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Celebrating IPW at 50 Years: What Was Your Most Memorable Moment?
As we prepare to gather in Denver next month for the 50th edition of IPW—the most important event on the inbound tour and travel industry’s calendar—the INBOUND Report shares recollections of and about the event from those who have been a part of IPW (formerly Pow Wow) over the years. This week, we feature the recollections of two veteran tour and travel industry professionals:Jackie Ennis, head of international marketing for the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism, and Jorge Franz, vice president of international sales and tourism at the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Jackie Ennis: “IPW in Las Vegas. I had never been to Las Vegas before. As I stepped into the elevator from my hotel to go down to the show, a nicely dressed woman came out of the elevator and proceeded to vomit into her hands. Horrified, I ran back to the room to get the poor girl a towel and I got the elevator, the door clicked shut and I missed the moment.” Welcome to Las Vegas.
Jorge Franz: “Ten years ago, I was so desperate to get CityPass to choose Houston as their next city, I followed Mike Gallagher (co-chairman and co-founder of CityPass) into a bathroom and said ‘You need to come to Houston to check us out’ He said, ‘If I go will you leave me alone?’ And he finally came. The results have exceeded our wildest expectations.”
Future of MICE: Beds and Meeting Space Coming to Airlines in 2020
We used to joke about such things, but Airbus and Zodiac Aerospace—the global aerospace equipment and systems supplier—are planning on creating sleeping pods, lounges and meeting space to put in the cargo holds of aircraft by 2020.How? Carriers will be able to include pre-constructed beds that will be separate from the main economy and business class seating areas.
There will also be bookable meeting roomspace, lounges and areas for children to play. Instead of taking space from established seating spaces, Airbus and supplier Zodiac Aerospace will put the areas below the usual seating classes—in the cargo hold. For more on this possibility, which was first announced last week in travel trade publications in Europe and elsewhere, read here:
http://www.wired.co.uk/article/airbus-sleeping-pods-naps-cargo-hold-zodiac-330
New Airline Service
—Air China has launched twice-weekly service from Beijing to Panama City via HoustonIntercontinental. The Chinese carrier was already operating direct to Houston Intercontinental from Beijing, a route it currently serves with five weekly flights on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. On Thursdays and Sundays, the aircraft will now operate Beijing-Houston-Panama City-Houston-Beijing, with seats also available to purchase on the sector to and from Houston Intercontinental and Panama City
—Just prior to IPW next month (May 19-23) in Denver, Norwegian on April 9 launched service connecting Paris and Denver. The new service will operate twice-weekly, (Mondays and Fridays) between Paris De Gaulle.
—Delta Air Lines began a daily service between Orlando (MCO) and Amsterdam on March 30th. The route is Delta’s only transatlantic service from the Florida airport. TUI Airlines Netherlandscurrently provides a twice-weekly (Mondays and Fridays) service between Amsterdam and Orlando Sanford.
—Beginning June 1st, Canada’s Westjet will, for the first time, provide service between Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Halifax, Nova Scotia . The Paris-Halifax line then continues to Calgary, Alberta. For its first year of operation, it will be seasonal, from June 1 to October 27.
—On March 27, British Airways launched service from London Gatwick to Las Vegas. The flight from Gatwick to Las Vegas marks a return to a route that the airline last operated in 2016. It faces direct competition from Virgin Atlantic Airways which provides daily flights between the two airports.
—Norwegian began non-stop service on 27 March from London Gatwick to Austin. The new route to the U.S. launched just two days after the airline launched flights to Chicago O’Hare. The new service to Austin will operate year-round, three times weekly.
UnionPay v Alipay v WeChat Pay: An Objective Comparison
What delegates to NAJ’s recent Active America China Summit in Atlanta heard from Daniel Crain, managing director of global ready education for the BRIC Marketing Group is that a case can be made for tying into any or the component(s) of the “Trifecta” of payment systems: China’s UnionPay bankcard/credit card; Alipay; and WeChat Pay.
Each of the three have user numbers in the hundreds of millions and each has a suite of services to which a travel supplier can tie into. What might tilt one toward WeChat vs. the other two is the penetration of the WeChat into so much of its Chinese user based through the range of activities, such as messaging, that are a part of a user’s every day life.
We’ve assembled some of the key elements of Crain’s presentation and augmented it with information we gathered on our own to illustrate what the Trifecta is all about.
The Trifecta …
China Union Pay:Founded in 2002, the Shanghai-based company’s bank card has grown exponentially in its number of users: In an article last summer on finextra.com, it was reported that, according to RBR’s Global Payment Cards Data and Forecasts to 2022 study, the continued rapid expansion of the Chinese cards market has helped UnionPay to increase its share of cards to 43 percent in 2016, and extend its lead over Visa and Mastercard. UnionPay has been the largest scheme globally for card numbers since 2010 and, by the end of 2016, there were more than six billion UnionPay-branded cards in circulation. RBR also found that UnionPay, Visa and Mastercard collectively account for 80 percent of cards worldwide.
AliPay: It was founded in established in 2004 in Hangzhou, China in February 2004 by the Alibaba Group and its founder, Jack Ma—China’s richest person. Alipay moved its headquarters to Shanghai, although its parent company, Ant Financial, remains Hangzhou-based. As far as we could determine, Alipay, which overtook PayPal as the world’s largest mobile payment platform in 2013 had about 450 million users at the end of 2016.
WeChat Pay is a digital wallet service for users of WeChat, which was founded in 2011. It is owned by Tencent, China’s largest technology company. WeChat has grown exponentially and at latest count the number of WeChat users was near a billion. The number who use WeChat Pay was around 340 million at the end of 2016.
Usage—Crain expands upon the ways in which the three payment systems can be used:
—In terms of various uses, WeChat Pay closely follows AliPay. It can be used to pay bills, buy goods online and offline, order tickets, grocery deliveries, hail a cab and do just about everything else. In addition, WeChat Pay powers the rapidly growing WeChat ecosystem. In addition, WeChat Pay powers the rapidly growing WeChat ecommerce ecosystem, making buying and selling products with WeChat online stores a smooth and secure experience.
—Moreover, WeChat continues to expand its services to various financial products—from investment funds to insurance, allowing users paying for that wth WeChat Pay and from within the app.
—In offline settings, WeChat Pay works pretty much in the same way as AliPay—using a system-generate dynamic QR code. In fact, both systems have become so popular that it’s a common site to see WeChatPay and AliPay QR codes next to each other at points of sale.
—Although Union Pay issues credit cards, it is better known as China’s primary debit card provider. It is always linked to a user’s bank account and requires using the physical car to process a transaction. Up until the introduction of the QR payment systems and a mobile app, this was the only way to go to process a payment.
—UnionPay is still the most commonly accepted payment in China with nearly every business being the network’s member. Most government services also accept Union Pay.
—Unfortunately, the reliance on magnetic strip and the security PIN makes Union Pay a less secure payment method.
For a destinations or travel suppliers who want to know more before committing to a partnership with UnionPay, AliPay or WeChat Pay, they should consult with one of the firms that specialize in the Chinese market before determining the level of commitment they want to make before venturing into this area of partnering and promoting.
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