The National Tourism Administration officially launched pilot programs for online and offline freelance tour guide services in May this year in the provinces and municipalities of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai, Guangdong Province, Jilin’s Changbai Mountain, Changsha and Zhangjiajie in Hunan, Guilin in Guangxi, Sanya in Hainan, and Chengdu in Sichuan. This means that tour guides no longer have to be affiliated with travel agencies and wait for group assignments, but can instead directly connect with tourists through online platforms or offline institutions, forming a supply-demand relationship.
It is against this backdrop that the Jiubai Yiyu (hereinafter referred to as 900 Travel) platform emerged. 900 Travel is a national pilot platform for tour guide (and tour leader) services approved by the National Tourism Administration, and has also been designated by the administration as a national pilot platform for freelance tour guide services. It is currently the only third-party neutral company among all national online and offline pilot platforms. Tourists and travel agencies can freely choose and book their preferred tour guides on the 900 Travel platform.
900 Travel was officially launched and held a press conference on July 29, 2016, in Putuo District, Shanghai. Reporters from Shanghai Television also came to conduct an exclusive interview on the launch. Dr. Gao Hongjiu, founder of 900 Travel, mainly discussed his original intention for creating the platform and the value it could bring to the entire tour guide industry in the future during the exclusive interview.
Dr. Gao is among the first batch of certified tour guides in China. With over 30 years of experience in the field, he has always had a deep passion for the tour guide profession. Especially now, when the prestige of tour guides has faded and negative news and public opinion about them continue to emerge, Dr. Gao feels deeply saddened. He stated that from the very beginning, when he started with inbound tourism, moved to management roles within the travel agency industry, and then became an executive at OTAs, he has always believed that no matter what form the tourism industry takes, tour guides remain an indispensable part of it. Even after so many years in different positions, he has always paid attention to the future role of tour guides in the tourism industry.
Dr. Gao had long been preparing to create a systematic third-party platform, hoping to establish a unique personal brand for tour guides, so that consumers can choose a tour guide they like and trust based on their profiles and reviews when they have needs. Only in such a scenario can communication barriers and costs between tour guides and consumers be reduced, allowing tour guides to do what they are truly meant to do, rather than becoming the protagonists of social media scandals and negatively impacting the entire tour guide industry.
Previously, tour guides had to be affiliated with travel agencies in order to lead tours, which prevented Dr. Gao’s idea from being realized. It was not until the implementation of this year’s freelance tour guide pilot programs that his hopes were reignited.
Coincidentally, around this time, Dr. Gao met Professor Gao Shouwei, a technology expert from Shanghai University. Professor Gao had previously often led student teams to compete in various internet innovation contests and frequently won awards in international competitions. Moreover, Professor Gao’s award-winning project in the application development competition hosted by 360 Company was an app about intelligent tour guide services. He had also always been determined to use technology to drive the development of the tour guide industry. Ideas and technology thus aligned perfectly, and at this crucial moment, Mr. Liu Hongyu also appeared.
Mr. Liu Hongyu was formerly a senior executive at a well-known multinational corporation, with many years of management experience in such companies, and later worked in professional capital operations. He is currently the CEO of Beanstalk Capital, a commentator for CCTV’s Economic Voice, and a renowned professor at the Drucker Management College. As an avid travel enthusiast with a deep passion for the tourism industry, and someone with sharp and unique investment insight who has always hoped to leverage capital to drive the progress of smart travel, such a founding partner team—driven by passion, technology, and capital—created the 900 Travel platform with great synergy.
As a fair and neutral third-party platform, 900 Travel’s mission is to protect the common interests of both tour guides and tourists based on objective realities. All tour guides on the 900 Travel platform hold professional credentials and have undergone strict vetting and evaluation. The guide verification feature on the 900 Travel app allows tourists to directly check the authenticity of a guide. Compared to some “black tour guides” in the market, the guides provided on the 900 Travel platform offer greater safety assurance to tourists. If tourists can confidently select high-quality guides of interest on a platform, it will undoubtedly make travel more worry-free, effortless, enjoyable, and safe.
In addition, with the goal of enhancing the core competitiveness of tour guides, the platform has established the 900 Travel Tour Guide (and Tour Leader) Management Research Institute, which provides comprehensive online and offline training for tour guides. From the perspective of the entire tourism industry, improving the overall capabilities of tour guides is the foundation for building a high-quality tour guide workforce and is also crucial for the sustainable development of the current tourism industry. Because the abilities and quality of tour guides directly affect tourists’ consumption behavior and also impact the reputation of the entire tourism industry. Finally, it is hoped that the 900 Travel platform can create more substantial benefits and value for the tour guide industry and help change the current state of the industry.