Haensel laments copycat behaviour

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Hans Haensel has accused the region’s tour operators of copying Emirates Holidays.

The GCC's tour operator community is a disappointment and is swarming with copycats, a senior manager at the Emirates Group has said.

In an exclusive interview with ATN, Hans Haensel, the senior vice president of Emirates' destination and leisure management division called for more professionalism and innovation in the industry and hit out at travel company's that had copied Emirates Holidays' brochure format.

"I have found it disappointing that people don't go out of their box. They are copycats, but when I read some of their statements it's as if they invented tourism. This industry should be more professional than that," he said.

"Companies have leisure departments with no support behind them, whereas from the start Emirates Holidays has taken a different view and made an investment."

He referred to the amount of research and resources dedicated to each destination Emirates Holidays brochured, as well as the investment made in staff and travel agent training over the past 17 years.

"Some companies claim they have one or two pages per destination. What decision can people make on this basis? People say they sell 120 destinations because they have that in their brochure. But the brochure does not tell the client anything. We do mystery shoppers and many agents know nothing," Haensel elaborated.

"At Emirates Holidays we know every single product in the brochure and have 26 people checking this product and it will remain that way.We are also the only organisation that can go to a competitive market with these brochures and be successful. Our percentage of customer complaints is less than 1% and that's incredible when you think we have more than two thousand suppliers."

Haensel also noted the industry's tendency to "focus on price-driven issues".

"People advertise around prices - and I wish them good luck. Our mission is to give people the holiday of a lifetime and value at the same time," he said.

Haensel told ATN Emirates Holidays was currently putting together a series of "very detailed brochures" for 2008.

"Next year the brochure concept will change, with a lot of emphasis on the destination and providing hints and tips," he revealed.

"But there is only so much information you can give in a brochure; you give people a fair understanding of the destination and then if they want more information, they go on the net."

In terms of the 2007 brochures, Haensel said they had helped drive year-on-year sales growth of between 12% and 15%.

"This was the growth we were looking for to sustain what we are doing in terms of cost," he said.

Top summer performers included Malaysia, Australia, the Indian Ocean and Germany "as a result of last year's World Cup".

"But we have also witnessed nice little things like people travelling to Korea.Who would have thought that people from this region would go to Korea or China?" asked Haensel.

"People are getting more adventurous because they started with us and they know what we do; they trust us."

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READERS' COMMENTS

Copycats in the travel industry.
Posted by John Flower, Dubai, UAE on Saturday 10 November 2007 at 11:00 UAE time

I totally agree with Mr Haensel on this issue. This tendency to copy brochures, with their look and feel and content is totally indicative of the lack of imagination in the industry here in the Gulf, but he has also touched on some other points that are very valid too, and who are the losers? - the consumers! Price driven attitudes do nothing but make it harder and harder to bring more professional staff into the industry, and the lack of quality product and poor brochure presentation only serves to have the travelers even more skeptical of our industry than they already are. Come on all you so called "Holiday" companies, start producing some choice for the consumers. The sad fact is that there is this ridiculous belief by holiday product teams here that people in this part of the world all want the same old thing. For example, how many adventure offerings are available in Dubai? How many off the beaten track type products are there in Dubai? Not too many I would suggest, as there is a reluctance or laziness on behalf of the product development people in many of these companies to think outside the box that Hans mentions in his interview. And the sad irony is that these very same people always complain then that travel agents then just revert to using Emirates Holidays. Is it any wonder; EKH invest in their programs, they have knowledgeable staff and they have found a formula that works. Again the lack of knowledge of travel agents, the lack of choice in the marketplace, and the lack of understanding of clients needs - all plays straight into EKH's hands, as they produce a quality set of programs that are pretty hard to beat, and very easy to sell. Wake up travel industry, you live in one of the most advanced regions in the world and yet your attitudes are 20 years behind.

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