A techie-turned-travel agent takes cruise control: Travel Weekly Asia

Fred Yip thrives on challenges. After university, when joining his father’s travel company Goldjoy Holidays would have been the obvious choice, he instead pursued a PhD in software engineering and carved out his own path in tech consultancy.

But family called. In 2016, after 36 years of building the business, Freddy Yip delivered an ultimatum to his son. “My father gave me a lecture and said, ‘Why work for somebody else? It’s time to help family.’ My parents worked really, really hard. And I thought it was time to share the burden, the workload with them.”

Friends and relatives warned that traditional travel agencies were heading for sunset, overshadowed by global online travel agencies (OTAs) offering one-click bookings. Undeterred, Yip gave himself two to three years to turn things around – just as his father had done nearly four decades earlier.

Off the beaten track, on the money

Founded in 1989, Goldjoy Holidays is a Hong Kong-based travel agency specialising in unique destinations and cruises, blending digital innovation with personalised service.

Founded in 1989, Goldjoy Holidays built its reputation on unique destinations – the Middle East, South America, northern Europe, Africa – areas mainstream agencies often ignored. “My father chose to do something more off the beaten path,” explains Yip. “He was a travel adviser in every sense – giving value by advising on things such as language or visa issues.”

When Fred joined Goldjoy, he approached the business like a research project, identifying gaps and opportunities. Recognising that OTAs dominated flight and hotel bookings, he focused on a promising niche: cruises.

All aboard the digital express

At the time, Hong Kong’s cruise distribution relied on wholesalers providing pricing and itineraries – a process that could take days for quotations. Yip streamlined operations by creating a vertical online platform where customers could get quotes, book and pay on one digital site within hours rather than days.

Goldjoy also invested in multi-currency payment technology, enabling clients across Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and China to pay in local currencies. The strategy worked: Goldjoy’s cruise business quickly gained momentum and became one of the company’s biggest revenue sources.

The human touch in a digital world

Fred Yip saw travellers wanted personalisation, so he built a concierge-style support team on Facebook and WhatsApp to handle bookings, problems, and real-time assistance.

Despite digital transformation, Yip recognised that clients still craved personalisation. He assembled an online customer support team acting as real-time concierges, handling everything from verifying travel arrangements to solving mid-trip problems via Facebook and WhatsApp.

By moving cruises online whilst adding hyper-personalised service, Yip shattered stereotypes about cruise demographics. “We did a report on how our efforts made our customer base that much younger. Before, the average age of our customers in a particular cruise segment was 58 years old; now it’s 38.”

The human touch in a digital world

Today’s AI revolution presents another challenge – one Yip welcomes, given his thesis background in technology. Goldjoy regularly holds staff workshops on utilising AI for market analysis, content generation and programming.

Yip envisions AI helping smaller travel companies compete with – or collaborate alongside – major OTAs. “These global marketplaces probably specialise in the US market or European market. They have no footprint or know-how in the China market, which is a different type of ecosystem,” he explains.

“Being in Hong Kong and Singapore, Goldjoy can act as a bridge between mainland China and the international space, providing information on fragmented markets within the region and help with language barriers. And AI can help us with this.”