Because he is not very good at using smart phones, 62-year-old Zhang Laobo used to travel and always asked his daughter to help book travel products. However, after learning that a travel APP launched a "caring version" for the elderly, Zhang Laobo registered an account and tried to book travel products himself. Recently, in the "Notice on Releasing the First Batch of Demonstration Cases for Developing Smart Tourism to Improve the Degree of Ageing" issued by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, 14 projects across the country were listed, and "Ctrip's Practice of Developing Smart Tourism to Improve the Degree of Ageing" became the only case selected in Shanghai.
What is the difference between an aging travel website, app and a regular version? The reporter made a comparison.
Open the regular version of the Ctrip APP, what jumps out in front of you is a live advertisement of "end of the year carnival price two guangdong preemptive hoarding", you have to click "skip" to enter the main page. At the top of the main page, there are 15 classified items such as hotels, air tickets, train tickets, tourism, guides/attractions, etc., and in the middle of the page, there are special price zones, live broadcasts, word-of-mouth lists, planet flagship stores, etc.; at the bottom of the page, there are various floating ads and some raiders, which are a bit dazzling.
Regular version of the interface, screenshots
Type "Caring Edition" in the APP search box, and the age-appropriate Ctrip Care Edition jumps out, and the entire APP interface is instantly much simpler and the font becomes larger. The main classification of the homepage of the care edition is only four types: hotel, air ticket, train ticket, and group tour. Click into the "Hotel" category, the default city is shanghai where the reporter is located, click "Shanghai" to enter the city switch interface. Click "Query" again, a batch of Shanghai hotel prices, location, reviews and other information appeared, entering the reservation page.
Caring version of the interface, screenshot pictures
Relevant people told reporters that in order to meet the needs of the elderly and some disabled people, the "Ctrip Development of Smart Tourism to Improve the Aging Degree Practice" project selected for the ministry of culture and tourism, mainly carried out two rounds of transformation of Ctrip's web page and APP: one is to eliminate all advertising pages on the regular version of the APP, retain only the basic necessary content scenes, so that "should be reduced"; the second is to add a text reading function to facilitate the use of some disabled people with diseases.
In addition, in order to facilitate the elderly and disabled people to more easily select products with high cost performance and adapt to their needs from the platform, the technical team also gives priority to displaying the products with the highest score and the price in the bottom 30% of similar products in the ageing barrier-free page according to the comprehensive information such as the number of views, repurchase rates, and evaluations of general consumers, so as to meet the needs of this part of the group for cost-effective products. Under the main classification of the caring version of the APP, the special line telephone for the elderly that can be dialed with one click has also become a major supplement to the aging transformation.
Lu Lijing, a staff member of Ctrip's special hotline for the elderly, told the Liberation Daily Shangguan News reporter that the questions raised by the elderly who called in were different: some hoped that the customer service staff would help change the mobile phone number registered before, some hoped to cancel the ticket or hotel due to the impact of the epidemic, and more people would ask what things could not be brought on the plane, and what good attractions or restaurants could be recommended next to the hotel they were about to stay in.
"Some of the elderly people who call in don't have good hearing, so we try to raise the volume a little, repeat a sentence several times, and try to make the other party fully understand." For example, Lu Lijing said that some elderly people need to issue electronic invoices for tourism products, and when reporting the email address, the staff needs to check the letters in the telephone letter by letter, and some rules have been found over time. For example, some old people say that the "circle" is @; when the letter i is reported, the staff asks if it is 1 to add a dot, and so on. According to reports, affected by the epidemic, the number of special telephones for the elderly has recently decreased accordingly, and the current average of about 40 calls per day is about 40.
At the same time, the reporter learned that Ctrip is not the only travel platform that has carried out age-appropriate transformation of the web version and APP. Tongcheng Travel also said that considering that many elderly people are accustomed to browsing through computer web pages, Tongcheng Travel's ageing modification is mainly concentrated on the web version, and sign language assistance has been launched for some disabled people.
Earlier, a "China Economic Life Survey" released by CCTV Finance and Economics found that the increased consumption of people over 60 years old in tourism was higher than that of all other age groups, and their contribution to tourism ranked first. At present, tourism is becoming a new way of socializing for the elderly, and the elderly are one of the most active groups at The Internet celebrity punch points such as Taikoo Li in The Front Beach, Lane 8 of the Present Tide, and Qianshu in Tian'an in Shanghai. Data from Ctrip's platform also shows that after the launch of its caring app, the number of elderly users registered has increased significantly. As of October this year, the number of registered users aged 60 and above on the platform increased by 22% year-on-year compared with 2020, and the overall order volume increased by 37% year-on-year, of which group tour orders increased by nearly 60% year-on-year.