Inbound tourists enter the station through the team channel of Beijing South Railway Station Photo by Yang Liang, reporter of this newspaper
Inbound tourists buy tourism commodities Photo by reporter Zhang Yu of this newspaper
CYTS tour guide Ma Chao (first from left) explains to inbound tourists Photo by reporter Yang Liang
8 guides, 350 German-speaking tourists...... At 7 o'clock in the morning of March 20, the reporter met the first large-scale inbound tourism team in Beijing this year at the Xinqiao Hotel in Beijing. On the morning of March 19, 350 German-speaking tourists arrived at Shanghai Wusongkou International Cruise Terminal with the German cruise ship "Atania", visited Nanjing Road and the Bund, and then arrived in Beijing by high-speed train on the same day. The group of tourists from German-speaking Europe was divided into eight groups, accompanied by eight inbound German-speaking guides, and embarked on a one-day and one-night trip in Beijing. With such a large-scale inbound tourism team, is the connection of all links of food, accommodation, transportation, travel, shopping and entertainment smooth? Is it convenient to purchase tickets and enter the park, pay and other links? The reporter conducted a group experience and interviewed a number of industry players
Professional team of tour guides
When the reporter met the tour guide Wang Weimin in the hotel, he was communicating with the team leader in German about the details of the day's itinerary, and from time to time tourists came to ask Wang Weimin some questions. At this time, this veteran tour guide, who has been in the industry for more than 20 years, always stops what he is doing, listens carefully with a smile, and then answers patiently.
As the coordinator of the tour guide who received this group, Wang Weimin was also responsible for the escort and explanation of the No. 1 car.
At 7:30, 8 cars departed from the hotel one after another, and the first stop was the Juyongguan Great Wall. During the more than an hour's drive, the reporter found that Wang Weimin's explanation was quite methodical, the atmosphere in the car was warm, and the tourists broke out into joyful laughter from time to time.
Wang Weimin prepared a lot of props, including Chinese character cards and a German version of the card that introduces the Chinese zodiac culture. "Many tourists are coming to China for the first time, and if they want to better understand our history and culture, they have to find small entry points. Wang Weimin told reporters, "For example, you can talk about Chinese culture and folk customs by dismantling Chinese characters." By teaching everyone a greeting 'Have you eaten', we will introduce several major Chinese cuisines and talk about China's food culture. ”
Zhang Lei was also a tour guide for the group. As a veteran practitioner, he believes that differences and contrasts are a basic principle of explanation. "Especially when dealing with foreign tourists with different cultural backgrounds. For example, when talking about historical figures, you can compare them with historical figures of the same period in the country where the tourists are located, so that they have a more sense of substitution and are easy for tourists to understand. ”
"In terms of the pace and content of the explanation, it also needs to change from time to time. Wang Weimin said, "For example, when we first left the hotel, the tourists were more excited, and the team leader also had some work to communicate with the tourists. For example, look out the window and tell visitors about the car brands they're interested in. Once you're out of the city, you can talk about something interesting, such as our food culture, zodiac culture, and be sure to involve tourists. When you are about half an hour's drive away from the scenic spot, you can start explaining the content of the scenic spot. ”
The tour guides are very professional in terms of service details, and they respond to tourists' inquiries in a timely manner. In between waiting for visitors, they will stand in a prominent position holding the team logo. During the meal, the tour guide will introduce the name and content of each dish to the visitors after the dishes have been prepared.
"Is it difficult to find 8 experienced German-speaking tour guides?" Wang Weimin replied with a smile in the face of the reporter's question, "Judging from the current market situation, it is not very difficult. In this tour guide team, Wang Weimin and another tour guide are full-time tour guides of the host of the group, China Youth Travel International Travel Co., Ltd., and the other six tour guides are in free practice. "The tour guide is very experienced, and has been cooperating with us before, in order to ensure the quality of service, we also conducted a unified service training before picking up the group. Wang Weimin said.
The reporter observed that the eight tour guides were between 40 and 50 years old. It is already a common phenomenon in the industry that there are fewer young foreign language tour guides, and many travel agencies no longer recruit full-time tour guides when hiring.
"With the gradual recovery of the inbound tourism market, how to reach a reasonable cooperation model between tour guides and travel agencies who receive inbound tour groups, and how to ensure service quality are issues that we need to explore. Some industry insiders said.
Skilful detailing
"China's high-speed rail is too fast and on time. "We are very satisfied with the service this time, everything went smoothly. In the interview, many tourists gave praise for this trip to Beijing.
Behind the praise is the experience accumulated by travel agencies in serving the inbound tourism market for a long time. "The core asset of a travel agency is people, and the retention of core talents means the maintenance of competitiveness. This is also the reason why some travel agencies have struggled to retain product managers and team operators under the impact of the epidemic. These travel agencies can recover quickly after the gradual resumption of inbound tourism. Some people in the industry said.
When the reporter accompanied the group, he found that the day's itinerary was very smooth and the time control was also in place. Eight buses depart at intervals to reduce congestion. When entering the scenic spot, because the ticket is reserved in advance, after the tour guide changes the ticket, tourists only need to show their passports to enter the park. In the Temple of Heaven Park, visitors were also allowed to experience intangible cultural heritage skills. The dining session was very orderly, and the host paid special attention to the individual needs of tourists and increased the number of vegetarian dishes.
"When the cruise company informed us that we were going to dock in Shanghai, we had less than a week to prepare. In just 3 days, we have worked together with the industry to complete the itinerary of thousands of tourists, 300 hotel nights, more than 30 buses, dozens of excellent German tour guides, and more than 700 high-speed rail tickets. CYTS International Travel Co., Ltd. is the overall host of the cruise team, deputy general manager Hu Jiying told reporters, "the whole ship guests basically enjoy the latest visa-free policy implemented by the mainland for German, Swiss and Austrian guests." More than 1,000 guests have booked 350 tours of Beijing, making it the largest German-language tour group to visit Beijing this year since the implementation of the latest visa-free policy. Others booked shore excursions in Shanghai and the surrounding area. Considering the age of the guests, wheelchairs and other amenities have been arranged in advance at each reception location in case of emergency. ”
"The work done so efficiently has been highly recognized and appreciated by the German customers. Hu Jiying said, "Taking the tourist group to Beijing as an example, the whole team moved to Beijing after the Shanghai tour, arriving in Beijing at 10:30 in the evening, arriving at the hotel at 11:30, and all the tourists checked in to the hotel at 12 o'clock. ”
Yu Tong, product manager of CYTS International Tourism Co., Ltd., told reporters that in order to give tourists a better experience, they have made several rounds of adjustments in just one link of room allocation. "Considering that tourists arrive at the hotel late and have a day to visit the next day, we decided to allocate rooms and get room keys in advance to ensure that tourists can check in at any time after arriving at the hotel and reduce waiting time. After getting the room information from the hotel, we began to allocate rooms, and some special requirements of tourists should be taken into account, such as some tourists cannot live on high floors, some tourists require a crack in the room window, and some tourists require a single room to be merged into a double room, which needs to be considered as a whole. ”
For meals, travel agencies are also prepared. "When we were coordinating the hotel, we decided to add a restaurant on an ad hoc basis to ensure that guests could eat at the same time. For lunch and dinner, we chose a restaurant that specializes in group meals, and customized the menu according to the dining preferences of tourists. Yu Tong said.
"The rhythm of the cruise team's land tour is short, flat and fast, which requires the host to do a good job in the preliminary preparations, implement every link, and concentrate the essence in the arrangement of scenic spots. Shore excursions can be as short as one day or as long as two days, and once something goes wrong, there is no time to make up for it. To sum up this reception, if there is a trick in terms of service, it is to do all the details in advance. Yu Tong concluded.
Optimized service chain
"Are you a tour group, how many people are there in total, and in which direction?" On the afternoon of March 20, 350 tourists will return to Shanghai by high-speed train. When arriving at Beijing South Railway Station, the reporter saw that the staff of the railway station took the initiative to ask if they needed help.
The reporter learned from talking with the on-site staff that Beijing South Railway Station has a group ticket inspection channel, and travel agencies can contact in advance to make an appointment for team services. If you don't have an appointment in advance, they will also help you on site and arrange a group ticket check-in.
At present, the inbound tourism industry chain is recovering. Taking Beijing as an example, Yu Tong told reporters that restaurants that specialize in hosting overseas teams are already approaching them and hope to resume business contacts.
Taking this team as an example, the lunch and dinner are selected from restaurants near the scenic spots visited.
The reporter saw that the restaurant environment was clean and tidy, and the service was also very professional. "Group restaurants that have been cooperating with travel agencies for a long time will develop corresponding group menus according to the preferences of tourists from different countries. For example, German tourists love beer, and the restaurant will serve two bottles of beer per table. Yu Tong said that many team restaurants that were previously withdrawn by the impact of the epidemic are returning one after another.
So, how smooth is the payment of tourists and the reservation of scenic spots?
In the scenic shops and cultural and creative stores, the reporter saw that tourists can pay in cash or by card, and the payment is relatively convenient.
"Because the team was a cruise guest, they exchanged cash on the cruise, and the payment process was relatively smooth because they had a short time in Beijing and most of their shopping was in scenic spots. However, if you are an independent traveler or an in-depth tourist, the demand for small-amount consumption is more vigorous, and the consumption scene is not limited to scenic spots, which requires us to improve the convenience of payment. Yu Tong said, for example, the resumption of the hotel's cash exchange window.
During the interview, a tour guide mentioned the issue of ticket reservations. At present, many scenic spots in China have special travel agency ticket reservation channels when making online reservations, but they need to provide travel agency qualification documents.
"This means that when booking for a large group, the tour guide needs to use a variety of ways to book tickets. Wang Weimin said, "At present, the number of large teams is not large, and we can still find a way by ourselves." However, as the inbound tourism market recovers further, the question of whether tickets can be booked quickly is a problem. ”
Regarding the recovery of the entire supply chain, a number of industry players told reporters that from the current situation, for the inbound tourism team, some bottlenecks are gradually being solved in terms of the convenience of entry and the service connection of food, housing, transportation, travel, shopping and entertainment. (Reporter Zhang Yu)
Source: China Tourism News