environment changes, the operation of intermediary service enterprises will be in trouble. Although people in the travel agency industry realize that the traditional corporate positioning of travel agencies has hampered the development of travel agency business and increased the risk of travel agency operation, they are also actively exploring and adjusting the development strategy of travel agency enterprises. In the past, the so-called "enterprise development strategy adjustment" was either "sitting on the road" and staying on the slogan; Or make some adjustments to the business focus on the surface. The real adjustment of enterprise development strategy must be based on scientific analysis of international and domestic tourism development environment and market environment faced by travel agencies, accurate enterprise positioning and reasonable planning of travel agency development strategy. With the rapid development of China's tourism industry and the changes in the international and domestic tourism market environment, China travel agencies should break through the framework of "intermediary service enterprises" and their business should no longer be limited to simply organizing tours. As an enterprise, travel agencies should not only provide high-quality services, but also provide high-quality products. Therefore, the core of adjusting the development strategy of enterprises is to accurately locate travel agencies, actively develop tourism products, especially those with their own characteristics, shape the image with products, establish brands with images, and win the market with brands. Secondly, strive to improve the enterprise management mechanism. The National Tourism Administration identified the sales department of travel agencies as the focus of the rectification of the national tourism market order in 2003. As the Regulations on the Administration of Travel Agencies clearly stipulates that the sales offices set up by travel agencies are unincorporated organizations, the phenomenon that travel agencies set up sales offices in disorder, contracted operations, transferred or transferred the Travel Agency Business License in disguise exists objectively. Driven by interests and lacking necessary legal constraints, the operation and management of travel agency sales department is chaotic. Judging from the situation reflected in the activities of rectifying and standardizing the order of the national tourism market in 2002, the sales offices of travel agencies have become one of the "culprits" who disturb the order of the tourism market. The irregular operation of the travel agency's business department not only damages the legitimate rights and interests of tourists, but also damages the tourism image, expands the business risks of travel agencies and becomes a "cancer" that restricts the healthy and sustainable development of travel agencies. The sudden SARS disaster has made all walks of life in our country shift their current work focus to the prevention and fight against SARS. However, this does not mean giving up other jobs, nor does it mean that the rectification of the sales department of travel agencies will no longer be carried out, but focusing on "prevention" and development. Therefore, travel agencies should fully seize the current opportunity, plan ahead, straighten out the internal management institutions, clean up the chaotic sales department and improve the internal management mechanism. At the same time, according to the market positioning and product structure of travel agencies, the outlets are rationally arranged. Third, scientifically build the business model of enterprises. At present, most travel agencies in China still belong to labor-intensive enterprises, especially small and medium-sized travel agencies, or the traditional small workshop business model. When recruiting teams, they used crowd tactics and hired salesmen to "intensively bomb" customer units. However, with the gradual maturity of China's tourism market, the travel modes of tourists are also changing quietly, and individual self-help tours and go on road trip are developing rapidly. In order to adapt to this development trend, travel agencies should adjust their business ideas in time and innovate their business models while innovating their products. Finally, actively carry out employee training to enrich the connotation of enterprise development. With the improvement of people's living standards, the enhancement of people's tourism awareness, the increasing richness of China's tourism products, the off-season of tourism activities is no longer obvious, and China's tourism professionals are in a state of high-load operation for a long time. I often hear travel agency managers and tour guides complain that they have been busy with business and travel for many years and have no time to study and enrich themselves, which leads to the lack of stamina for the development of enterprises and the difficulty in improving the level of tour guides. In particular, when travel agencies and their tour guides face the inspection of tourism law enforcement officers because of tourists' complaints, they often evade their responsibilities on the pretext of not having time to study and not knowing the policies. Then, the current opportunities for travel agencies and tour guides are rare in promoting learning and carrying out all-staff training. At present, travel agencies should make a training plan for all staff, organize employees to study tourism laws and regulations, learn management knowledge, understand the latest development of tourism in China, discuss the hot issues of tourism development in China, eliminate confusion and form * * * knowledge. Tour guides should make full use of this opportunity to strengthen their study. On the one hand, summarize the experience of previous touring performances, find out the existing problems and make improvement plans; On the other hand, you can absorb nutrition extensively and try to enrich yourself. We can collect the information of newly developed tourist attractions through various channels (such as the internet), and sort it out to form tour guide words, so as to make full preparations for future tour guide services. At the same time, enrich the tour guide information of the original tourist attractions, tap the cultural connotation of tourist attractions, and lay the foundation for improving the service level of tour guides in the future. Today, when a learning society is advocated, it is a favorable opportunity for travel agencies to become learning travel agencies and tour guides to become learning tour guides. Travel agencies and tour guides will constantly enrich the connotation of enterprise development and enhance the stamina of enterprise development if they seize the opportunity. As soon as SARS is eliminated, it is time for travel agencies to take off. The difficulties brought by SARS to travel agency management are the same. At this time, there are no powerful clubs, big clubs and small clubs, international clubs and domestic clubs. All travel agencies are facing difficulties and all travel agencies may be in crisis. (Chen Jianjun)