Hong Kong Airlines is to launch a flagship store on Taobao Travel (trip.taobao.com) where consumers will be able to search and directly purchase air fares to the 30 or so destinations the airline flies to in mainland China, Taiwan and Southeast Asia.
Taobao Travel is the online travel services platform of Taobao Marketplace. Launched in 2003, Taobao Marketplace (www.taobao.com) is a consumer-to-consumer online shopping website operated by Alibaba Group. It provides a platform for small businesses and individual entrepreneurs to open online stores which mainly cater to consumers in China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.
With some 760 million product listings as of March 2013, Taobao Marketplace is one of the worlds top 10 most visited websites according to Alexa Internet, Inc., the California-based subsidiary company of Amazon.com that provides commercial web traffic data.
iResearch labeled Taobao Marketplace as Chinas largest online shopping destination in terms of gross merchandise volume in 2013. It also named the Mobile Taobao App as the most popular mobile commerce app in China from August 2012 to February 2014 in terms of mobile monthly active users.
Hong Kong Airlines – which reported carrying over 4.8 million passengers in 2013, a 35 per cent increase on the previous year – and Taobao Travel held an agreement signing ceremony on June 24, 2014 that was attended by Hong Kong Airlines Commercial Director, Li Dianchun, and Taobao Travel Director of International Air Ticketing, Mary Li.
On the new Hong Kong Airlines store on Taobao Travel, consumers will be able to search for and buy tickets for the Hong Kong-based carriers flights in and around Asia. This includes flights to Hong Kong from numerous cities in mainland China, the main source market for visitor arrivals to Hong Kong. The store will also feature updated information on fare promotions and special deals being offered by the airline.
From its Hong Kong base, Hong Kong Airlines flies to Phuket and Bangkok in Thailand, Hanoi in Vietnam, Male in the Maldives, Kota Kinabalu in the Malaysian state of Sabah (Borneo), Taipei and Taichung in Taiwan, Okinawa in Japan and Bali in Indonesia. New services linking Hong Kong with Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, Kagoshima in Japan and Tianjin in China were launched in 2014.
In a recently signed codeshare deal with Air India, the Hong Kong airline added its first destinations in India and South Korea and a third destination in Japan, with its HX code now appearing on Air India direct flights from Hong Kong to Delhi, flights from Hong Kong to Seoul and flights from Hong Kong to Osaka.
Leveraging the immense user base of Taobao Marketplace, Taobao Travel offers a wide spectrum of one-stop travel services that includes hotel reservations and booking of tickets to attractions, as well as air tickets.
The China market has become increasingly important in airlines strategic planning, considering its rapid growth of outbound travel and tourism. Meanwhile, we see that more and more people opt for online ticket booking, checking flight schedules and even doing flight check-in via mobile apps, in order to save time and energy, said Hong Kong Airlines Li Dianchun.
As a result of this new consumer behavior, we launched online booking and check-in services on our official website, and have been strengthening our online booking services through various channels.
The airlines website also offers a Mobile Boarding Pass service, in which passengers who have checked in online can have their boarding pass sent to their mobile device.
Hong Kong Airlines has also opened a new VIP lounge at Hong Kong International Airport. Located on the sixth floor (Departure Level) of Terminal 1 next to Gate 23, Club Bauhinia is open to the airlines business class passengers and Gold Card and Silver Card members of Fortune Wings Club – its loyalty and rewards program – who are flying with the airline; Gold Card members are entitled to bring one guest with them to the lounge.
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