Online Travel platforms need to offer us a better customer experience
The travel industry needs to enhance its technology towards enhancing user experience
We millennials value experiences over material things, we would rather travel the world, attend festivals, sporting events, over buying flashy cars or watches. Imagine attending a party or a eating out in a restaurant without posting anything on Snapchat, Instagram or Facebook, it is almost as if the event never happened. It’s not just millennials who value experiences, consumers attitudes in general are changing. With the rise of the sharing economy, you can rent your empty parking space on websites such as JustPark or ParkonMyDrive, share a long distance journey with other passengers on BlaBla Car, rent your room on Airbnb, you can even BORROW a dog for the weekend on Borrowmydoggy. With consumer attitudes changing and technology enhancing our daily experiences and fostering convenience, there needs to be a continuous conversation in the ways other industries improve our day to day experience.
Why traveling should be a great experience
Travelling is an experience that I have personally placed significant emphasis on. I caught the travelling bug after volunteering in Tajikistan (Yes, that is a REAL country). I too personally wasn’t sure where it was located, but it was certainly an enriching and impactful experience. Travelling allows us to learn about the world, about ourselves, widen our perspective and horizons, adapt outside our comfort zone. A week or two holiday away allows us to recharge our batteries and unwind from the daily stresses of life. Afterwards, coming back from Tajikistan back to the routine of university, I found myself constantly searching on travel sites for the next cheapest flight, to explore and explore more.
Travel technology does not offer us a great experience
Some of us might buy a pre-packaged holiday from a tour operator e.g. an all inclusive deal with flights, hotels and so on. Nonetheless a significant majority of these holidays packages from these large tour operators, look the same as they did 10 years ago, as they often lacking in providing a travel experience that connects to our needs. In addition, the current travel technology comprises, whereby you search for your holiday through a meta-search platform or an online travel agent such as Expedia or Booking.com, simply by entering your travel dates and destinations and you are provided with flight prices and hotels available at that specific time. Then you have probably open a couple of internet tabs deciding which place to stay, another internet tab such as Trip Advisor checking out hotel/restaurant reviews, then another internet tab such as blogs and reviews checking out things to do whilst you are away, you get the gist right…Some of us might not find this tedious, as we enjoy the experience in the time taken researching where to go and what to do. However this process of booking a holiday, seems like a good/normal experience for us travelling, which we don’t think too much about, I believe can be and needs to be made better.
With more and more of us wanting to experience the world, travel more, have fun, we should not be wasting our time planning with have 10 tabs opened. This problem is further magnified for those of us who frequently travel, without the time to plan on our hands. For example, frequent and business travellers, whereby convenience is key to meet their often complex itineraries . A sales manager at a medium sized company who has to attend numerous meetings around Europe discussing with potential clients, simply doesn’t have enough hours to plan around on trips and so on.
Travel is the biggest area of online commerce, yet it still lags behind it term of efficiency and personalisation to the end user, in comparison to other industries such as retail and banking. Take for example in other industries such as Banking, on Facebook messenger there are chatbots such as Cleo, that I can ask how much I have spent on coffee or train journeys this month and I get a response in a few seconds. (chatbots are computer programmes on messenger platforms that you can engage in a conversation with). This is clearly a change from where the user would have to login into their bank online system or view print their bank statement, then use Excel spreadsheets or a calculators to work out our monthly outgoings, now with the latest technology in a few seconds there is a personalised experience to the end user. Yet searching for a place to travel online has not changed much in terms of user experience since Expedia launched in 1997. In addition, the technology has focused on finding customer cheap holidays. Cheap is not necessarily convenience, sure I might find a £20 flight on Expedia to Berlin, but I don’t want to wake up at 4am to catch a 2 hour coach to Stansted Airport, even if you are an individual whom would happily do so and don’t have a problem with that, we should quickly be able to have a full list of alternatives and then be able to make a decision.
I am not saying that all travel technology has been simply a bad experience, this clearly not the case. For example CityMapper is a great app which allows users to comfortably and conveniently navigate through major cities, Google, just recently launched Google Trips, which easily allows user to create itineraries and provides things to do whilst you are on holiday based on your personalised Google search history. Nevertheless, travelling an activity that sits high on our bucket list, is a huge investment in our time and money, a lot more can be done to ensure that we have a personalised and comfortable experience.
What can be done?
There is a rapid shift with more and more people using their mobile phones during travel process. Mobile phones are becoming omnipresent, consumers and business travellers, not only utilise them to book trips but also to access information whilst on the go. This provides an avenue to offer personalised service to the end user, also the multiple functionality of mobile phones such as fingerprint scanning, and voice technology can facilitate smooth transaction of payments.
A business I am currently working on is a virtual travel assistant, using the combination Al and human interface, the application reduces the time spent planning travel and provides a personalised experience to the user. How will it work? You create an account on the mobile app, entering your individual preference such as price range, hotel or Airbnb, this information is stored on the user account. Once completed, you simply type your travel needs and recommended travel options specific to your needs. Over time using Artificial Intelligence the app would learn your preferences. Complex requests which the application cannot solve would be handled by a personal agent. This saves the time spent on the do it yourself process of booking travel, you are provided with a mobile application which helps meet your travel needs. The application is more than swift trip booking process, push-notifications such as the weather of the destination, flight alerts, reminders to check in for the flight, recommendations of things to do whilst on trip are some of what will provided.
The travel industry needs to incrementally place emphasis towards improving the experience of the customer, the myopic emphasis that has been placed on cheap holidays fails to encompass the complex needs of the consumer. Furthermore, with more and more of us on our phones, solutions are needed on the go whilst travelling, to ensure that the user is best served.
