DMCs will play critical role in travel rebound, says dnata's John Bevan - WIT - Web In Travel

FRESH from his first trip to visit his associates in Destination Asia in Bangkok and Singapore, John Bevan, divisional senior vice president of Dubai-based dnata Travel Group, is looking forward to the beginning of travel recovery in South-east Asia, and believes that destination management companies (DMC), with in-destination product knowledge and customer focus, will be key to recovery.

dnata Travel Group, which bought a stake in Destination Asia in 2016, making its first foray into the inbound travel market in Asia, increased its holding in the DMC during the pandemic – the acquisition was completed in 2021, said Bevan. Destination Asia, founded in October 1996 in Thailand and Vietnam, is present in 11 major countries in Asia including China, Japan, Myanmar, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia and Laos.

John Bevan: "If you bring a couple of agents to a destination, they are suddenly more enriched and can sell in a more authentic manner and guide the customer."

"It was good to be out, exploring Bangkok and Singapore," said Bevan, who took on the leading group role in June 2021 and relocated from London to Dubai. Prior to that, Bevan, who joined dnata Travel Group in 2017, had been running the business in the UK and Europe, covering brands such as Gold Medal, Travel Republic and Travelbag, among others.

The group owns and operates a diversified portfolio of up to 30 brands, covering leisure, corporate and DMCs. It also owns travel technology brands such as EmQuest, a travel distribution and technology company, and bd4travel, an AI-powered personalisation engine which it acquired in November 2018.

Said Bevan, with all the enthusiasm of a first-time traveller, said, "I did the canal and palace tours in Bangkok and updated my own knowledge of the product. And Singapore has such an incredible history, such a multi-racial story."

His own experience – being in-destination and getting to explore places again – makes him believe that agent familiarisation trips will play a big part in the retraining of travel agency staff and the recovery of travel in the region.

"Imagine, we had two years of no fam trips. A lot of knowledge is built on fam trips and we've had to rely on our inhouse DMCs to tell us how much of the destination has changed. So we are encouraging our staff to go on fam trips. If you bring a couple of agents to a destination, they are suddenly more enriched and can sell in a more authentic manner and guide the customer," said Bevan.

He said that the team in Destination Asia had used the pandemic downtime well, investing in the relevant technology and reimagining its offerings. "They are rebuilding and are ready for the reopening. They have used the time to create a product strategy around sustainability – they've looked at their tours and offerings to create a new palate of products, and are re-educating clients around the world."

Noting that sustainability is a big theme coming through all its businesses, he said, "For example, we are looking at sustainable options in transfers, moving to electric. We are looking at various offset schemes – going to carbon offset for duty travel within dnata. This is an opportunity for travel to do the right thing and the group, as a whole, is investing huge capital into sustainability."

Bevan wants to make sure to get carbon offsetting right this time. Recalling his stint at lastminute.com, where he worked for a spell, he said, "We did offsetting in 2006 and although the scheme was vetted, it got stuck in admin and it was not a good experience. This time, things are different – it's a lot more measurable, we also have better customer adoption and we have to give customers the option.

"We've been banging away at this for a long time and now it's here, it's part of business and it's much more measurable."

Bevan, who steered the UK business through the pandemic, also recalled the tough times it went through. "The most horrible thing was having to make a lot of people redundant – hundreds of people. We didn't know when it would come back, it was a tough decision but we did the right thing.

"The challenge was although travel stopped, business didn't because we then had lots of people cancelling and rebooking. In retrospect, perhaps it would have been better if we had refunded and cancelled everything because the people that were retained, they worked flat out during that time."

And now the problem is "the industry cannot recruit fast enough. We have lost sales because we couldn't handle the bookings. I don't know where the people have gone," he said, shaking his head.

Arabian Adventures' Sunrise Safari – photo credit: Arabian Adventures; "We went from cruising along to vertical take-off," said Bevan of the recovery in inbound travel in Dubai.

The talent crunch is less of a problem in Thailand, he said. However, Arabian Adventures, its Dubai-based DMC known for its award-winning desert safaris, has struggled with recruitment and last October and November, when travel "took off like a rocket ship, it was chaos", he admitted. "We went from cruising along to vertical take-off."

The group is preparing for a bullish outbound season this summer from the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia leading the charge. Given the investments Saudi Arabia is making in its destination and inbound travel, I asked Bevan if dnata was considering a move into the DMC business in the kingdom.

"We are in no hurry but we will relook at the market. We also feel we are under-indexed in Amman," he said. dnata's Saudi Arabian business covers leisure outbound, corporate inbound and outbound, and some wholesale business with Gold Medal.

Group-wide, its Middle East business is recovering at a faster pace than the UK. "Corporate travel in the Middle East is better than the average corporate market in the rest of the world. People in the Middle East need to meet face to face and it's outperformed the general market. On the leisure side, Emiratis and expatriates have been travelling and it helped that Emirates put in a lot of capacity, enhancing Dubai's global connectivity."

Bevan also hopes to tap on his previous experience as CEO of SpaFinder Wellness to capture the wellness trend post-pandemic trend. However he is cognizant of the fact that "it is important  to focus on what you are good at".

He said there was no reason a generalist group like dnata can also be good at specialising in  niche areas. "As long as you focus on the customer and what your customer wants – and as long as each brand keeps ownership of core elements such as the CEO role, product and marketing –each brand can keep its own identity and specialisation."

That way, a group like dnata can enjoy the benefits of scale – such as call centres, procurement, cross-selling – while keeping true to each brand's customer promise. "We are like a house of specialists, but enjoy synergies as a group."

Bevan believes that post-pandemic, the role of the DMC will come into sharper focus because travellers will want a lot more hand-holding and trust and confidence in destination. "When you have well-organised and knowledgeable teams on the ground, who focus on quality and customers first, it's a powerful proposition and that's something we must continue to work on. Otherwise, people might as well book on Booking.com."

• Featured image: Street art in Joo Chiat/Katong neighbourhood, Singapore, can be discovered on one of the many walking tours of the district.