Technological innovation will alleviate the stress of travel while simultaneously providing a richer travel experience, Amadeus reports in a new study, "From Chaos to Collaboration." Transformative technologies and evolving social values and trends will combine to establish a new era of collaborative travel over the next decade and beyond, Amadeus notes.
The new report concludes that there will be demand for increased partnership across the travel industry, in turn removing the stress, uncertainty and chaos that is usually associated with traveling in the 21st Century, as well as providing much richer, deeper and more personal travel experiences, Amadeus says.
The report details a vision of how travel may be transformed by 2020, Amadeus notes. Key findings cover many aspects of travel, including what tomorrow’s travel experience might look like; removing travel stress; and the rise of technologies that will enable automatic transit, payment with memory and intelligent recommendation, among them.
The report is based on extensive research and input from key industry experts and travelers from around the world – including in the U.S., UK, Brazil, China, Russia, Spain and United Arab Emirates, Amadeus reports.
Results cited by Amadeus include:
- 47 percent of respondents were happy to provide personal data to a company if it means more personalized service
- 89 percent said that an integrated travel service that provides transportation every step of the way is at least somewhat appealing
- 59 percent of business travelers (46% of leisure travelers) want a “home away from home” when traveling
Key findings cited by Amadeus:
- The next generation of experience: Travel is increasingly about depth rather than breadth of experience. Technologies such as smart mobile devices will transform the travel experience.
- Automatic transit: Checking in could become the exception rather than the norm, with the rise of faster and more efficient identity management systems. Chips, biometrics, long range fingerprinting and near field communications (NFC) can be deployed in a more integrated way to fast-forward how people move around.
- Payment with memory: All data on payments made before and during a trip will be integrated, acting as a digital memory of expenditure and activity for individuals, groups and travel industry operators. Intelligent passenger records, ‘digital breadcrumbs’ and contactless technologies could be used to personalize and bundle services, delivering higher value and more profitable relationships.
- Intelligent recommendation: As technologies make it easier for people to tag and review all aspects of travel experiences, travelers will be more influenced by peer groups and expert curators. The prospect of personal travel guides and mobile tour representatives will give travelers the tools they need to enrich their experience.
- Taking the stress out of travel: The wellbeing agenda and changing demographics will place greater emphasis on removing travel stress. Intelligent luggage tags and tickets will give greater reassurance while m-Health (mobile-Health) applications will allow travelers to manage and monitor their health and wellbeing as if they were at home.
- The business tourist: Continued emphasis on work-life balance and wellbeing at work may see the rise of the business tourist, which will demand speed and efficiency as well as a home-away-from-home.
“Over the next decade, there is a significant opportunity to redefine how the industry delivers and packages services to meet changing traveler needs. Key to this is more intelligent information exchange, a willingness to challenge the status quo and greater two-way partnership between travelers and travel players. We are committed to stimulating debate within the travel sector about how the world is changing, what travelers will increasingly expect and how the industry can evolve in a way that secures growth and profitability for our customers’ future success,” said Eberhard Haag, executive vice president, global operations, Amadeus.
Developed by The Futures Company and commissioned by Amadeus, the report details a clear qualitative shift, Amadeus notes "where service-users become partners rather than customers and where context is as important as the transaction. At the heart of this new era of collaboration is a set of discrete ‘enabling’ technologies and innovations."
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