What role does tourism play in promoting service trade?

On the Target Model of China Travel Agency Management System Adjustment

Since 1978, China's tourism industry has developed rapidly. As an important part of tourism, travel agencies have also developed from an oligopoly industry in the early stage of development to a monopoly competition industry, and the scale of the industry has basically taken shape. However, as many scholars and insiders have noticed, with the changes in the market structure of travel agencies in China, the development of travel agencies in China is in trouble, and the current management system of travel agencies has exposed more and more problems. At the same time, the final conclusion of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and the firm attitude of our government towards the World Trade Organization, including GATS, determine that China's travel agency industry will eventually face the challenge from the entry of foreign travel agencies to the development of China's travel agencies. This paper attempts to systematically analyze the characteristics of China's travel agency industry and the current management system, and puts forward the target model of China's travel agency management system adjustment, so that China's travel agency industry can take precautions, meet challenges and participate in international competition more effectively. Firstly, the management system of China's travel agency industry is analyzed.

After more than ten years of development, the travel agency industry in China has formed a certain scale and its own characteristics under the dual effects of industry regulations, industry system and market mechanism: from the category structure of China travel agency industry [1], three types of agencies are overwhelmingly dominant; Judging from the scale structure of China's travel agency industry, small-scale travel agencies account for an absolute majority; From the geographical distribution, the distribution of travel agencies in China is basically reasonable; The industry profits are declining year by year, and the travel agency industry in China has gradually become a low-profit industry.

The current management system of China's travel agency industry is the result of the comprehensive effect of industry policies and regulations, traditional economic system and current market mechanism. Although this system is reasonable to a certain extent, as far as the practice and trend of China travel agency industry are concerned, its biggest drawback is the existence and deterioration of the following series of problems:

(1) Large travel agencies have not achieved economies of scale, and their scale advantages have not been brought into play.

Large travel agencies have many advantages in tourism product development, tourism service procurement, tourism market expansion, tourism reception, capital, information, talents and risk resistance, and it is easy to achieve economies of scale. In China's travel agency industry, the economies of scale of large travel agencies are not obvious, and their advantages are far from being fully exerted, mainly in the following aspects: ① China's tourism industry has maintained a good development momentum in recent years, the market has been expanding, and tourism income, especially international tourism income. In this case, the business of some large travel agencies is developing slowly, facing many new business opportunities in the competition, but they are in a dilemma of protecting the market or having no choice but to decline their market share. ② The big travel agencies failed to play their due role in the tourism market, that is, failed to calm the excessive competition in the market, failed to guide and stabilize the market, which made the market disorder become a chronic disease that plagued the development of China's travel agency industry, resulting in a waste of travel agency resources, and the big travel agencies themselves failed to avoid the negative effects brought by this market chaos. (3) In the internal management of travel agencies, a prominent phenomenon is that some large travel agencies generally implement departmental contracting or disguised departmental contracting to strengthen departmental rights and interests, making some large travel agencies actually become a collection of relatively independent small travel agencies. Under this pattern, large travel agencies will certainly not be able to give full play to their due advantages and it is difficult to form economies of scale.

(2) Small and medium-sized travel agencies lack clear market positioning, making it difficult to develop.

As far as the overall situation of small and medium-sized travel agencies in China is concerned, its characteristics are limited reception and low profitability. Judging from the number of receptions, in recent years, many small travel agencies in China are in a hopeless and barely supported situation. Since1June 65438, 1995 to1October 65438, the National Tourism Administration has implemented the quality guarantee system for travel agencies in the travel agency industry, many small travel agencies have been overwhelmed and quit the industry one after another. On the one hand, this phenomenon reflects the economic strength and operating conditions of many small travel agencies, on the other hand, it also reflects the owners' rational expectations for the future development of the industry and themselves to a certain extent. From the perspective of profit rate, many small and medium-sized travel agencies in China, which mainly focus on domestic tourism business, are mostly secondary and tertiary agencies. According to the information provided by the National Tourism Administration, the average profit rate of these two types of travel agencies is less than 8% in 1994 and about 5.4% in 1995, while the average profit rate of many three types of travel agencies has dropped to 4.24%. These data only reflect the pre-tax profits. If the income tax is deducted, the remaining net profits of these travel agencies will be even smaller.

The coexistence of limited reception and low profit rate fully illustrates the difficult situation of small and medium-sized travel agencies. Of course, there are many reasons for this result. From the perspective of travel agencies' own factors, most small and medium-sized travel agencies have limited personnel, financial resources and material resources, but their business activities involve all aspects from product design and development to tourism reception. This multi-link operation will inevitably lead to the lack of depth of each operation. The shallow product development directly affects its attraction to tourists; The lack of publicity makes many domestic tourists lack understanding of the services of travel agencies, and they are dubious about the affordable prices and other conveniences that can be obtained by using travel agencies, which ultimately leads to the low utilization rate of travel agencies and narrow market scope; Poor reception has caused or strengthened the public's bad impression on travel agencies and reduced repeat customers and other tourists. Travel agencies must struggle to survive in this vicious circle.

(3) Vicious price competition prevails in the travel agency industry, and the market order is chaotic.

The original intention of the national tourism authorities in 1985 on the classification and business scope of travel agencies may be to standardize the market and ensure product quality through this form of division of labor. However, in the later development of the travel agency industry in China, due to the imbalance between the first-class and second-class agencies, the business volume of the second-class agencies was obviously insufficient, which led many second-class agencies to operate beyond the scope stipulated by the state and directly attract tourists abroad in order to survive. During this period, the state organs failed to enforce the law, which made this phenomenon spread rapidly, and some first-level institutions were greedy for petty profits. The practice of obtaining ill-gotten gains through visa notification for second-class travel agencies undoubtedly contributed to this, and eventually many third-class travel agencies began to engage in outreach and international tourism reception business. In addition, the emergence and popularization of this phenomenon undoubtedly contains the denial of the artificial market segmentation model based on horizontal division of labor and characterized by various franchise rights in China's travel agencies. 1996 10 the State Council promulgated the regulations on the administration of travel agencies, which made a series of major adjustments to the management system of travel agencies in China. However, as far as the adjustment of travel agency categories is concerned, to some extent, we may say that this is only a "stopgap measure", that is, it only cancels the secondary agencies that once interfered with the market order of travel agencies in China. Then, according to the business division of the other two types of travel agencies, they were renamed as international travel agencies and domestic travel agencies respectively. The basis of horizontal division of labor and the characteristics of franchise rights have not changed, and its future operating results are likely to repeat the historical mistakes. From this point of view, the artificial market division mode has not been accepted by the industry, and it is difficult to form an effective natural division system in the industry. Coupled with the extremely limited binding force of a few industry organizations and various problems in management authority, the current market chaos will inevitably occur.

A prominent manifestation of the chaos in the travel agency market is the vicious price competition among travel agencies, mainly focusing on price reduction competition. Price reduction competition is a concentrated reflection of the immature market mechanism and the lack of effective norms in the industry, which makes participants lose their vitality and makes it more difficult for non-participants to operate. The result of competition will not stimulate the improvement of product quality, but will lead to neglect of quality, unintentional or inability to guarantee quality, and make travel agencies involved in another form of vicious circle.

In addition to the above problems directly related to the current management system of travel agencies in China, the existence of many other problems in the industry is also closely related to the current management system. For example, the products of travel agencies are similar, the promotion ability of travel agencies is weak, especially overseas promotion ability, and the overall reception ability of travel agencies is low. Among them, the duplication of travel agency products is a long-standing outstanding problem in China's travel agency industry. Because there are no access restrictions such as trademark rights and patent rights, and there are not many technical obstacles that need to be reserved and monopolized, once some travel agencies with development ability develop a new product that can meet the market demand, many small and medium-sized travel agencies rush to imitate or participate in the operation, which greatly weakens the enthusiasm of powerful travel agencies for in-depth development and promotion of products, while some small and medium-sized travel agencies lack the necessary hardware equipment and "software" foundation to ensure reception quality.