Leisure & Business Travel Trends In The Future

In today’s connected world dominated by the Internet, travel customer is spoilt by the available options from travel service providers. In such a scenario, how do you rise above the commoditization of travel services that is likely to become even more intense in near future? The key lies in personalization of travel offering based on customer knowledge of their preferences, purchase behaviours and post purchase experiences shared with their communities.

According to a recent surveys, following major trends are expected in the travel industry in next 2-3 years:

		GLOBALIZATION OF TRAVEL OFFERINGS: Asia Pacific would borrow the western concepts of casinos & regulated gaming and thrive on it in years to come. Western Europe travel customer on the other hand is likely to have preferences for cultural tourism of the east.
		ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT: Heightened media attention and instant access to information are helping consumers become more attuned to the potential consequences of climate change, poor nutrition and other social issues. This would have impact on leisure traveler choice of holiday destination as well as mode of travel. Carbon offsets to “neutralize” the emissions caused by business air traveler are some of the trends that would further shape up future of travel industry.
		SAFETY & SECURITY CONCERNS: According to a global survey, 17% of air travelers across the globe said that the new security requirements will actually deter them from traveling by plane for leisure, and 10% said the measures would deter them from traveling by plane for business. Such preferences/rejections would have profound effect on travel businesses in times to come.
		ROLE OF TECHNOLOGY: Undoubtedly, Internet is playing a key role in over 80% of the travel customers researching and buying travel services through online medium. Ease of comparison of various travel offerings and convenience of online purchase from home/office makes the customers prefer this medium. Understandably, this medium of communication and service delivery to the customer needs to be placed at center of travel business model.
		Web 2.0 by way of blogs, wikis, special-interest online groups; audio and video podcasts; mobile phones, PDAs and iPods would all tend to play an important role in the near future, in engaging a travel customer in a personalized fashion. Blogs are already playing a crucial role in forming community opinions based on customer experiences with travel companies, and therefore needs to be carefully monitored. Proactive engaging of bloggers, that lead opinions among their respective communities could value add to a travel brand substantially. Travel companies that engage with online communities would have better understanding of constantly evolving customer preferences and therefore allowing them to create travel offerings that would evoke better market response.

Internet based customer touch-points pointed out above, needs to be truly integrated with other channels such as landline phones, mobile phone, SMS, MMS, IVRS, Fax, Walk-ins etc. to create a Customer Centric Travel Business Framework. This consolidated technology platform which is future proof could then be used to send out market communications, convert queries into business, carry out fulfillment of services and ensure recommendation worthy customer experiences. Along this process constant capturing of customer originated behaviour data and its analysis through technology tools would ensure survival & success in the travel business of the near future.

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