Technology is great. It’s amazing. It has transformed the world in a variety of positive ways. Other than offering convenience, it has also made life a lot easier. Things that used to take days and even months to complete today take only a couple of minutes.
Technology has touched all shores of life including the travel industry. For one thing, it has made planning a ton easier. Planning any trip; be it local or international is a huge pain. Many find it a lot of trouble; not to mention it can be rather expensive at times.
So, how has technology eradicated many of the pain points of the travel and tourism industry? That’s exactly what we look at in this post –
Better Personalization with Big Data
Big data is something that almost all organizations are after. And, for good reason too! Big data can solve a lot of things. For one thing, it helps you understand your customers better. For another, you can look into better future trends.
For travel companies, big data can offer a promising route in which to offer personalization. They can offer better and more personalized services.
Using large volumes of client and historical data, they can make specific adjustments to their SEO campaigns and marketing. They can also use it for managing revenue and company operations.
By getting hands-on previous historic data, companies can better anticipate future demand. Equipped with that knowledge they can optimize their promotional strategies and pricing to create a more promising revenue model.
Voice Search & Voice Control
The development of AI assistants, smart speakers, and smartphones have all come up to improve the relevance of voice search. Together, voice technologies have revolutionized the travel industry and are a new and promising emerging trend in the industry.
Because of the ease of voice search, more and more customers are using the option to find hotel rooms, book hotels, confirm airline tickets, and explore myriad travel experiences/possibilities.
Due to this growing trend, anyone in the travel and tourism industry must optimize their website for voice searches. That’s the only way to capitalize on this growing search trend.
The implications of voice search don’t just end there. A growing number of hotel rooms today have installed voice-controlled devices to manage heating levels and lighting. Voice control, as you can see, inevitably helps to elevate the customer experience in the hotel industry.
Virtual Reality (VR)
Virtual reality is one of those emerging technologies that have had a major impact on a variety of sectors and industries. However, it has most recently made a positive impact on the tourism industry. Today, with the help of virtual reality, travelers can look at 3D locations, hotels and check out nearby areas.
Right from the comfort of their house, they can better analyze and see if the place they plan on visiting is worth it or not. Based on the feel of the place, they can ultimately confirm a booking.
A growing number of hotels are offering virtual tours that include landmarks, activities, national parks, and restaurants. Other than helping the clients with better decision-making, hotels can also use this option to secure a competitive edge over other hotels who have not yet caught up with these kinds of trends.
Most browsers today are compatible with 360 tours which can be a particularly helpful option in times of COVID as a growing number of people are reluctant to travel abroad. Such people can get a feel of the place and mark it as part of their possible future travel plans.
Becoming Social
The way travelers today perform research, recommend destinations to each other, interact, and find the best destination has changed. Today most of that happens in a more virtual/social setting. An increasing number of travelers live in a virtual environment on social media.
It’s sad that despite the amazing potential that social technologies hold; the travel and tourism industry has been somewhat slow to embrace them. Many of the hotels still lag in terms of using user-generated content, interacting with their customers, encouraging reviews, and building long-term relationships on social media channels.
Socila media technologies hold a ton of potential to revolutionize the way hotels market themselves and connect with their customers.
Internet of Things (IoT)
IoT or the Internet of Things connectivity is one of the technological trends that promise to bring in major changes and updates to the travel and tourism industry. IoT basically integrates sensors that connect to the internet. These sensors are placed inside of items such as cars, buildings, suitcases, etc.
One of the hotels in Spain called Instituto Tecnologico Hotelero confirmed that IoT is going to be revolutionizing in terms of offering personalized customer experience in the coming few years.
One way to implement the ideology behind the Internet of Things is to put it into suitcases so that travelers can track their suitcases using cell phones. In this way, they can avoid their baggage from getting lost at public places such as airports.
Bottom Line
As you can see – technology is making great strides in the world of travel and tourism. Many of these trends are still in their infancy stage while others are perfectly ripe. It will be interesting to see what other trends penetrate the industry and take things to another level.
