The Mole gets Creative

With The Mole off to the launch of Disney’s new Nemo attraction in California next month, reporting on location from the event, the Mole thought the question whether Creative sold Disney might be a good way to kick off the discussion with Andrew Yell, Creative’s GM with reponsibility for product [Pictured right] and it appears along with most other destinations and product, Andrew’s response was similar, saying that Creative was probably Disney’s largest reseller of product, selling all Disney product including cruise and except for Tokyo. 

This response by Andrew does give some idea of the scale of Creative’s operation in that he told The Mole that Creative was a company going through more continual change, with more growth, while not forgetting their traditional product by refining and improving continually.  Also, he saidthat they have spent a lot of time refining the on line system for the trade and the introduction of their new phone number 131 222 was a big thing going from five phone numbers to one for Creative.

In taking up Andrew’s comment about continual change The Mole asked how that impacted on Creative to which he responded that while previously death and taxes were the only definites, but now change was also a constant and a definite and without constant change it would be more difficult for Creative to maintain their market leader position.

He added that they were always revising the business model, looking at better ways to do things, a lot of it looking at technology because they are a high volume, low margin business having to ensure that they drive the effectiveness of every transaction and as retail agents are generally smaller businesses, Creative needs to try and deliver greater efficiencies to agents, which then benefits Creative, because if they are dealing with agents efficiently business can be done with them more easily and more often.  He also said that agents are also working longer hours so Creative has given them tool that they can access when they please through the iCreate trade only booking engine and they are on a mission of reducing clicks for agents to get access to the information they want and also make it easier for them to make bookings.   Thsi included streamlining the numbers of questions, the way the product is delivered and making it easier for them to find product and material.

He also said that this would blow The Mole’s socks off, but Creative has 12,997 live products in their system as at the end of last month and while that is an amazing and mind blowing offering it does come with the overhead of agents trying to find it and directing people to it quickly, so that has been where a lot of their efforts have gone in recent times, because it is all very well having heaps of product, but that is all pointless if agents can’t find it. 

So Creative has been making sure that the avenues to get what agents want and get away can be undertaken quickly.

Andrew added that an agent at 9:00pm at night can go into iCreate, get a quote, make a booking, can make a payment, look at an itinerary, access past bookings, look at what is confirmed, check what Creative is waiting on replies for, pull out an invoice, look at list of every booking they have with Creative and when the payments are due, so actually there are some very good business tools in iCreate for them, including heaps of information on properties. 

In addition, last year they invested a lot of money in the CRM side of their website which is designed so that an agent can swing the screen around and show the client a consumer page that shows images and other details to help the client make up their mind.  Information on the  website is also consumer centric, aimed at getting a consumer to book through their agent.

Andrew said that they have also just completed a very big overhaul of the air fares side of iCreate and at the moment this is unique to them, but they suspect that some of their competitors will pick up on it very soon.  In Europe alone Creative offers over one million air fare choices because they are by city, into a city, out of a city, stopovers, etc and agents can choose the view they want, for example, by price, the cheapest to the most expensive, by carrier, by class of travel so if their client is only interested in the premium cabins they can only show those seats, or everything.

He confirmed that they are also seeing many more leisure travellers travelling business and first and while they do not see their ages, they suspect that it is mid age to older couples and the Virgin, AirNZ and BA mid economy cabins do very well.

Andrew said that the great thing about the Creative fair fare system was that while it draws availability and seat information from GDS’ systems, they load our own air fare information, then allow agents to make their own bookings and though a technology window called ad hoc data sharing, Creative borrows that PNR from the GDS ticketed on Creative’s fares, offering real time availability but off their negotiated fares.

He sadi that Creative for agents is all about choice, with the agent either able to let Creative do the booking for them or they can actually hold the seats, but then they would have to go on the web site and get the right class to book for the airfares, then they can just pass Creative the PNR, if access into their CRS has been authorised, Creative then actually merge the PNR into the Creative booking, allowing Creative to ticket it off Creative fares, but the agent actually owns the booking.   This is around the third year they have had this process in place with agents allowing them to go into their CRS.

Interestingly, depending on the destination about half their business is now being transacted through iCreate, some destinations 2% and others 70%, with some destinations not lending themselves well to it, like Canada, where it is more consultative if the client is looking at trains, boats, planes and all that entails, so they tend to call.

In terms of product, he sadi that they were always looking at where they needed to refine their current product offering and that could be refreshing it, reducing it, putting in new product, taking out tired product and looking at new destinations, which they do constantly and also looking at new hotels, where demand is driving business, for example a couple of months ago they added 97 new hotels in Europe, also opening up some extra cities.  They have systems where reservations and sales teams give feedback on product and what agents are telling them is hot, what is booking and what is not, but should have, which they review periodically and if they believe that it warrants the investment, they will go and look at it and then if it stacks up roll it out.

The major shifts Creative is seeing in demand from Australia is particularly the old eastern block countries, the European Mediterranean, which is actually doing really well, and even the Nordic countries, which were strong a couple of years ago then went off the boil, but there is really nice demand for them now, never to be a huge or mass market, but they have opened that up again – perhaps its the Mary factor?

He stressed that any destination needs travel agent endorsement before the traveller will book it and this is a basic principle of selling travel in Australia, yet so many forget that.

Creative’s European staples are London, Paris and Rome and 70% of passengers will pass through one or all of them, with Germany getting much bigger and Hungary, Prague getting stronger and really coming into their own, with Croatia new for them with a new product offering.

When asked if any destination had surprised Creative, Andrew said that they would never embrace anything that was surprising as they researched, ran business models and plan carefully before offering a product or destination and if they have done that well, then there should be no surprises!  It can happen though – both ways!

He said, Creative would never say my goodness look at that, let’s do it now, it would take some time to go through the process, but some offerings and destinations can drive themselves and can surprise them and that can be driven by a price point, some publicity or even a TV show.

When asked about Creative’s recent purchase of www.ineedaholiday.com.au, Andrew said that the purchase was all about that Creative was really interested in the technology that came with it, because it gives them a platform to access other distribution and in particular loyalty clubs as they have never been able to deliver them an access point to their system as it designed for the trade, with all the associated coding etc, and could not used by them without heaps of training, so the purchase allows Creative to provide fulfilment for incentive houses and loyalty systems which under their current system they could not do effectively.

In addtion, it now gives Creative access to another base of clients, but still B2B, which is what we do.  We looked at developing our own system to do it but it was much more effective to go and buy one that was already up and running.

In terms of being leading edge, Andrew said that Creative is not a leading edge company and they are not risk takers by nature, with everything very calculated and planned, controlled roll outs and an implementation with as far as possible a good outcome for us and our customers. 

He said that they do not react quickly and do not panic manage as such and this gives their agents and sales teams, who they bring in for training the confidence that anything Creative brings out has been carefully thought out and that it will work.  Creative will not be the first out, but their product will work.

When asked how many passengers a year Creative handled, diplomatically Andrew would only say……yes, you guessed it,……….lots!  Not surprisingly he would not reveal the numbers but it was clear that it is a very substantial business and he said that as it was a privately owned business, they kept figures like that very close to their chests and on a need to know basis and they were the one that needed to know!

He was willing to say the numbers for Creative have grown exponentially over the last four years, which has also meant that they have substantially increased staffing, becoming a significant employer in the industry and country. 

He added though that they have had to work hard at it and while the market has also been favourable they been able to sort their own business out while the market grew and they had capitalised on that growth.

He said that it helped that they had a really strong parent company so Creative was very secure and could invest in new technology, staff and training whereas some smaller business may not have that luxury.

Looking forward he said that they have more than survived all the bumps in road that have happened in recent years and have enjoyed excellent growth, but in the future, Creative consists of ensuring that they continue to grow, that their trade relations remain incredibly strong, and for Creative it is all about service.

He said their philosophy was quite simple in that we give choice in the way agents can deal with us, the way they can buy from us, the way they transact with us and as long as we keep delivering good product and service, we are really confident that our place is as secure as it ever can be in this game – we take nothing for granted and are not complacent for a minute – we are not owed anything, we have to earn it all.

An interview with Andrew Yell, Creative Holidays brought to you by The Mole