Insights

Over the years, we’ve seen the rise of travellers who are choosier than ever before. While they may certainly be more adventurous and open to new experiences, they are also incredibly sure about the level of interaction and assistance that they’re looking for. We’re seeing trends like adventure travel, experiential travel, bleisure (Business + leisure) travel etc. becoming buzzwords in the travel industry.

In the good old days, planning travel or vacations was a pretty straight-forward process. You went to your local travel agent, looked through all the brochures, decided on a place based on our interest and your budget and that was pretty much it. Recommendations from friends or family who were raving about a certain destination that they recently visited might have had an impact on your choice. Likewise, an interesting article in the local newspaper or a show on TV might have given you ideas on planning your next holiday.

Travel planning has evolved over the years. Most travellers no longer depend on travel companies for recommendations on where they should travel. In many cases, they don’t even depend on them when it comes to booking their travel. They generally do their bookings online and are spoilt for choice when it comes to deciding on which portal to book from. As the Online Travel Market Report published by Allied Market Research, the global market for online travel is expected to garner $1,091 billion by 2022.

Today’s travellers are very individualistic and highly intolerant of unsolicited ads popping up on social media pages or generic spam email bombarding their inbox (even if they may have opted to receive email from the organisation).

Imagine a day when, to make a trip, all you need to do is to wake up and be ready to board! Sounds surreal, doesn’t it? Well that time is not too far off. Finding flights, booking tickets, providing documents and reserving hotels, will all be taken care of by digital advancements in technology.

Increased customer-centricity is prompting the travel industry stakeholders – airlines, hotels, cabs etc., to embrace digital. Of course the other incentive of embracing digital is the prospect of gaining convenience at the operational levels; heavily cutting down on time and effort.