"Le Orange": move the travel agency into the cafe

Wujin is a beautiful tourist city, with numerous travel agencies, large and small, and fierce competition. A fledgling post-85 village official, with a unique "tourism customization way", has made a breakthrough in this piece of Red Sea.

Six years after graduation, he not only served as the assistant secretary of the general party branch of Nandu Community in Hutang Town, but also was in charge of a company with annual sales of more than 7 million yuan-Changzhou Le Orange Travel Service Co., Ltd.

Work hard to make the dream fall to the ground

"read ten thousand books and travel ten thousand miles, the two should not be neglected." Any successful entrepreneurial experience is not made out of thin air.

Chen Xie is lucky. When he was a student, the "ten thousand books" he read was tourism management. "I want to be an excellent tour guide after graduation." This is his dream when he was in college. In his opinion, it is exciting to be able to run all over the world. When he was in college, he traveled all over the country with his teachers and alumni to learn the experience of tourism management.

In 2009, Chen Xie graduated and took up a job as a university student village official, but his dream of traveling did not stop. At first, he was in Sanqin Ecological Park in Hutang Town, and the first task he took over was to issue an investigation report on the operation of the ecological park. A few months later, with the release of the report, he had a deeper reflection on the hot eco-tourism and even the tourism industry as a whole.

With a new-born calf's courage and vitality, he is eager to put what he has learned into practice, combine his major with his work, land his dream and make a breakthrough in the tourism industry. After repeated market research, feasibility analysis and a series of preparatory work, he decided to set up a travel agency to take the first step of starting a business. In early 2013, Le Orange Travel Service set sail in a low profile.

At the beginning of the travel agency, Chen Xie did not position himself as the boss, but did everything himself. While doing a good job as a village official, he tried his best to take the time to accompany his clients to work as a tour guide. Every time he was with the group, he carefully followed other tour guides to learn how to deal with guests and how to deal with some thorny problems. Precisely because Chen Xie is able to bear hardships and has a sense of responsibility, the travel agency has accumulated a good reputation, and many old customers are even willing to put together his schedule and rush for him to lead a tour.

However, in the cruel and fierce market competition, dream and success can not be equated. The initial stage of starting a business is the most exploratory period. As a young entrepreneur, Chen Xie has no lack of passion and dreams, but before the practical difficulties of lack of funds, manpower and experience, his ambitions and ideas were unable to form mature tourism products that could be accepted by customers and were given the cold shoulder in the market. In 2013, Le Orange Travel Agency managed to make ends meet by the "care" of relatives and friends, which was the first tuition fee Chen Xie dreamed of paying to the market.

Innovation is the way to survive

In order to get rid of the predicament, in 2014, under the leadership of Chen Xie, Le Orange Travel Service began all-round innovation.

The first is the launch of new products. In addition to regular domestic and outbound tours, travel agencies also act as ticket agents for local scenic spots in Changzhou, launching private customized services such as air tickets, hotels and one-day tours, and establishing an outbound tail list sale brand that goes as soon as possible.

At the same time, Chen Xie wanted to open up new channels for his travel agency. In addition to the traditional store sales, the travel agency also chose a small incision to expand the e-commerce project to carry out the group purchase of tickets to the Spring and Autumn Park in Yancheng on Meituan's website, with nearly 5000 tickets sold within five months. Tmall launched an one-day tour and ticket business in Phuket, Thailand, through direct procurement from local travel agencies to reduce intermediate links and gain price advantage.

In terms of improving the new quality, Chen Association believes that in the final analysis, to do a good job in tourism is to feel the needs of customers and provide better services. To this end, he continues to increase the intensity of training for employees, carrying out 3-Mel training 4 times a month, covering the key points of knowledge such as air tickets, visas, tourist destinations and so on, to ensure that they can help tourists choose the most suitable travel route.

Chen Xieping's work was a bit tedious. In addition to the work of village officials, he had to answer phone calls from customers from morning till night, and he needed to introduce the same lines to different people over and over again. "it's important to be down-to-earth and do every little thing put forward by the customer." The Chen Association concluded, "if you want to get something, you have to give, give and give."

Through efforts, Le Orange Travel Agency achieved sales revenue of more than 7 million yuan in 2014, an increase of about 500% over the same period last year. In the first half of 2015, the sales of Le Orange increased by 300% compared with the same period last year; the team of travel agencies increased from 3 to 15; starting from a small sales department in Hutang, it has now set up branches in Changzhou, Jintan, Tianning, Yixing and other places.

As a university student village official, Chen Xie never forgets to combine entrepreneurship with the work of village officials. As the assistant secretary of the general party branch of the Nandu community, Chen Xie joined the Le Orange Travel Agency with the Nandu community to explain to the young people in the community on the eve of the students' holiday, and the vivid explanation of the company's tour guide was well received. "We have been persisting in developing more diversified public welfare projects so that more people can feel the charm of Le Orange." Chen Xie said.

Personality, "Travel + Coffee" Cross-border Marketing

In the view of Chen Association, along the way, Le Orange Travel Agency has almost been pushed forward by the tide of tourism and scientific and technological innovation. In the future, when the personalized demand becomes the dominant part of the industry, providing personalized services and establishing Internet + 's personalized communication platform are his new countermeasures to deal with this new wave. Last year, Chen Association began to combine travel agencies and cafes to carry out cross-border marketing to create a unique consumer environment.

Colorful travel brochures, dazzling bookshelves, photo walls pasted all over the scenery, comfortable and soft sofas, rich aroma of coffee. This is the 2.0 store of Le Orange Travel Service today.

"our store offers freshly ground coffee, fruit juices, snack platters, tea drinks, etc., with a unit price of 20 or 30 yuan, which is very approachable. Guests can learn about our company's tourism products while drinking coffee, and we can customize travel routes for them and so on. " Chen Xie said that he will devote himself to building the store into an exchange base for travel enthusiasts, with cafes on the first floor and travel agencies on the second floor, which he conceived a long time ago. Nowadays, customers can easily drink coffee, party, watch movies and so on here, and the concept of coffee + travel agency has been realized.

At the same time, customers can inquire and customize tourism products while enjoying coffee; buy specialties from all over the world in the display area of tourist souvenirs and derivatives; enjoy the beauty of the world on a big screen; and every week, travel agencies also hold travel experience sharing meetings on different themes from time to time, and travel-loving new and old friends exchange travel strategies and travel souvenirs. This "travel agency + coffee shop" model not only enhances the stickiness of customers, but also promotes the sales of travel agencies.

Entrepreneurship is always related to innovation, and "change" is the foundation of the tourism industry. Every day, travel agencies have to deal with the ever-expanding territory of tourist destinations, the ever-changing needs of tourists, and constantly updated means of selling products, while what is "unchanged" is his yearning for the distance and his love for the cause. Chen Xie's idea of managing Le Orange is to take action in the course of change and constant change, and constantly adhere to and strive for it.