The Star: May 11, 2017

The Star Latest Christchurch news at www. .kiwi
Thursday May 11 2017 17
new heights with Chinese company
Details of Christchurch
Airport’s disruptive strategy
are commercially sensitive. But
already, autonomous vehicle
trials are under way; a driverless,
electric Smart Shuttle is expected
to be operating by 2019, moving
15 passengers at a time. Other
autonomous applications are being
discussed and the company
is in the early exploratory stages
of using artificial intelligence.
“At a philosophical level, we
were just trying to target value,
capture value and create value
in the visitor sector and our
focus on big data converged on
Alibaba,” said Mr Johns.
Mr Watson says small New
Zealand businesses frequently
experience difficulties trying to
make an impact in China. By
installing the online payment
system, Alipay, in their retail
outlets, Kiwi small and mediumsized
enterprises could make
more from the Chinese visitor
experience and move to microtransactions
with tourists who
have been to New Zealand.
The strategy was underpinned
by a Berl study which indicated
that such consumers would be
Zealand products if they had
been here.
Said Mr Watson: “There is an
opportunity to target and attract
higher value visitors from China
to stay on and spend more. There
is also a skew towards young
in groups which exactly overlays
with Alibaba’s audience as well.”
“Through Fliggy [Alibaba’s
travel service, previously named
Alitrips], there is the ability to
target them before they get to the
South Island. And through the
and create new value streams
for New Zealand SMEs to have
those micro-transactions.”
Mr Johns points out that
Christchurch Airport can step
in and build an online platform
(or virtual terminal) on which
SMEs can display their products
– “they don’t have the expertise
to data mine and highly target
visitors”.
“For us, it fits into the virtualisation
of our terminal. We can
only fit so many retail outlets
inside a physical terminal, but if
you create a virtual overlay on
top of it, you can extend your
passenger spend rates and your
retail relationships in particular.
“What drives us is building a
virtual terminal and what Alibaba
gives us the opportunity to
do, is to take what we are already
doing in the tourism sector and
extend it out to the productive
sector, particularly for SMEs.”
Mr Johns hit on the concept
at a seminar in China, where
the general manager for Spanish
company, Mango Leisure,
talked about their lessons from
operating in both the “High St”
and online in China. “What
digital in China is the big
numbers but it is actually the
little numbers that really count.
That is where the power sits.”
There is precedent. When
China Southern started flying
to Christchurch, strong visitor
demand saw stocks of Mt Cook
Aoraki salmon virtually wiped
out due to the highly seasonal
nature of tourism.
“If you have got a group of
consumers that are self-selecting
an interest in Aoraki salmon and
they have an excess of supply
during the winter months, then
your opportunity is to use that
pre-qualified group to extend
the trading relationship through
micro-exporting,” says Mr
Johns.
“When we looked at the
Alibaba platforms, what we
found was the cost for a SME to
be on some of those platforms
was prohibitive, so if we could do
what we do in our terminal and
aggregate the platform and also
aggregate the virtual terminal
for those SMEs in the regions
to be able to trade off, then that
fits into our virtual terminal
strategy.
six times more likely to buy New
THUrsdaY JanUarY 31 2013
professional females who travel data we can continue to build most businesses look at with
mainland
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