As technology evolves, so does the way we incorporate it into our travel habits – from researching and booking, to visiting the destination. Luckily, holidays are once again feasible and unrestricted, which was deemed crucial for everyone to travel with peace of mind. A critical (and crucial) moment for tour operators and accommodations. They have to adapt to new demands and expectations of customers, which tremendously increased over the years. In this article, you will discover 5 key tourism trends to keep up with.
As travel marketer, you should use technology to your advantage and adopt it in a strategy to optimise marketing a destination and tourism services. Let’s have a look trend for trend.
1. A must look into: Internet of Things (IoT)
Tourism businesses must study all possible installations of the Internet of Things technology. How can you provide the ultimate, personalised experience for travellers? Surely, this starts from the moment of booking the trip and continues all the way through the end of a stay. One way to go about it is to offer an enhanced navigation process that integrates the booking of a trip with setting up the personal keyless entrance profile for entering airports, hotels or B&Bs. In addition to making the tourist experience hassle-free, keyless technology makes facilities more secure and accessible. Say goodbye to the ever-returning search for your hotel key!
2. Innovative biometric possibilities in tourism
Biometric payments through ApplePay and GooglePay will play an important role in tourism. Travelers will be able to use these platforms to pay for each and everything in the future – from leaving their homes (taxi expense) to check out (hotel expenses). Easy for traveller and provider! Requesting upgrades, ordering in-flight meals and more will become extra convenient and secure through using these touchless payment solutions. Did you know a large number of airports already use biometrics for travel document identification? You can imagine it’s only one small step to bring this into payment processes.
3. Exploring the metaverse
When talking about trends to watch in 2023, the metaverse is for sure one of the most exciting ones. It is predicted that the metaverse will act as a pseudo-travel agent, allowing companies to take traveller engagement to a higher level. The virtual world will help the travellers make decisions. Not sure what specific trips or activities to book? Dive into the metaverse and experience it before actually visiting to make up your mind.
The best virtual reality experiences are of the highest quality, full of detail and life-like. All the better to attract guests! If you don’t have the budget to produce a fully virtual world, reduce the scope of it by offering 360° tours. Show the hotel room, accommodation sites or even 360° video recording of activities. Want to bring it to a higher level? Take advantage of the live streaming trend and offer 360° live video feeds of your destination!
4. Digital nomad life is on the rise
The ability to work from anywhere is becoming the norm. Digital nomads wish to visit a destination and stay longer, while also working online. To attract these online workers, more and more countries are developing visa and tax benefit programmes. What do all digital nomads have in common? They seek an independent lifestyle full of adventure and reliable Wi-Fi access. For them, travelling is not vacationing; rather, travelling is a lifestyle.
For hotels, it is important to adapt their offerings to digital nomads. You can think of providing specific packages for longer-term remote working professionals. Furthermore, offer guests day access to selected rooms with high-speed Wi-Fi access, printing facilities, dining credit and access to the fitness centres at all city-based properties. A good example: Meliá Hotels International, has launched a corporate subscription programme, offering similar benefits as earlier mentioned for companies with remote workforces.
5. Mobile booking = better customer experience
Flight delays and cancellations are mounting while travellers are looking forward to getting back into the skies. Obviously, this has created headaches for consumers. The result? Travellers are becoming a lot more careful concerning who they book with. Despite inflation, our research found that 63% of people say they’re willing to pay extra if it provides them with better customer service. If you want to earn brand loyalty and increase bookings, you need to deliver experiences that delight your customers.
42% of tourists worldwide book a hotel or a flight with their smartphone, according to a report by Google. The average tourist uses 4 to 5 apps during the booking and travel process. In addition, about half of the travellers in this report also appreciated the ability to chat with a customer service representative directly within the app.
The answer is crystal clear. All booking sites must have a mobile version that is equal to – or better – than the desktop version, tested and tailored to the traveller’s habits, attention to bugs, accessibility, user experience and – last but not least – an excellent chat function for better customer service experience.
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