ESTONIA/ASIA. Ferry and short-cruise company Tallink has been recognised in Asia for its efforts to enhance the service offered to Chinese travellers on its Tallink and Silja Line vessels.
This month at Asia’s biggest tourism fair in Shanghai – ITB China – the Estonian company won the Global Gold Prize in the Chinese Tourist Welcome (CTW) Awards in the category Best Product Innovation.
The award is accepted inside and outside China as a quality marker for the Chinese outbound market. This is the second time Tallink has scooped an award at the event, but the first time at the gold level.
Commenting on the win, CEO of Tallink Grupp Paavo Nõgene said: “The number of Chinese and Asian tourists in general travelling on Tallink ships has increased significantly in the past few years and, as the biggest shipping company on the Baltic Sea, we have therefore also adapted our offer for Asian customers to the types of services and comfort they are used to.”
Among those adaptations have been Chinese-speaking customer service hosts on Finland-Sweden Silja Line ships during the high summer season, as well as on Helsinki-Tallinn shuttles. Additionally, restaurant menus, shopping catalogues and other information are available in Chinese, Korean and Japanese, and attention is paid to the Chinese New Year holiday season.
A shopping target
Asian travellers have become a key target for increasing duty free and travel retail shopping revenue onboard Tallink’s fleet due to their much higher spend per head. If grouped as a ‘nationality’, Asian tourists are the fourth biggest group after Finnish, Estonian and Swedish travellers. In total the ferry group carried 9.8 million passengers in 2017.
“We take Asian customers’ preferences into account when selecting products for our shops and also offer customer support in Mandarin, both in the form of a Mandarin language website as well as on social media platforms like WeChat and Weibo,” said Nõgene.
In 2017, restaurant and shop sales accounted for 56% of Tallink’s €967 million (US$1,291 million) turnover. Asian nationals are taking a rising share of this, and recent shop revamps – for example a move to fashion with an emphasis on Scandinavian brands – partly reflect their preferences.
According to Tallink Duty Free Director of Business Development Magnus Skjörshammer, around 500,000 Asians travelled with Tallink in 2017, and an increase of about +15% is expected this year. He said of Asian customers: “Their spending power is more than double the average onboard and their focus is strongly on Nordic brands.”
The China Outbound Tourism Research Institute (COTRI) presented the annual Chinese Tourist Welcome Awards for the 15th time this year in five different categories: product innovation, marketing, service quality, Internet/media, and overall performance.
