Business summary
This travel business in the future is the quintessence of a value-based and respectful approach to each potential tourist, along with a competitive and unique offer in the travel agency market in the UK. The company is based on international experience and connections with residents of potential destinations, often not represented among competitors. The agency will offer trips to African countries, places of pilgrimage, and unpopular business travel destinations through bilateral cooperation with all interested parties: ethnic minority communities in the UK, church communities, and other representatives of the target segment. The development includes technological, social, and political aspects through the creation of a comfortable application with a system of “smart” recommendations and individual advice on safety issues for travelers among ethnic minorities since this issue is a key one, as well as experience in travel planning in post-pandemic conditions, restrictions, and obstacles.
Business overview
Introduction
Trip Affairs Travel Consult Ltd is a Travel agency registered (Company number 13194117) on 10 February 2021 to operate in England and Wales with its registered office at 2nd Floor College House, 17 King Edwards Road, Ruislip, London, United Kingdom, HA4 7AE. I have been in Travel consultation in Nigeria since 2011 after finishing my first degree. I have marketed and traded with different airlines and packaged different tour experiences for customers worldwide. International experience is a definite advantage in implementing this business idea, as clients will be dealing with someone with first-hand live travel experience.
I will offer Travel and Tour packages at various levels to satisfy my customers: flight ticket booking, formation, promotion, and organization of tours to specific cities and countries, hotel and restaurant reservations, route planning, excursions, and much more. The broad diversification of services is dictated by the possibility of implementing an individual approach, unique collaborations, and appropriate customer service. As a result, this technique leaves room for expanding the segmentation of the target audience from luxury and premium-oriented customers to those who want to save on travel. With current trends in globalization that continue to grow despite restrictions due to the pandemic and other geopolitical situations and crises, the tourism industry needs new players who can implement fresh ideas, impose struggles on the market and give customers a choice (Farzanegan et al., 2021). As a result, Trip Affairs Travel Consult Ltd can succeed with the right approach and business model implemented with the proper marketing targeting.
Current position
I have been selling travel packages for over 11 years now, and I am IT proficient with vast knowledge in immigration. I understand the market diversity, and I have encountered different obstacles in time past, using the Covid-19 outbreak as a critical example to show my interest in travel deals seeing I can still manage the challenges. This experience will immediately create competitive offers on the market without wasting time looking for valuable and experienced personnel. Tourist travel has been undergoing significant changes recently due to the pandemic, which has brought various political, economic, and social restrictions that customers may not be aware of (Brouder, 2020). Offering a tour, the agency gives essential functions for finding the most profitable offers and provides the tourists with information about potential pitfalls and difficulties that arise along the way. As a result, experience in modern conditions can make a company attractive to a potential audience because the demand for tourism, after extended lockdowns, is returning to its position (Brouder, 2020). Against the backdrop of growing demand, such offers are precious.
Competitive advantage
The most successful companies offer a wide variety of UK tours. Among the leaders are TUI, Jet2Holidays, On the Beach, and many others (Statista, 2022). However, the agency in question provides an opportunity for an individual approach, where the tour operator takes on most of the work in exceptional cases: Jerusalem Pilgrimage, Saudi Arabia Pilgrimage, family reunion, and much more. Diversification of the offer for retail orders, along with individual consideration of each demand, is a competitive advantage for several reasons. First, describing potential travel challenges due to a pandemic or cultural travel restrictions provides a complete picture for the client that does not need to be pieced together in news, papers, and blogs, as is the case with Jet2Holidays or TUI (Jet2Holidays, 2022, TUI, 2022). Secondly, the experience of close cooperation with the African Society in the UK and connections in African countries provide an opportunity for more thoughtful, affordable, and exciting travel for potential tourists. Finally, working with minorities meets the modern requirements of social responsibility that any company must meet (Ibarnia et al., 2020). Against this background, it is possible to receive various grants or subsidies from the state to support this kind of business, developing this industry among this segment. In the future, such openness can attract other communities with the proper development of relevant ties in Asian, South American, and Oceanian countries, among which a few unpopular destinations are proposed.
Growth plan
African communities, private organizations, members of churches and mosques, immigrants and non-immigrants, friends and relatives, among them often face the dilemma of choosing a trip since large companies do not have destinations of potential interest to them, and local companies are usually unknown or do not inspire confidence due to a weak marketing campaign. My personal experience allows me to convey to this segment a wide range of information that can be useful and important when planning this kind of trip. Ethnic tourists travel 38% more overall than other UK residents, and their trips tend to be to visit family and friends in other countries (Gill, 2022). Their combined spending is £4.5 billion a year, and given that ethnic minorities makeup roughly 14% of the UK population, so we can assume that travel only the half for example, each spends an average of £1144 a year (UK Government, 2022a). Offers in this price segment, based on the calculation of all the individual characteristics of the client, such as the number of religious trips per year, the desire to visit family in another country, and much more, provide an opportunity for long-term planning and creating a unique offer on the market for unpopular destinations. Since safety is a critical factor in tour selection, this factor will be essential when creating a proposal (Gill, 2022). As a result, based on personal experience, the company can give in the long term at a deeper level what large tour operators give only in general terms.
Business strategy
The business strategy for the first year involves financial injections to create strong cooperation with the indicated organizations of interest for the targeted travel direction. The marketing campaign will focus on church communities and minority families by disseminating information in relevant communities, focusing on private organizations that require unpopular referrals. After establishing appropriate links, the system of control of financial and gross development will be debugged, forming a further plan. In addition to the control system, the development of a convenient smartphone application or a web-based environment for selection, remote booking, and consultation on potentially attractive tours will be initiated.
In the second year, an understanding of the directions most often chosen by clients will be formed, which will pave the way for further planning of relations on the other side. Now the company will focus on developing cooperation with hotels, airlines, and tourist attractions directly in countries where the most significant demand is required. Such agreements and contracts concluded in these regions allow the creation of more competitive and affordable offers for a less solvent segment through more profitable tours. Thus, a base of regular tourists will be gradually formed, who, due to loyalty, will be able to save on trips to their favorite destinations, and organizations associated with cooperation in various countries will be able to increase the flow and, as a result, revenue for the development of their own business. For this period, it is also planned to complete the development and start supporting the mentioned application, including all possible tour offers and using it as a platform for notifying regular and potential customers about good discounts and last-minute tours.
The control systems established in the first year will allow the planning of new unpopular destinations against the backdrop of the emerging pattern of tourist demand from ethnic minorities, church communities, and private companies in the UK for the third and subsequent years of the company’s development. As a result, the plan for this period will include a proposal for cooperation with neighboring or similar regions to meet the most frequent requests of tourists to create new unpopular tours. The effect is expected to be similar to the development plan in the second year: fruitful cooperation can bring profit to both parties, and customers will receive a diversified choice of tours, not focused on the niche of cruises, luxury trips, and all-inclusive destinations already occupied by large travel agencies. At this stage, it is also possible to attract specialized specialists to form a recommendation system for selecting a tour based on input data from a potential client.
Business success
The proposals will focus on marketing companies in the mentioned communities, allowing us to explore the potential demand. Personal experience of travel and connections will make it easier to establish contact with local and more accessible hotels for customers, logistics companies, and tour organizations for cooperation by exchanging the flow for more good offers for the end user. Finally, experience in the IT field can provide an opportunity to create resources for a modern booking portal, consultation, and tour recommendations.
Strategic issues
Factors such as a pandemic can impose insurmountable restrictions on travel – in this case, the company will individually look for ways to get the tourist to the correct country in a roundabout but legal way. The increase in associated tariffs due to political factors, such as the aggravation of the geopolitical situation in the east of Europe, the increase in energy prices, and Brexit, can be leveled by cooperation with the destination regions through business contacts and the search for the possibility of maintaining the flow at the old prices (Adedoyin et al., 2021). The financial costs will likely be at the potential profit level in the first year, especially if the company starts developing web and intelligent applications. In the second year, if the situation in the world does not stabilize, cost optimization will be achieved by reducing the diversification of supply and focusing on the most profitable areas. Finally, in the third year and beyond, the load of creating a recommender system using artificial intelligence technologies or neural networks will be distributed accordingly, with the possible postponement of the development of many unpopular areas. Thus, the cost of business travel and R&D will be reduced, keeping the operational offer at the same level.
Core values
Accordingly, the business’s core values will be the customers’ needs, which for the most part, include dates with family and friends and religious purposes. As a result, personalized travel and safety will be critical factors in any trip, given that these are the requests most often sought by ethnic minority clients (Gill, 2022).
Marketing
SWOT and critical success factors
Distribution channels
The proposal in the first year must demonstrate a deep understanding of the unique features of the potential trip with specific emphasis on safety, availability of all necessary services, and the ability to tailor the tour to the individual needs of the target audience. Paid services for advertising distribution on social networks and outdoor advertising in the areas of concentration of ethnic groups in London and the West Midlands will be connected: Southwark, Newham, Lambeth, and Greenwich, where the population, for example, the African population is the highest in percentage terms (UK Government, 2022b). The expected result is to get a response, understand the demand among the target audience, and draw attention to the new available offer.
In the second year and beyond, it is planned to continue this marketing campaign, but with less intensity. Greater emphasis will be placed on e-mailing tours for already regular customers with individual offers, developing a referral program and a discount system, and focusing on distributing offers for retail business travel orders through the availability of a feedback base. A potential tool could be creating a company blog on social networks, where tourists can share vivid impressions of their trips, contributing to filling content in the specified distribution channel. The priority will be the development of marketing strategies in the destination countries of travel through mailing commercial offers and business meetings.
In the fifth year, after the creation of a system for monitoring critical indicators in the tourism sector, with the proper external environment, these marketing strategies will be extrapolated to other unpopular destinations for similar client requests, supporting the client base by mailing individual offers and discounts for the loyalty program and considering business development to the UK domestic travel market.
E-commerce and technology
In the first stage, it is planned to rent an office and create a website, which will be for informational purposes only. The main functionality of remote interaction will be implemented following the results of the first or second year of work, as it requires the involvement of a support team and the formation of an IT department. As the back office develops, it is reshaped from performing direct functionality of direct interaction with customers to supporting remote operations, including e-commerce and extrapolation of options from a mobile application to a web resource.
Business promotion plan
In addition to these marketing strategies, the main focus will be on forming content in social networks with the consent of tourists who have already successfully used our services. In addition, in the future, it is possible to hold seminars at relevant fairs and business meetings with a demonstration of critical values and features of the approach, including the formation of unique tours for specific requests and security issues, taking into account the specifics of the travel of ethnic minorities and church communities and foreign policy conditions.
Marketing budget
The costs for the first year include the formation and printing of banners and flyers for outdoor display in the above areas. In addition, most of the costs will be concentrated on IT technologies: paid advertising in social networks, interaction with clients via cellular communication, and contacts with representatives of other countries for cooperation. Going forward, expenses will include business travel to establish links with hotels, airlines, and other related entities.
Team and Management structure
Skills, experience, training and retention
My 11 years of experience in the relevant field, international connections, and understanding of all the pitfalls set the bar for the recruitment of the future. Basic IT skills give me a basic understanding of how to attract staff to this department potentially. Finally, fundamental business values should be reflected in future staff’s soft skills and work goals, which will be primarily driven by the social responsibility of solving the problem of connecting families and realizing the religious goals of clients through an individual approach to each tourist.
At first, I plan to use my skills to the maximum in the formation of tours and take all the administrative burden on myself, including marketing and accounting. Development control will be like a finger on the pulse: as the customer base grows, other sales agents, the IT department, business development department will be involved in the appropriate order, whose duties will include establishing relations with residents in other countries. In case of successful company development, it is possible to form local offices in the countries of the most popular destinations for consulting, accompanying, and supporting services for a more comfortable stay of clients abroad.
References
Adedoyin, F. F., Agboola, P. O., Ozturk, I., Bekun, F. V., & Agboola, M. O. (2021). Environmental consequences of economic complexities in the EU amidst a booming tourism industry: accounting for the role of Brexit and other crisis events. Journal of Cleaner Production, 305, 127117. Web.
Brouder, P. (2020). Reset redux: Possible evolutionary pathways towards the transformation of tourism in a COVID-19 world. Tourism Geographies, 22(3), 484-490. Web.
Farzanegan, M. R., Feizi, M., & Gholipour, H. F. (2021). Globalization and the outbreak of COVID-19: An empirical analysis. Journal of Risk and Financial Management, 14(3), 105. Web.
Gill, R. (2022). Report reveals spending power of UK’s multi-ethnic travellers. TTG. Web.
Ibarnia, E., Garay, L., & Guevara, A. (2020). Corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the travel supply chain: A literature review. Sustainability, 12(23), 10125. Web.
Jet2Holidays. (2022). COVID-19 hub. Web.
Statista. (2022). Leading ATOL-licensed tour operators in the United Kingdom (UK) as of March 2022, ranked by number of passengers licensed. Web.
TUI. (2022). Travel alerts. Web.
UK Government. (2022a). Ethnicity facts & figures: Population of England and Wales. Web.
UK Government. (2022b). Ethnicity facts & figures: Regional ethnic diversity. Web.