travel tech insights

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

How to Inspire Millennial Travelers (and grow your Travel Business)

Who are the millennials and why are they important to your travel business? It’s certainly no problem finding articles identifying millennials by the numbers: did you know they check their smartphone 45 times a day, and are 50+% more likely to ditch search engines and email in favor of social networks to find brand content? Or that 44% of them praise or flame product and services experiences with text messages and 38% of them use social media to do the same?

In fact, millennials are a widely diverse group, and any implication it can be accurately characterized by various data points is misleading.Demographically speaking, the group is defined as those born between 1980 and 2000 – or 15 to 35 years old. Does any doubt fifteen year old girls check smart phones 45 times a day? Does anyone believe 35 year old men do the same? The age band is simply too broad to support general  assumptions about specific behaviors, not to mention it also covers the span in which people mature to adulthood: young adolescents go into the group and mature adults come out.

Topics: Travel Industry travel website travel company responsive travel website travel business travel experience millennial travelers Travel customers

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