Megatrends Shaping the Future of Travel Industry in 2020 and Beyond

To be prosperous in a fast-moving industry like tourism means never standing still.

Today’s travelers’ demands are tomorrow’s history. Smart travel operators are those that relentlessly peer through the horizon to spot the trends that play a central role in shaping the industry.

Analysts and forecasts are already looking at various significant megatrends such as evolving traveler demands, travel mobility and expediency, sustainable tourism, and enabling technologies.

We join this bandwagon to pick the five megatrends in the travel industry that will shape 2020 and years to come!

Last Minute Bookings Will Increase

With the increase in mobile technologies and smartphone use, it is projected that last-minute bookings will increase.

This shift will make it difficult for the unprepared operators to plan resources and staffing in advance, and most successes will only be dependent on the weather.

Reports from TrekkSoft Data show that people typically make bookings 13 days in advance, but with the rise of mobile use, this will narrow down to only five or fewer days.

Only companies with live availability, strong marketing, and local partnerships can be able to offset this trend.

Technology Use Will Surge

For businesses in the travel industry, as well as their customers, technology use will continue to play a major role.

Futuristic innovations in 2020 and years ahead will have the capacity to increase the efficiency of business operation and customer experiences to unprecedented new levels.

Some of the most exciting and emerging travel technologies include the Internet of Things (IoT), Recognition Technology, Virtual Reality (VR), Robotics, Augmented Reality (AR), and Artificial Intelligence (AI). 

Even the teams in the basketball and football odds (NBA and NFL) are using AI to track the players’ performances.

Travel operators, hotels, and other firms operating within the tourism industry will make use of AI to accurately and continuously sort out data.

This will considerably help these institutions draw conclusions about their business performance, which will ultimately enable them to improve customer satisfaction.

Trends show that robotics will also be used, especially for pre-screening intending, to make waiting times more prolific for clients.

Perhaps more excitingly, VR, AR, and Recognition technologies will be more exciting in this industry.

With virtual reality, tours and travel-related businesses will be allowed to digitally transport customers to a virtual reflection of specific places.

This will afford such companies to showcase their products, travel destinations, hotel rooms, and tour hotspots on their sites to encourage booking.

Augmented reality is similar to VR, but entails augmenting a client’s real surrounding rather than replacing them. The great thing about this tech is that it is cheaper and requires only a mobile device and internet connectivity.

Through graphical outlays, travel operators can be able to majorly enhance customer experience by providing valuable information in some of the best ways possible.

Recognition technologies such as fingerprint and facial recognition, retina scanning, and other biometric identifies are also projected to play a significant role in bookings, payments, and identification in the future of tourism.

If you add big data, robotics, and other space-age technologies to this mix, it is correct to say that tech will be a fact of life in modern tourism management.

Personalization Remains Top Priority

Whether you are a tour company, hotel manager, or airline operator, understanding how to extract customer insights and customize their experience will remain vital in 2020 and beyond.

Businesses that want to be successful must anticipate customers’ needs, previous challenges, and proactively address these needs and challenges using data, analytics, as well as business intelligence.

Alongside effective marketing, personalization will apply in every aspect of the clients’ tour experience.

The customers continue to expect experiences that closely match their individual preferences, from accommodations to destinations, and kinds of activities that they will engage in.

The more closely an operator can tailor-make clients’ expectations and desires, the more likely they will return.

Nomadic Tourism On the Rise

Globe Trender 2020 report that by 2027, more than 50% of the US workforce will be freelancers up from 35% in 2018. This trend is also projected in other parts of the world where workers can work at any time, from anywhere in the world.

This means that more people than ever will become location-independent, and would not need holiday leaves to vacation anywhere in the world.

The principal implication of this emergent trend is that many millennials and younger persons are seeking unfixed habitations as well as living and vacation milieus.

This new-fangled type of travel, nomadic tourism, is also associated with adventure travel that unites eco-sensitivity, unfixed habitation, and great adventure.

Space Tourism Will Become More Common  

Space tourism has experienced numerous false downs, but 2020 may be the year it becomes a reality.  

It’s believed that next year will set the stage for what has been a development work of over two decades of space tourism; commercial sub-orbital flights will be completed, and later on, intergalactic hotels.

In fact, the first commercial trip to space is expected to take place anywhere between 2020 and 2021, with tickets costing about US$250,000 and about 700 customers already offered deposits!

from Feedster https://www.feedster.com/travel/megatrends-shaping-the-future-of-travel-industry-in-2020-and-beyond/