Cathay Pacific Airways reports that key Chinese spending has been relatively softer than last year due to tougher economic times.

Responding to a question from TFWA Moderator John Rimmer at last month’s Airline Conference at the TFWA show in Cannes, Jasmine Lee, Manager of Inflight Sales and Service Development acknowledged that there has been an impact, but she believes it is cyclical.

She said: “This year has been relatively softer than the year before, so Golden Week for us wasn’t so golden anymore, for various reasons. Not just because of the political situation, but also it’s just a downturn in pure economic times, especially in China with issues like corruption and the softening of the economic situation.

“So I think that Chinese travellers and spenders are very important. We see this is cyclical – it’s a slight downturn, but it will go up again. So we have a lot of hope and we think that sales of the Chinese travelling through Hong Kong and then on with journeys on Cathay to the rest of the world are still a vital pillar for us.”

 

 

Next year the airline will give its senior inflight personnel tablets which will also carry historic passenger purchasing information.

 

 

She also paid tribute to the historic partnership between the airline and its long-time inflight retail partners, the Inflight Sales Group formed by Jean-Marcel Rouff: “Why are we in partnership? A long term strategic partnership for inflight sales crew for over a decade has demonstrated that ISG is a great partner to work with and at Cathay we have benefited a lot from ISG’s travel retail expertise.

 

“Together with ISG we’ve paved the way for many unheard of initiatives, we’ve been forerunners in the industry, and also consistently pushed the boundaries of inflight sales.”