Partnerships Are Essential to Growth in the Travel Industry

Meaningful partnerships are the foundation for success. Partnerships are what enable many travel companies to grow. By sharing with others, hotel companies, airlines, cruise lines, destinations and car rental companies can direct resources and capabilities to revenue improvement projects and growth ambitions.

Partnership is usually defined as a voluntary collaborative agreement between two or more parties in which all participants agree to work together to achieve a common purpose or undertake a specific task and to share risks, responsibilities, resources, competencies and benefits.

At Connect-Worldwide we believe that meaningful partnerships are the foundation for success. Partnerships are what enable our company and our clients to make continuous improvements. By sharing with others, we can direct resources and capabilities to generate revenue for our clients.

Recent travel industry partnership examples are Marriott and Cosmopolitan Resort Las Vegas, Pegasus and HP, Southwest and Volaris, Vacation.com and Tauck, Disney and Alamo, United and Air Canada, and British Airways and Iberia.

When two parties leverage their assets, resources, expertise, client base etc. for the mutual benefit of both, partnering results in synergies.

Connect-Worldwide successfully partners with companies such as Choice Hotels, Royal Resorts, Paradores Hoteles, Utell, Las Vegas, Houston, etc. for the development of tourism and hotel revenue and is looking for additional representation partnerships.

Today the most successful companies build bridges, and the selection of strategic partners with whom to collaborate is becoming more and more important.

Tourism Continues to Grow

When we do our long term projections for our clients and our own company we generally look at research from two leading Tourism organizations. WTO or the World Tourism Organization in headquartered in Spain and US Travel based in Washington DC. The outlook from both organizations is very promising.

According to the World Tourism Organization, the long-term forecast for tourism is positive. Although tourism in the last few years has been challenged by multiple events, UNWTO maintains its long-term positive forecast for the moment.

UNWTO’s Tourism forecasts that international arrivals are expected to reach nearly 1.6 billion by the year 2020. Of these worldwide arrivals in 2020, 1.2 billion will be intraregional and 378 million will be long-haul travelers.

The total tourist arrivals by region shows that by 2020 the top three receiving regions will be Europe (717 million tourists), East Asia and the Pacific (397 million) and the Americas (282 million), followed by Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.

East Asia and the Pacific, Asia, the Middle East and Africa are forecasted to record growth at rates of over 5% year, compared to the world average of 4.1%. The more mature regions Europe and Americas are anticipated to show lower than average growth rates. Europe will maintain the highest share of world arrivals, although there will be a decline from 60 per cent in 1995 to 46 per cent in 2020.

The U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) projects international travel to the United States will return to a growth mode in 2010. Visitor volume is expected to increase nine percent in 2010 followed by six-to-nine percent annual increases through 2015. The rebound would completely offset the five percent decline in arrivals registered in 2009, the first decline in visitors since 2003. Visitor volume grew 41 percent between 2003, the low visitor volume level over the past ten years, and 2008, the record year for arrivals.

The forecast for 2010-2015 predicts that the record for total arrivals will be broken for each of the five years of the forecast. International arrivals will reach almost 83 million, an increase of 51 percent from 2009 through 2015.

We advise our clients to think beyond the traditional core markets and enter in new and developing markets. Connect-Worldwide assists l clients with understanding where best to deploy to take advantage of the global travel and tourism growth. Then Connect-Worldwide assist our clients with developing their initial sales and marketing strategies and branding in those new markets.

As global revenue development specialist Connect-Worldwide is positioned to partner with hotel companies and destination to take advantage of the outstanding growth opportunities as forecasted by US travel and World Tourism Organization.

A Department of Tourism? Why Not -

Wondering why the US does not have a Tourism Department. The US has a Defense Department, an Agricultural Department and so on….., so why not a Tourism Department? International travel is one of the largest exports for the United States, ranking ahead of agricultural goods and motor vehicles. It is the single largest services sector export, accounting for 24 percent of all services exports in 2009. In 2009 total U.S. international travel receipts was $120 billion. This spending includes international passenger airfare payments made by non-resident visitors to U.S. carriers. The U.S. generated a travel trade surplus of $21 billion in 2009. A surplus has been produced continuously since 1989. A surplus occurs when foreign visitors spend more in the United States than U.S. residents spend traveling abroad. Spending by visitors to the United States in 2009 directly supported 769,000 American jobs. International visitors spend more per traveler than U.S. domestic travelers. Although they account for only four percent of total travelers, they represent 17 percent of total travel-related spending. International visitors purchase 21 percent of all traveler accommodations output, 19% of all gambling output, 15 percent of all food and beverage output, 10 percent of all highway tolls, and seven percent of all gasoline output.

Most countries the US competes with for international travels have Ministers of Tourism and a Tourism Department or Ministry. Spain has a Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade. The Minister of Tourism in France is a cabinet member in the Government of France. And these are just some examples of top Tourism Destinations. If the US wants to continue to compete globally for international travelers, it needs to show its commitment to travel at the highest levels.