travel tech insights

Imagine you’re driving through a new city trying to find a specific destination - a restaurant, a bookstore,  etc. You’re using your GPS but the street names on the GPS don’t quite match the names on the street signs: Sate Street instead of State Street, Min Avenue rather than Main Avenue, and so on. You make your best guess to align the names on the GPS with the names on the street, but this ultimately results in confusion, frustration, and wasted time, and it’s not long before you’re completely lost in an unfamiliar place without the resources to get to your destination.

The 37th annual World Travel Market London is quickly approaching. The 2016 tradeshow is set for Nov. 7-9 at ExCel London and is primed to be one of the biggest conferences in the organization’s history. Seminars, guest speakers, demonstrations, and meet-and-greets with travel industry professionals from across the globe are just a handful of the events attendees can look forward to, along with a wide variety of business networking and contract opportunities with travel professionals, government ministers, and the international travel press.

It’s an exciting few days for the travel industry, but the sheer number of events, discussions, and exhibitors can be overwhelming for both first-time attendees and returners. It’s easy for exhibitors, speakers, and attendees alike to over-schedule, under-schedule, and even miss out entirely on events and opportunities.

Let’s face it: The travel industry is built on responding to disruption. Whether it’s inclement weather  forcing cancellations of flights, hotel accommodations, or tours, or overbookings due to sudden spikes in demand, travel companies must be agile enough to handle these and other temporary breakdowns in calculated, efficient ways to retain customers and continue operations in as normal a way as possible.

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.

Today’s travel agent is in an interesting position. Some travel industry insiders believe traditional brick-and-mortar travel agents are set to experience a resurgence due to renewed interest from millennial travelers, while others believe traditional travel agents have long outlasted their utility in an online-driven industry. The truth of the matter is most likely somewhere in the middle of these two ideas, but either way travel agents in today’s complex, global travel landscape are faced with a number of challenges in remaining a relevant part of the industry, particularly when it comes to business processes.

For traditional travel agents, the concept of business processes - a series of related business actions or transactions resulting in a certain goal or objective - can be a major pain point for agencies still relying on outdated methods of completing transactions between wholesales, suppliers, distributors, and customers. These methods - often relying on manual data entry, management, and customer relations - lack the flexibility, agility, and transparency travel agents need to get the right products to the right people at the right time. This lack of speed and convenience can seriously hamper a travel agency’s entire value chain and be a determining factor in how healthy and stable a travel agency truly is.

The travel industry is evolving and the travel agencies' needs grow along with it. We consider that advancement and improvement are driven by the needs of our customers and we focus on ensuring that our solutions bring them benefits and value.

This month, TBS comes with the following additions and features:

Following the outcomes brought by the most important shows and events in the travel industry in which we were present, we are preparing to exhibit again, for the fourth consecutive year, at World Travel Market London.

You can meet part of our team from 7th to 9th of November, at Excel London - in the Travel Tech area, stand TT420.   

There is no secret: the digital world is changing the way people travel and also the way travel professionals conduct business. 

Travel industry experts are gathering in Dubai, on 1-2 November, at e-Travel Middle East, to explore and discuss the future trends shaping the dynamic travel environment, how digital innovation can help improving business strategy and how technology can be leveraged for the benefit of the savvy and connected modern traveler.

For many customers, the look, feel, and vibe of a company’s branding can be just as influential in  whether they work with said company as the products and services themselves. As such, it’s important for these companies - especially companies within the travel industry, many of which use brand management and image as a chief selling point - to ensure their brand is uniform and cohesive across a number of different platforms, including offers, vouchers, receipts, and other forms of documentation.

But the problem for many travel agencies and travel management companies is that many booking engines and other ERP systems lack the capacity for those within the company to manage their document templates. These templates often times have to be adjusted, modified, or managed by external developers, which is costly, time-consuming, and inefficient, especially when it comes to creating specifically tailored documents for a number of different applications.

For the last few years, mobile payments have been predicted to be the next big thing in the travel  industry. Analysts and industry insiders have long speculated the disruption mobile payment technology will have on the way travelers shop and complete online bookings, as well as the way travel companies and OTAs use mobile technology to reach as many customers as possible. But recent advancements in mobile technology, specifically in affordability and availability, are making it possible for mobile payments to actually take hold sooner rather than later in today's travel industry. 

With more advancements in mobile technology and the ease at which people can communicate, the line between work and play becomes more and more blurry. In today’s world, it’s not uncommon for people to respond to work emails on their smartphones or tablets while on holiday, nor is it uncommon for travelers to add small vacations onto their business or corporate travel bookings.

This merging of business and leisure travel, also known as bleisure travel, is a somewhat recent development in the market share of today’s travel industry customer, though it’s a segment that’s growing exceptionally fast with great potential impact on how travel companies position products and services. According to a recent study by BridgeStreet Global Hospitality, more than 60 percent of travelers reported merging business and leisure travel in the last year, with 30 percent of respondents adding at least two additional days to their trip.