| Summary: | 碩士 === 淡江大學 === 管理科學研究所企業經營碩士在職專班 === 94 === Travel is not a luxury any longer these years due to the increase of GNP of Taiwan global village and Taiwan, appreciation of New Taiwan Dollars as well as liberal policy adopted by Chinese Government. Approximately 7,000,000 passengers went abroad per year, and more than 1,000,000 Japanese people came to Taiwan for the purpose of tourism in 2005. In the competitive travel industry, there would be a great difference in the preference of travel products on account of different age ranges, different education backgrounds and different income levels of consumers; as a result, the development of new products becomes more important day by day. However, because of unfair competition by lowering prices, shorter life cycle of products, unprotected patent right, lower profitability, low return on investment, smaller subsistent space and worse operating environment, the local travel agents have not expended too much labor and money in developing new products.
This study discusses the following issues herein: a) The definition of the new product of a travel agent; b) Under what circumstances, a travel agent decides to develop new products or to repack the existing products; c) Average time, cost and labor,life cycle of a product; d) How will a travel agent maintain its competitive edge and prevent the competitors from sharing the market after developing a new product; and e) What role will the Internet play in the process of development of new products.
Through in-depth interviews with the local Tourism Bureaus and several travel agencies, it was found that:
1. Individual agencies defined new products differently from one another: Travel agencies that operate differently had different definition for what a new product really is. On the same scale a product or service may be rated from “100%”, “50%”, “20%~50%” new.
2. New products are developed after particular themes: Travel agencies usually consult the local tourism bureau and airlines for their cooperation during the developmentof new product. In the recent years, many agents had launched new products following particular scenes from popular movies.
3. The length of each itinerary determines the life-cycle of each product: The time required to develop new products, and the product life-cycle changes with respect to different lengths of every itinerary.
4. It is difficult to maintain advantage once a new product had been fully developed: Since there is low entry barrier into the tourism and travel industry, travel agents often find it difficult to defend and maintain their advantages obtaining through the development of new product for long periods of time.
5. The widespread use of the Internet: The arising of the Internet had opened vast amount of information to the customers themselves. Customers can complete the purchase process without having to step out of their homes, in an easy and time efficient manner. Therefore many travel agencies had developed their own websites and systems based on their knowledge from the past. Agencies are now able to provide quick services to their customers by frequently updating and posting the latest tourism information on their websites.
I sincerely hope that all authorities-in-charge can, after reading the present article, input more efforts in developing new products in order to allow all consumers to have different choices for a variety of excellent new itineraries or product mixes in every year.
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