{"id":8030,"date":"2011-03-18T03:03:31","date_gmt":"2011-03-18T03:03:31","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2025-10-15T12:14:33","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T12:14:33","slug":"why-travel-agents-rule-in-asia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=8030","title":{"rendered":"Why Travel Agents Rule in Asia"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Hong Kong and mainland China, bricks-and-mortar travel agencies \u2014 an almost obsolete business in some other parts of the world \u2014 are the reigning gatekeepers of travel. The reasons: China hasn\u2019t caught up to booking flights and hotel rooms on the web, and Asian customers still want and expect the level of service that travel agents provide.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cAsian people still hold guanxi [personal relationships] with high regard,\u201d says Michelle Cheung, a Shanghai resident who travels frequently to Hong Kong; she has a travel agent in each city. \u201cMy parents have been using the same travel agent for 20 years\u2026.The good travel agents can find you a flight even when it says it\u2019s sold out online, and when you are making changes mid-trip, it\u2019s easier to just reach a person over the phone.\u201d<\/p>\n

All it takes is one bad experience on a website for someone to switch to an agency, says Ms. Cheung. \u201cDuring Chinese New Year, many of the fares posted online were not even accurate, and when you clicked purchase, they said \u2018fare not available.\u2019 Very frustrating!\u201d she says. Johan Svanstrom, the Asia-Pacific vice president of Hotels.com, says the company does a majority of its business in Greater China via its call centers, which is multiples higher than its call-center generated business from places such as Australia and the U.S. \u201cThere are a lot of stories about China\u2019s Internet boom, but only 2% of travel [in China] is booked online. It\u2019s still mainly a cash society,\u201d he adds.<\/strong><\/p>\n

SOURCE<\/a>
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In Hong Kong and mainland China, bricks-and-mortar travel agencies \u2014 an almost obsolete business in some other parts of the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1213,"featured_media":72448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[1012],"tags":[2120],"class_list":["post-8030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel","tag-travel"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","medium_large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","1536x1536":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","2048x2048":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-highlighted-post":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-small":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x90.jpg","colormag-featured-image":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-default-news":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","colormag-featured-image-large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-block-extra-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-small-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-medium-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg"},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"Joshua","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/62ee23f8f40307578d1f284ecd823d77f32da8ea35541e7dbdafeb5da1a4e877?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"5","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"In Hong Kong and mainland China, bricks-and-mortar travel agencies \u2014 an almost obsolete business in some other parts of the","magazineBlocksPostCategories":["Travel"],"magazineBlocksPostViewCount":298,"magazineBlocksPostReadTime":2,"magazine_blocks_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"medium":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg",113,150,true]},"magazine_blocks_author":{"display_name":"Joshua","author_link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?author=1213"},"magazine_blocks_comment":5,"magazine_blocks_author_image":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/62ee23f8f40307578d1f284ecd823d77f32da8ea35541e7dbdafeb5da1a4e877?s=96&d=mm&r=g","magazine_blocks_category":"Travel<\/a>","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/72448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}