The panel at Mekong Tourism Forum, discussing the new customer needs

It’s the customer conundrum of our times. The back of Asia’s travel and tourism industry was built on Westerners travelling out East decades ago. But today the bulk of the region’s travel and tourism business is comes from within the region.

Are travel suppliers adapting their products and services to the new customer? Or are the new customers looking for similar type of experiences as the customer of yesteryears?

While that question is being asked everywhere, nowhere is it being asked with more intensity than in the Mekong region where a lot of niche travel products and services were created to meet Western travel tastes and demand.

At the Mekong Tourism Forum held in Siem Reap recently, delegates were told of the changing customer mix – the ASEAN share of arrivals has grown from less than a quarter to about half in eight years.

Yet most of the tour operators who spoke at the event were catering primarily to the Western market, which has been hard-hit by the global financial crisis. Discussions were focused on what they were doing to gear up for the new customers, which all agreed were more price-sensitive than the longhaul markets.

Green Discovery Laos, which has been doing adventure travel in Laos since 2000, says 99% of its markets come from Europe, US and Australia. The tough times though has forced the company to innovate – so while the US market has dropped 25%, revenues in the first quarter were up 20%.

"Innovation makes us thrive, we are getting more revenue per tourist," said managing director Vianney Catteau. Yet, of the 18,000 clients it gets a year, it has only been able to secure four Vietnamese and two Chinese customers “and not one single Thai customer”.

"I don’t know why," he said.

It is hoping that with its new product, the Nam Lik Jungle Fly, it will be able to get more Asian customers due to its accessibility from Vientiane – a one- or two-day experience, just two hours from the capital city.

The new eco-adventure product features zip lining and a canopy experience in the Nam Lik jungle. The company is building 10 ziplines through the trees, up to 180 metres long, and rope bridges, nets and platforms up to 37 metres high. Guests sleep on a camp site, built on bamboo platforms, in an area overlooking the Nam Lik valley. "We are trying to find food locally, but it’s a challenge," said Catteau.

Four packages are available – from US$49 to US$179. "They are affordable. We are also looking at giving discounts to locals and taking school kids for free – we want to try and promote it to Lao people."

Said Catteau, who used to work in Africa, "We can’t change our product to fit the Asian market. I feel though that this market is changing as well with the young travellers. On African safaris, we’ve seen changes with customers from Japan and Singapore – in the past, they sit in buses and take photos, but now they want to take part in adventure activities."

Jia Liming said Wild China, which offers luxury travel to off the beaten path places in China, had had challenges with the Asian market "which is more price sensitive".

"Our next step is to focus on the Chinese market – we are seeing interest from the high end market in what we are doing."

For Wild China, the challenge is working with "high will, low skill" communities and service providers to implement the company’s sustainability principles. "We offer no shopping, no commissions – it’s very difficult to struggle against the system," said Jia.

Tran Trong Kien, founder and CEO of Buffalo Tours, Vietnam, whose Hanoi-based company handled 50,000 clients in 2009, said Asian travellers were getting more sophisticated and his company was seeing an increase in domestic tourism.

For its newer products, 20% of the business comes from the Asian and domestic market. “The domestic market’s per day spending is lower – US$65-85 a day compared with the $80-$120 for foreigners – but we are seeing more Vietnamese clients for our tours,” he said.

Nick Ray of Hanuman Travel, Cambodia, whose company runs luxury tent safaris sited around ancient temples, puts it down to a “generational shift”.

"It takes time for trends to shift and travellers to change, but the emerging travellers from the ASEAN region are essentially driven by similar interests as any traveller from the West."