ABOUT THE TRAVEL TECHNOLOGY MARKET
THE EFFECT ON THE TRAVEL & TECHNOLOGY SECTOR
As technology becomes increasingly ingrained in daily life, tourism is
no exception to the rule. It is safe to say that technological
innovations will strongly assist the rebound of the industry and give
added assurance to travellers that activities and locations are safe.
- Research has shown that there is a direct correlation between
tourism decision making during the pandemic and increased social media
searches. Social platforms will become increasingly important in
mitigating risk perceptions that are associated with travelling in a
COVID-19 world (Emerald, 2020).
- Digital advertising budgets will increase by up to 78% in 2021 as
businesses try to best communicate to consumers (Media Post, 2020).
- Video content on social media attracts the highest level of
engagement. 82% of online content will be in video format by 2022
(Influencer Marketing Hub, 2020).
- Artificial intelligence is continually evolving to allow tourism
businesses to improve the experiences that their customers have
digitally (IT Brief, 2020).
- It is predicted that 123 million people will use voice assistants in
daily life by the end of next year. Perfect for use in the tourism
industry, for quick searches and language translation, voice powered
travel is set to revolutionise travel (Medium, 2020).
- Building on the idea of contactless interactions from voice
assistant technology, payment methods, check-in functions, and touch
buttons will become increasingly automated and digitised to reduce the
spread of COVID-19 (Skift, 2020).
- Google’s new search engine features give travellers the most up to
date COVID-19 information for a particular destination to keep them
across restrictions and infection rates (Forbes, 2020).
- Promotion for tourism activities and destinations has been gamified
with sales for virtual reality headsets expected to grow by 53% by
2024. This gives the opportunity for tour operators to truly showcase
their offering to tourists, taking them on a tour, to boost sales
(Phocus Wire, 2020; Channel Life, 2020).
The global travel technology market is currently witnessing strong
growth especially in 2020 where COVID limits our physical freedom of
movement. The virus has played a pivotal part in demonstrating how
important and reliant we are to technology.
FUTURE TRAVELLER TRENDS
- Technology will be a key element in the travel industry in 2021,
with many people believing that it will be crucial in controlling
health risks while on the move and reassuring them that jet setting is
safe.
- Booking.com found that more than half (53 per cent) of travellers
will want tech options to make last-minute restaurant reservations and
a fifth (21 per cent) will hope to use self-service machines instead
of having face-to-face interactions with those working in the travel
sector.
- Virtual reality (VR) might play more of an integral role in
helping wanderlust travellers decide on holiday spots, with over a
third (36 per cent) admitting to feeling comfortable to scouting out a
destination using VR.
- Direct-to-Supplier / Supplier-Direct – This is the #1 current trend
in the travel industry. The trend is impacting every travel vertical
from hotels, airlines, to OTAs. Travel suppliers are building new
technology stacks, integrating emerging technologies and developing
marketing campaigns to sell directly to end customers.
- APIs, MicroServices & Connectivity – Software is eating the world
and APIs are eating software. APIs are the delivery system that feed
the platforms and marketplaces with data and enables travel suppliers
the ability to go direct. MicroServices can be viewed as software
products and services that integrate easily into platform and
marketplace architecture, adding value for the platform owner and it’s
customers.
WHAT'S NEW IN SOCIAL MEDIA?
- Video Content Will Dominate - short-form videos like TikTok and
stories are the future
- Social Commerce Will Expand - platforms like Instagram, Pinterest,
and Facebook have long been used by brands to sell their products.
- Instagram Will Remove Likes - The logic that it has given is that
likes determine a person’s social value and waiting for such
validation is detrimental to people’s mental health.
- Niche Social Platforms Will Perform Well - e.g Twitch, TikTok, Weibo
- Ephemeral Content Will Keep Gaining Popularity - content that is
available only for a short duration and disappears afterwards e.g
Instagram and Snapchat Stories
HOW Ai COULD CHANGE TRAVEL
1. AI for Airport Congestion Management - e.g Pittsburgh International
Airport, use real-time AI tech to estimate and report the times
passengers spend in lines based on current and historical visitor
data.
2. AI for Air Travel Baggage Handling - automated handling and
seamless data sharing at every point of the journey, intelligent
AI-based tracking will drastically minimize baggage mishandling
3. Travel Chatbots - AI chatbots will help Hotel and flight booking
and most confusing step of trip planning whilst free up the valuable
time of customer service reps.
4. Intelligent Travel Recommendation Services - AI-based solutions for
travel destination research and accommodation, with personalized
recommendations based on each customer’s habits and history
5. Smart Trip Planning - e.g Utrip uses machine learning algorithms
to create highly personalized travel plans.
6. Overtourism Prevention - AI solutions can help travelers navigate
entry caps and no-go zones, carefully manage and plan vacations
abroad, come up with alternative routes, and recommend similar but less traveled destinations instead of tourist traps.
7. AI for Exposing Untapped Destinations - helping undiscovered and
less-known destinations to get exposure
8. AI Travel Security - Evolv Edge checkpoint system can automatically
detect weapons and any other prohibited or dangerous objects by
analyzing data collected via facial recognition and millimeter-wave
technologies, this is 10x faster throughput than traditional X-ray
systems.
9. AI and Commuting - A number of robot-taxi services (LYFT and UBER)
are expected to launch in the early-to-mid 2020s around the world. It
is possible that full automation of public transportation systems and
moving on to driverless buses and trains will be soon to follow.
10. AI for Breaking Language Barriers - e.g Google Interpreter,
Real-time audio-translators are becoming a notable fixture in
travelers’ digital arsenal. Google Lens offers instant camera-aided
translation and Smart Reply.