CHINA/UAE. Etihad Airways and Alibaba Group’s Tmall and Alitrip will today debut a specially branded aircraft livery for the 11.11 Global Shopping Festival* 2017. The initiative builds on already strong links between the UAE carrier and the Chinese e-commerce giant.
Five aircraft emblazoned with the 11.11 exterior will depart from Abu Dhabi travelling to four destinations in Greater China – Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and Hong Kong. In the coming month, these five aircraft will carry the branding to over 40 cities across Etihad Airways’ global network.
China has over 721 million internet users and the e-commerce industry in China has grown continuously over the past decade. Alibaba-owned Tmall is the lead player in the sector. Its 11.11 Global Shopping Festival has quickly become the largest and most influential online shopping festival in China, Etihad pointed out.
China is the UAE’s second-largest trading partner. This partnership executes China’s ‘Belt and Road’ initiative, facilitating economic ties and cultural exchange between China and the UAE. At the same time, it takes Chinese culture to Europe, the US and Africa via the Abu Dhabi hub.
From 20 October, five Etihad Airways’ aircraft complete with the new branding will take to the skies over a five-day period, flying to destinations in Asia, Australia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas. Over the course of the next month, they will carry the 11.11 branding to over 40 global destinations, carrying hundreds of thousands of travellers around the world.
To further promote the Tmall 11.11 Global Shopping Festival, Etihad Airways will work with their partners and top (literally) English Premier League team Manchester City Football Club to share messages celebrating 11.11.
111 lucky guests who book travel to the UK during the promotion will be eligible for tickets to see Manchester City play Chelsea at the Etihad Stadium in March 2018. Elements of the 11.11 promotion will be seen at the football club’s home, the Etihad Stadium, as well as in Abu Dhabi International Airport and in Etihad Airways’ inflight magazine, Atlas. These efforts are designed to drive the promotion of the 11.11 event which is aligned to Tmall’s concept of ‘Global Buying, Global Selling’, Etihad said.
Etihad Airways continues to build on its long-term relationship with Alibaba Group. The airline signed a partnership agreement with Alitrip to launch Etihad’s first online flagship store in February. With access to nearly 200 million registered Alitrip users, the online store has significantly enhanced Etihad Airways’ digital reach in the Chinese market, the carrier said.
The two brands will continue to work together with the goal of improving their awareness and influence in the global marketplace, Etihad commented.
“Etihad Airways possesses a strong global network and best-in-class innovative technologies and services, while Tmall boasts a complete commercial ecosystem and significant big data resources,” it continued. “With these complementary strengths, the two parties expect even broader cooperation over time. In the near future, they will continue to discuss detailed cooperation plans for mobile payment, big data support, as well as tailored promotion, respective membership programmes and ancillary services to improve passengers’ comprehensive travel experience.”
Etihad Airways Executive Vice President – Commercial Mohammad Al Bulooki said, “Alibaba is a very important partner for Etihad Airways. As a global airline, we continuously research and deliver services to meet our Chinese customers’ needs and strive for improvement in all areas of our operation. China is an important growth market and we need to follow the market trends. Etihad Airways will work closely with Alibaba to lead the way and deliver on the high customer expectation in China, and to promote Abu Dhabi in this rapidly developing marketplace.”
Alibaba Group Vice President and Alitrip Vice President Hu Chenjie said, “We are delighted to enter into this special cooperation with Etihad Airways, a prestigious, world-leading airline. With the power of Etihad Airways, we can enhance global passengers’ awareness of both the Alibaba and Alitrip brands, allowing the ecological chain we painstakingly built to reach more passengers worldwide. Guided by Alibaba’s global strategy, we partner with Etihad Airways, helping consumers to experience unique global destinations, especially emerging destinations such as Abu Dhabi, the rest of the UAE, as well as the Middle East and Africa.”
To promote the 11.11 Global Shopping Festival, Etihad Airways will shortly launch a promotional campaign via its online flagship store on Alitrip, offering four consumer benefits:
- Etihad Airways Advance Purchase Cards
- A three-day ‘private fare’ for the EY flagship store, from 11 November
- ‘Global Travel for 1 CNY’ raffle draw, with zero-fare tickets to Nagoya and Abu Dhabi on offer as prizes
- Special fares to 11 destinations, subject to conditions
Comment: Why is a tie-up between an airline and an e-commerce giant our lead story today? Simple, writes Martin Moodie. Because the power of possibility in aligning the interests, desires and spending habits of an airline’s passenger base with a fulfilment agency of Alibaba’s scale is virtually limitless.
Etihad carries millions of passengers around the globe each year, each of them by definition with significant time on their hands. It also connects with many of those passengers long before they fly. Historically it, like most airlines, generated ancillary revenues through deeply traditional means, an inflight shopping magazine featuring goods wheeled up and down the aircraft aisles in a trolley by crew members often disinterested in selling.
In recent years, many airlines have begun to tap into the power of digital media to drive that process and those revenues. Etihad, for example, has an online pre-order service that offers consumers a -10% discount on items such as fragrances, cosmetics, jewellery and watches and delivers them to the passenger onboard. But there are constraints: a 72-hour processing time doesn’t exactly encourage impulse purchasing and, due to weight and space restrictions on certain aircraft, some products may not be available.
Etihad’s ‘Boutique’ onboard duty free shopping magazine is one of the best of its kind, a 176-page, high-quality production with an impressively diverse assortment, including a good range of exclusive products. It’s available online as a pdf and the Etihad flights feature seatback touchscreen shopping for the range.
But compare that potential consumer reach to a marriage between Etihad’s passenger base and Alibaba’s vast product range, its remarkable technological platform and accessibility, and its superb fulfilment capacity. In terms of reaching the Chinese consumer, at least, it’s incomparably powerful.
As Etihad Airways’ Al Bulooki (a very smart cookie, as evidenced during his tenure as Chief Commercial Officer at Abu Dhabi International Airport) notes, the link with Alibaba is a brilliant way to promote not only the airline but also the emirate. It is unlikely that his, and the airline’s, ambition stops there.
*NOTE: The 11.11 Global Shopping Festival emanated from Singles’ Day or Guanggun Jie, a Chinese celebration of being single. Sales exceeded US$17.8 billion last year – equating to over a quarter of the global duty free industry’s annual sales in one day and significantly more than the entire inflight retail sector’s yearly revenues. It is the world’s largest 24-hour online shopping event, having started in 2009 with only 27 merchants as a project to raise awareness of online shopping in China.
Over the past seven years, 11.11 has seen tremendous growth, driven by rising online, mobile and data technology adoption, as well as the strong trajectory of the Chinese consumer market, Alibaba Group said. “11.11 is not just the world’s largest shopping day, but represents how online shopping has transformed the lives of hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers, particularly the booming middle-class population as well as lower-tier and rural regions across China,” it commented.
**NOTE (2): Alibaba Group Global Managing Director K. Guru Gowrappan will be a keynote speaker at next month’s Trinity Forum in Bangkok organised by The Moodie Davitt Report, ACI and ACI Asia-Pacific. An extensive split ‘Thought Leadership’ session before and after coffee on 2 November will include Gowrappan; Dufry CEO Julián Díaz; Lagardère Travel Retail Chairman & CEO Dag Rasmussen; and L’Oréal Travel Retail Managing Director Vincent Boinay.
