Travel

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.

So, where does that leave the OTAs in their ability to influence customers? The truth is that there is still plenty of opportunity. While travellers may not require vanilla booking services, they still look for customized itineraries and unique experiences designed just for them. This is where travel companies tend to have maximum experience.

But in order to make customized recommendations, there needs to be enough data and insights to be able to make the right recommendations that can potentially translate into a sale. In order to do this, the best strategy is to identify the various travel planning touchpoints and find ways to influence them through data.

Moments that Shape Traveller Journey

Inspiration:

Social media and online portals are almost always the inspiration for today’s traveller. You see a friend’s social media post or read an interesting online article or see an experiential article on the travel group that you are a part of. For a travel organisation, engaging at this stage by offering attractive deals or customized itineraries could help boost interest and help in conversion.

Discovery:

During the discovery stage, travellers will typically search for options either through Meta search or Online Travel Agents (OTA) or travel review sites etc. At this stage, consistent omnichannel engagement, with a convenient shopping cart as well as recommendations can boost sales.

Sale:

At the time of making the purchase, travel companies can try to sweeten the deal through online banking or reward points. Allowing flexible payment options such as a multiple-currency payment gateway, ensuring PCI DSS etc. can also encourage purchase.

Post booking engagement:

After the sale is made, it is a great time to engage through notifications, reminders etc. Useful data insights combined with context can help drive better engagement and provide several opportunities to cross-sell and upsell. Proactive Disruption Management is another key function to fulfil during this time.

During the trip:

During travel, travelers are very receptive to new information that helps them explore local activities, look for guides etc. For example, a Destination App can improve engagement and boost revenue opportunities.

Subsequent Engagement:

Most travelers these days are likely to share, refer and review information. Through continued engagement such as soliciting feedback or suggesting follow-up vacations will encourage customers to stay connected and come back for more.

Given the importance of relevant personalization, leveraging data collected from the various touch points to understand the customer’s behavior and preferences can ensure that your pitch is targeted and relevant.

Want to find out how you can use data and insights to help push your user down the sales funnel through targeted engagement? Click here to know more.

If you’d like to know more, write in to us at subhash.s@sonata-software.com

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). While travel organisations are trying to personalize their messages – from personalizing the headline to reflect the person’s name to sending targeted offers based on past purchases – these efforts are being met with limited success as customers become choosier than ever about the content that they consume.

So, what is the missing piece of the puzzle? It is Context. Even if you have taken the care to personalise your messages based on the data that you have, your audience is unlikely to consume your content unless the context is relevant.

Here’s an example. Let’s say you are exploring options for a holiday in Europe and get in touch with the travel company to get options for the same. If the company uses this as a basis to regularly send you offers on European holidays, it is unlikely to cut ice with you because a) you already went to Europe last year b) you don’t want to go in the dead of winter b) you were looking for the Europe information on behalf of a friend and aren’t really keen yourself. So, while data is important, what matters even more is context.

Personalization + Context = Useful Insight

Instead of looking simply at data, contextual personalization is about looking at data in the larger context in order to find useful insights. For example, while you may have data such as demographics, details of past purchases etc., contextual personalization means looking deeper to consider things such as the local weather, big events or life events or personal priorities.

Getting the Right Data at Each Touchpoint

If we look at the cycle that an average traveller goes through, there are some distinct stages as below. When talking to Sonata’s travel clients, we’ve found that getting data at each touch point and sharing the information that is relevant at each stage is an important aspect of contextual personalization.

Stage

Opportunity

Inspiration for travel often comes from an online source, whether it is through a friend’s social media post or through an interesting online article.

Personalized and targeted offers via multiple touch points can boost interest and convert.

Search for options happens either through Meta search, OTA, etc.

Consistent omnichannel engagement, with a convenient Shopping Cart, recommendations can boost sales.

Purchase happens through online banking or reward points

Allowing flexible payment options such as multiple-currency, payment gateway, ensuring PCI DSS to encourage purchase.

Post booking engagement in the form of notifications, reminders etc.

Better engagement through proactive Disruption Management and relevant cross sell.

On trip, travelers explore local activities, look for guides etc.

A Destination App can improve engagement and boost revenue opportunities

Post trip, visitors are likely to share, refer, review

Continued engagement by soliciting feedback will encourage customers to stay connected.

At an organisation’s backend, this means having access to the right data at the right time. For instance, one of our clients, a leading travel company, decided to invest in a digital transformation initiative that enabled it to deliver a superior customer experience through Personalization, Recommendations and Multilingual capabilities. Today, the online medium accounts for about 50% of its total sales. To know more, click here or write in to us at subhash.s@sonata-software.com

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.

So how can tomorrow’s travel experience be enhanced through digital developments? Here are 7 simple steps that can get you there: -

1. Mass Customization:
   Years ago, a customized service or preferential treatment was given only for a select few people with power, money or influence. Digital has just about broken the barriers and opened up the venue for anyone – customization will soon be at a mass level. A classic example is that of the booking engine interface that provides every user with the same experience and options.
2. Virtual Documents:
   Collecting all the relevant documents is not only a hassle, but also brings with it the fear of losing the material. Pretty soon, technology will enable airports to ‘’access’’ all relevant documents such as passport, identity proof and even tickets through Cloud, virtually. This would create a very stress-free travel for the passengers and also help prevent loss of these essential documents.
3. Pre-flight Experience:
   Airlines have begun to understand that the service does not end with a ‘’ticket confirmation,’’ that rather it begins there. Airlines are looking to assist passengers before boarding and are coming up with applications to help them. Mobile applications, which send alerts and reminders on travel, facilities, check-in timings, gate numbers etc. would be in demand.
4. Chatbots and Apps:
   A few airlines are using chatbots both on their websites and on social media pages to assist passengers and promote offers. A few others have mobile applications loaded with features like booking cancellations, seating upgrade, adding additional family members to bookings etc. Some airlines are providing airport terminal maps to ease the process of finding the way out of the airport.
5. In-Flight Experience:
   While some airlines have limited the use of social media for promotions and advertising, some have moved up a level in terms of how social media information can be better utilized. A popular European airline has initiated a program where passengers can look at each other’s social media profiles (Facebook, LinkedIn) and based on relevance, industry or interests can choose to meet and seat themselves beside each other. This opens up new opportunities for passengers to connect and co-create a more socially engaging and meaningful flight experience.
6. Post-Flight Experience:
   Airlines want to stay connected with their passengers even after the flight in the hope of maintaining the contact and establishing stronger customer relationships. They are developing mobile apps for passengers to post reviews on and also avail interesting offers for their next flight. Alerts on flight schedules, prices and seating are provided. Airlines are also engaging their passengers actively on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter etc. They are posting pictures and videos of satisfied customers to create a positive brand image and trust.
7. Personalized Recommendation:
   If, for instance, your flight got delayed, your travel brand ought to know about it and should be able to take action accordingly. Not only will your travel brand be informed about your situation, when you next get in touch with him, he will also be able to give you the best option of a hotel that you can check into.

As customer experience becomes more central to the policy of stakeholders, technology is being embraced with great intensity in the race to pep up the service levels and enhance the overall travel experience. Tomorrow’s travel experience will depend on the kind of technology adopted and how well the various stakeholders across the travel value chain maximize the potential of the digital!

Take a look at Sonata’s Digital Travel page to see how we can transform the travel business with technology.

The travel industry has been growing at a good pace and has also been constantly changing over the last few years. The increased expectations of the modern-day traveler for enriching customer experience has disrupted the travel industry. The industry operators must have a good understanding of the expectations of different age groups and types of travelers like Business, vacation with family, Solo travelers to ensure their customers have a great travel experience to ensure customer loyalty. Modern- day traveler’s usage of digital technology has transformed the way they plan, research and fulfill their vacation plans.

From booking their travel to post-travel services, these travelers expect a world of convenience enabled by technology, which means travel brands must not only facilitate seamless transaction across multiple devices and channels but also provide meaningful personal engagements based on customer sentiment analytics.

Travel brands who adopt a proactive customer service and connect with their consumers at multiple levels and channels to drive a real-time personal experience win brand loyalty. However, even the best of customer service fails at the toughest of times. Unexpected journey disruption can infuriate a traveler and at such times the customer experience that makes a difference is a hybrid of digital and human- assisted approach.

With the next-gen traveler driving every new trend, only the savviest of travel brands who adopt the latest technology trends and find ways to apply them in their customer journey can deliver the ultimate travel experience. Customer experience is the main differentiator and companies that excel in this area are most likely to gain a positive reputation and customer loyalty. Some of the new technologies that could help improve customer experience are listed below:

Chatbots and Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence is being highly adapted in the travel and tourism industry these days. One of the uses of artificial intelligence is for customer support purposes using chatbots. Chatbots possess the ability to continuously learn from their interaction with customers and provide quick responses to queries. Hotels and tourism companies also use artificial intelligence to sort through data and perform tasks like data analysis, problem-solving and improving personalization during the customer journey, customer sentiment analytics.

Internet of Things (IoT)

Internet of things deals with everyday devices with internet connectivity which makes them capable of transmitting and receiving data. In hotels, the internet of things can be used to provide customers with devices which can control room ambient lighting, air- condition, heater, etc. It could also be used in the hotel check-in process by providing the customers with electronic keys on their smartphones.

Recognition Technology

Recognition Technology includes facial recognition, retina scanning, fingerprints, and other biometric identification methods. One of the uses of recognition technology in the travel industry is personalization. By matching faces to the database, hotels can identify their customers quickly and provide tailor-made services to them. Another use of the technology is that customers with a bad reputation can be identified early and the staff could be alerted to take necessary measures. Recognition technology can also help in payment processes making the authorization process hassle- free.

Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR)

Virtual Reality is one of the most promising technologies of recent times. With virtual reality technology customers can digitally experience the destination, he or she is going to visit. Hotels can also use this technology to showcase their hotel rooms and other offerings.Augmented Reality is similar to virtual reality but instead of replacing the customer’s surroundings it augments it. This is considerably cheaper than virtual reality as it requires just a smartphone or tablet with internet connectivity. The tourism industry can use this technology to enhance customer experience by graphical overlays. For instance, when customers point their smartphones at any historical monument, relevant information about the monument could be displayed.

Robots

With changing customer habits, robotic technology is increasingly becoming popular. As customers are increasingly getting used to self-service methods, the travel industry is using robots due to the automation it provides. Robots use technologies ranging from speech & facial recognition to artificial intelligence. In the travel industry, robots are being used to meet and greet customers, to assist check-in and checkout procedures, deliver luggage, assist in concierge services, provide information assistance, etc. Qualities such as accuracy, ability to work round the clock, consistency, etc. make robots worth investing in.It is important for travel companies to leverage the above-mentioned technologies to experience and ensure customer loyalty which in turn would eventually result in better business performance and a greater ROI for the Tour operator.

Is your tourism board conceived and designed to perform optimally by bringing in all travel suppliers under one roof? If you wanted to tap a wider traveller base offering services that are far reaching, that connect travellers to hotels or even local city rides to all the best locales in that city, along with impressing on a worldwide audience for all your destination promotions – you most certainly need ‘Rezopia.’  

So what is Rezopia? It is Sonata’s award winning Digital Travel Platform that has been designed to address the emerging needs of the Travel industry that are also current, providing end-to-end processes ranging from planning to accounting.

What’s more, Rezopia looks to transforming the traveller’s experience by giving them all the information they require even before they alight from an airplane or before they arrive in a city, all in one place. Where other travel service providers bring in all other agents under one umbrella, Rezopia packages the travel offering in such a way that the most economic rides will be listed on the tourism board’s portal.

Travellers should be rest assured with all the best attractions of the city being made available to them, as wider options to travel with Rezopia links them up with hotel chains, travel providers such as cruises, boats, and resorts to manoeuvre through the city.

Further, it provides a scalable, Cloud-based, reliable & future proof system to drive enterprise transformation that are truly in keeping with business processes. Do you now find the answer to the first Q posed at the start, befitting?

Rezopia allows other travel partners to cross sell their products and services, as well as direct travelers back to the online marketplace where promotions for local destinations are done in creative ways, which appeal to differentiated audiences.

Being an essential part of business digitization, tourist boards will be well served, as Rezopia builds much better consumer understanding and sophisticated tailoring of product, service, and channel strategies against distinctive, well-defined consumer segments and their specific travel demands; and creates flexible models that allow dynamic packaging and pricing of travel products at the point of sale with improved online-front ends.

Besides, it enhances personalized customer engagement across the travel life cycle, through activity suggestions, based on data insights on their needs, profiles and preferences, and ensures a very high degree of operational efficiency through automation of mid-office and back- office processes. Further, maximization of utility value from set budgets, and helping the tourism board concerned will see an overdraft of profits, apart from catching the eye of the right people who see your destination expertly marketed along the purchase lifecycle.  

Decide now. Is there a more sure shot way of out-besting a tourism board?