As an industry we need to work collaboratively to reach sustainability goals: Suyin Lee

Lee is big fan of community led tourism; it provides much needed tourism revenue for development. On the other hand, trends indicate that people want more immersive, unique and cultural experiences. The two can be blended by developing new tier-2 destinations to provide sustainable tourism that defeats overtourism and crowds.  In an interview with TDM, Suyin Lee, Managing Director, Discova shares more…

Travel Daily Media (TDM): Kindly tell us a little bit about your contingent here at ITB Asia 2024.

Suyin Lee (SL): This is the first year that we have put up a separate booth for Discova at ITB Asia 2024 since the pandemic. We go to ITB Berlin and WTM every year, so that has got a very different foot traffic, more from Europe or the US. Asia is not that strong a source market for us, and we are building on that. Last year we came with STB, which had worked well for us. We had received so many queries that we decided to have our own booth.

We have got a good mix of all different segments and channels here. Rhydian James, my Chief Commercial Officer, came up from Brisbane. Jayne Reddie​’s come from Singapore, she looks after meetings and events and education groups. I have got Quynh Din there. She is from Vietnam originally, but she is based out of our UK sales team, and we have got Pimpawee Nopakitgumjorn here, who has come from Thailand, and she is the head of Ecommerce.

TDM: Which are the main source markets for Discova? Which destinations are the most popular right now?

SL: Our main source markets would be Australia, New Zealand, North America, predominantly the US, and then UK, Europe. In Europe, it is mainly Western, Northern Europe, so Netherlands, Germany, Scandinavia.

Japan is a popular destination right now; she sells herself and is high demand. We are seeing some good pull for Indonesia, Bali, we also operate in Thailand. And Vietnam, you know, it was a bit of a slow start for us, but it is starting to get some good traction and is a great touring destination.

So, from a Discova perspective, they are our key markets and destinations: Thailand, Vietnam, Japan and Indonesia. We have refocused the investment in Asia, which is growing so fast. We are looking at leisure as well as the corporate segment. We have decided to do more around blended travel in the future, working with Flight Centre Travel Group’s (FCTG) corporate brands like FCM and Corporate Traveller to provide all ground services including leisure extensions.

TDM: What kind of growth are you expecting? How are you managing destinations with huge demand?

SL: Our financial year is July to June, so we operate on the Australian financial year. This coming year we are expecting a 30% growth vis-a-vie last year. Last year was obviously a much bigger growth year, because we were just coming out of the pandemic.

I think for us, it has always been the challenge of capacity in our destinations, because for example, take Japan, you have got huge demand, but the supply chain is very constrained, not enough hotel rooms, not enough guides, not enough vehicles.

So, you have got to really balance the supply and demand aspects of these destinations. Through pre buy and contacts, by working more proactively with our partners to get forward outlooks and projections.  We may do block buys of certain properties where we know there is going to be high demand. We have got a vast number of channels to source inventory. We have great relationships with certain hotels.

TDM: How do you manage demand and supply to prevent overcrowding of a destination and facilitate beautiful holidays?

SL: I think it is about influencing our clients to not go to these very crowded destinations. And it is a hard sell, I know, because everyone wants to go to Tokyo and Kyoto, right? But looking to see if we can get people to go to second tier cities; spend one or two days in the main hub, but then go outside of the main cities where it is just as beautiful, and less crowded, less expensive, and it is also helping, overcome a bit of the over tourism challenges that we are seeing.

In general, I think if you look at Bali, it is very congested, and it is very busy in Bali right now. So again, it is like, how do we direct tourism to less congested, hot spots? We have this beautiful rural village in Manggis, Bali’s lesser-known eastern coastline, where we have created some amazing community, immersive experiences, where you can still really get to understand the culture, the people, the place, the food.

TDM: So, are there any other such destinations that you would like to talk about, which you are promoting, which you think are undiscovered and need to be discovered?

SL:  I am a big fan of community led tourism, because I think many communities need tourism revenue for development. Now we are seeing the trends that people are wanting more immersive, more unique, more cultural experiences. So, it is a perfect opportunity for us to do that, for example, in Bangkok, or outside of Bangkok in central Thailand, we are working with a community there to really develop some very authentic, local, immersive experiences.

It is only an hour and a half or two hours out of Bangkok. These new destinations, new experiences are what we want to promote, where people can really get, a genuine sense of, what that destination is about. They get to know the lives of people, the stories of these people, develop that destination in a positive way, rather than flood a certain location.

TDM: Which tourism product, is becoming popular? As a company how are you evolving to cater to that?

SL: There is a high volume of solo travellers, we are definitely seeing much smaller groups, more private groups, a lot more tailor-made groups than we have traditionally. People want more intimate groups, and that is great for us, because we have got a wider choice about where we take them. We can take a much smaller vehicle, and it gives us better access to a lot of destinations.

TDM: As a case study, can you share one trip you really enjoyed arranging for some group and what it was about?
SL:  We have opened some beautiful community village experiences in East Bali, in Manggis. It is all run by the villagers who we have trained.  A myriad of experiences from village walks to spending a day in the life and understanding how the villagers do their farming. They are predominantly rice farmers. You could do a bike ride from this village down to Virgin Beach. You could be doing a jamu workshop and a health and wellness experience in the spa. You are really engaged with the local villagers and the women run a beautiful cooking class out there. It is a great way to understand the local culture.

I think what our guests love is the connection to not just a place, but to people that is meaningful, that has left a lasting impression on them, because they have learned something, and they feel good about where their dollars are going, and how it is helping this community.

TDM: Being a woman and being in this field, what has your journey been like?

SL: I have been in this business for about seven years. So I was on the agency, corporate travel and leisure travel outbound side. This segment, for sure, is very male dominated, if you look at all my competitors, they are generally male, in the CEO, MD positions. But to be fair, Kanchan, I do not think about gender very much. I have grown up in a family of three girls. And we have all just always been brought up to believe that we can do anything.

But certainly, a lot of my female leaders have expressed quite often that it is great to have a good role model, because it has given them, optimism, a belief that they can have very good careers, and that they can become business leaders in this industry or in this sector.

I have never let gender become a roadblock to anything. I do not think about gender too much, but I do believe in the importance of female empowerment and for us in our business at Discova we have very strong diversity and inclusion values. Over 70% of my middle management and below are female. In my senior leadership team, we are 50:50 male and female, and then at our country management level, I would say about the same, and 95% of all Discova workforce are local. We have really tried to localise most of our country leadership roles.

TDM: Anything you would like to say or add to this interview?

SL:  Travel is in an exciting space right now, but it is also facing some big challenges around sustainability and mass tourism and over tourism. I think that as a sector, we need to be working better together, in a more collaborative way. I think everyone has this aspiration to make their businesses more sustainable, but it is a big challenge. It will be great for the industry leaders, whether it is the public sector, or the private sector, to work together more collaboratively to solve some of these goals.