travel tech insights

Expecting the Unexpected: 4 Ways to Rethink Your Bookings and cancellation policy

Just like in life, planning ahead is good practice when considering a vacation or trip. Researching and completing bookings well in advance gives travelers peace of mind, keeps them organized, and allows travel agents and tour operators the opportunity to offer additional bookings to complement a customer’s existing itinerary. But the sad fact is the travel industry is prone to unpredictability and cancellations happen.

Weather. Personal struggles. Changes in availability. All these elements factor into why travelers must sometimes postpone, alter, or altogether cancel bookings, accommodations, and tours, and a travel company’s cancellation policy can go a long way toward either enhancing or remedying a traveler’s disappointment.

Topics: customer retention Customer engagement Cancellations Travel booking engines Customer relations

The Long Run: How Mobile Apps Can Help Retain Customers

It may seem like a magic trick: Turning a one-time customer into a repeat user of a travel company’s products and services. But in today’s global, interconnected travel industry, customer retention and the ability to entice travelers back to a certain travel company is becoming less of a mystery and more of a science thanks in large part to the development of mobile apps. Smartphones, tablets, laptops, and other mobile devices have not only changed the way customers research and book their travel arrangements, but they’ve also fundamentally shifted the way travel companies view devices as tools for continued interaction and communication with would-be travelers.

Topics: Mobile Technology travel technology travel mobile app travel trends customer retention Mobile App Digital Technology

Keep Connected: How Mobile Travel Apps Promote Customer Retention

Many of today’s travelers view mobile travel apps as the simply the newest method to quickly and conveniently research, book, and modify destination and bookings - a shortcut or way around working with a traditional brick and mortar travel agency or even an online travel agency or management company. But for those within the travel industry, particularly travel agencies themselves, mobile travel apps are a key marketing tool travel agencies can leverage to increase deploy modern customer engagement campaigns and increase customer retention.

A recent survey published by Euromonitor International found roughly 44 percent of travel bookings completed during 2016 will be done via mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets, and the use of mobile travel apps is also expected to play a large part in these bookings. Must-have market segments for travel agencies in today’s travel industry like millennials and travelers from emerging markets are spending more and more of their time online, incorporating apps into their daily lives in unprecedented numbers.

Topics: Travel App travel agency customer retention Mobile App Customer engagement Mobile travel apps

Message Received: The Travel Industry and the Rise of Instant Messaging Technology

There’s been something of an arms race during the last few years in the travel industry as travel companies seek new, exciting, and innovative ways to invigorate customer engagement and relations leveraging technology as a method to reach more people more quickly. With an eye to technological advancements at all touch points in the value chain - from customer service to operations and planning - the name of the game in the last 5 to 10 years has been streamlining ways of managing the communication of products and services for the good of the travel company and customer alike.    

Topics: Travel App travel trends customer retention Travel customers Digital Technology Instant messaging

Email Marketing – a key way to retain your Travel Customers

Few people in the travel industry would contest that competition is intensifying; sources for information and insights are multiplying and travelers’ – especially millennials – expectations for trip experiences are higher than ever. Turning these people into customers is an increasingly difficult challenge. Even getting them to your shopping cart isn’t enough – as high abandonment rates attest. Is it any wonder so many travel agencies are focused on sharpening their marketing campaigns to the public with Big Data and Analytics? Actually, perhaps the priority of marketing to that group is a big of a wonder – when you consider it often overlooks the importance of existing travel customers to current and future success.

Topics: Travel Industry travel technology email marketing email marketing for OTAs customer retention Travel customers