St. Raphael Travel and Tours

• Main Author: Mapua, Lydia
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2000
• Subjects: Travel agents > Philippines; Business; Business Administration, Management, and Operations
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_masteral/2807
• Institution: De La Salle University

Canada Travellers Card and Services of Vancouver, Canada is a door-to-door delivery money remittance outfit serving the needs of Filipinos in Canada who want to send funds to their families in the Philippines. The company has been operating since 1981 and has a delivery outfit in Manila which is Adventus Services. In 1995, the two companies opened up a new service to the Filipinos in Vancouver by offering first time immigrant and OCW fares. Every year about 14,000 Filipinos are accepted as immigrants to Canada under the Canada Family Reunification Program. OCWs who have worked in Canada for two years can petition their family to join them in Canada as landed immigrants. St. Raphael Travel and Tours, a service division of the remittance firm takes care of all the travel requirements of first time immigrants to Canada such as passports and plane tickets while their relatives in Canada prepays the plane tickets. The first few years of St. Raphael Travel was focused on servicing OCWs/immigrants but soon after introduced new travel products, which were not the company's core products and slowly eroded their market share and profits. As the manager of the company is about to finish the last of her MBA subject this December 2000, she has done extensive research, industry analysis and thorough external/internal analysis of the company, to help it regain its market share and simply focus on two vacant niches not currently being served by other players in the industry. The first niche will focus on OCW/immigrant and tourist fares to Canada and the US which may be prepaid in Canada. As a value-added service, the company can inform their clients that they can also save on overseas calls because the company can relay via fax or emails the clients' itinerary to Canada or the US for free. Another vacant niche St. Raphael would like to focus on is the providing of moderate package tours in the anchor destinations of the Philippines. While most agents prefer to sell pricey resorts and hotels to Palawan, Bohol, Boracay, Vugan and Banaue, the company will offer limite moderate inns, chosen on the basis of safety, security, affordability and basic clean facilities and value-added services such as including tours in the package. While the company previously has sold too many products, some of which consumed too much of the company's staff time and which are not even money earners, the coming years will be geared towards offering limited product lines for full knowledge and mastery. The strategies and financial objectives of the company will be thoroughly discussed in this paper to show the reader how the company intends to operate St. Raphael Travel and Tours for the next five years.