Source: 2003-7-26 Clicks: 357 Font: Small Medium Large ***There are 0 comments [Click to view]

Background of the Case: The Crisis Came Quietly When Business Was Rosy

This is a case study on how a large travel enterprise in Shanghai handled the SARS crisis. When many domestic travel agencies were hit by the sudden SARS crisis, this travel company was able to rely on the perfect early warning mechanism to avoid

this "catastrophe" and minimize the losses.

Chunqiu Tours is a large-scale comprehensive tourism enterprise, and its domestic tour business has ranked first in the country for nine consecutive years. Earlier this year, like most of its domestic counterparts, the travel agency ushered in the most prosperous "bull market" in its history. But in late March, the company's operations appear abnormal, so that Shanghai Spring International Travel Agency General Manager Wang Zhenghua vaguely feel a trace of ominous: in Jiangsu and Zhejiang tourist routes and the foreign market is very hot, the company for the white-collar market for the careful development of a number of high-end tourism products, such as the "free people", "pure play group ( Only sightseeing without shopping)" and other signs of stagnation - according to calculations, the entire March, these high-end tourism products sales than in February, 40% to 50% lower.

High-end products are not selling, indicating a decrease in foreign tourists and white-collar tourists from foreign companies. Suddenly, Wang Zhenghua remembered the news about the SARS epidemic announced by the World Health Organization on March 17th. His heart tightened: this is an ominous omen! Through several consecutive days and nights of data collection and analysis, Spring International Travel finally came to the conclusion that the SARS epidemic would have a significant impact on the local tourism market.

So, when the vast majority of domestic tourism enterprises are still resolutely refusing to reduce sales profits due to the high prices of tourism products in March and April, Spring International Travel Service (SITS) has already responded to the emergency battle against SARS in 31 branches across the country, which has bought time for the resolution of the risk.　

Case One: Categorically Abandoning Short-Term Interests

The situation was critical! On April 1, Spring China Travel officially submitted a report to major domestic airlines to analyze the severity of the SARS epidemic; from April 5, all the staff of the travel agency's charter department were dispatched to various airlines to discuss the grounding of chartered flights and the possible loss-sharing program.

At that time, the impact of the SARS epidemic on the domestic travel industry had not yet appeared, and prices in the travel market continued to rise. At this moment, Spring International Travel stops the move to return the chartered flights attracted a lot of criticism, internal staff also have quite a complaint: "there is business not to do, there is money not to earn ......" "no matter what others say, chartered flights resolutely to return, and can only be fast and not slow! ." Spring and Autumn Tours senior attitude is very clear, not only that, they also urgently issued a second let peers puzzled by the order - the country's branches will be chartered sales flow as far forward as possible, even if it does not make money, or even lose a little money to sell the tickets as early as possible.

The first-aid measures proved to be very effective: on April 24, the last Sichuan airline agreed to stop returning chartered flights; before all routes stopped returning, most of the flights chartered by Spring International had sold 99 percent of their seats, and losses were minimized. In stark contrast, many travel agencies until late April only to find the hands of the ticket stagnation, or even completely unsold, anxious to ask the airline to stop flying, but it is too late; some chartered travel agencies, a flight only sold four, five seats, and a flight round-trip cost up to 200,000 yuan.

Wang Zhenghua, general manager of Spring International Travel, said the stopping of chartered flights and the lowering of ticket prices caused the travel agency more than 6 million yuan in economic losses; but if the immediate interests of the travel agency were concerned at the time, the potential loss of the entire travel agency would be more than 100 million yuan, and the enterprise would be driven to the brink of death.　

Case two: 48-hour collection system to avoid the "triangular debt"

"Triangular debt" is the domestic tourism industry, a travel agency has millions of dollars or even tens of millions of dollars "triangular debt The phenomenon of "triangular debt" is commonplace. For the "triangular debt", Spring China Travel originally developed a "48-hour collection system": through the network sales of tourism products required to enter the network within 48 hours of collection; ticketing centers under the Department of Business requirements within 24 hours of collection; Spring China Travel's entry department

Spring and Autumn Tours' inbound department and the eastern part of China have stipulated that "payment should be made first, and the tours should be made later".

Wang Zhenghua, general manager of Spring International Travel, said that in the SARS crisis, even if the charter problem is solved, if the money collected is not collected, tens of millions of dollars of "triangular debt" can also put the travel agency in death. In addition, once the situation deteriorates, some small and medium-sized travel agencies may also be malicious bankruptcy to avoid debt.

Aiming at the "48-hour collection system" in the usual implementation of some of the loopholes, the Spring Festival Tours rigorous investigation of the implementation of this system. Afterwards, Spring China Travel also strictly stipulates that personnel who do not implement the 48-hour collection system will be immediately dismissed upon discovery. Due to the discovery of timely, effective measures, Spring China Travel not only in the critical moment back to a large amount of money, and avoided by the "triangular debt" implicated in the risk of bankruptcy.

Case study: Luck often favors the prepared

Due to the timely response, despite the loss of business, the Spring International Travel Service (SITS) has preserved the strength of the enterprise and built up the power of development. From this point of view, the Spring and Autumn Tours is lucky. But "luck" always favors those who are prepared. To cope with the natural catastrophe, we need to establish an early warning mechanism, in this regard we need to do a variety of efforts.

First, government departments need to do more. In the face of disasters, the relevant departments should give enterprises and individuals timely early warning information. Especially in the early stage of China's accession to the WTO, enterprises need a period of time to learn to adapt and adjust the means and strategies to cope with the crisis, in which case the role of the government is more prominent. Secondly, the enterprise side should form a conscious awareness of risk, and when a disaster occurs, it should take a variety of means to make up for the loss and try to realize self-help self-help. At the same time, they should pay attention to international and domestic information, and pay attention to the trend of changes, so as to respond to problems in time. In addition, the media should also shoulder the important responsibility of timely warning. This is also the case from the enterprise to deal with the SARS crisis to our inspiration.