Trends in Travel and Tourism

People will travel less, spend more within next few years!

Within the next few years, people are going to be travelling less but expecting more from their travel experience. This is the view of Damian Cook, Founder and MD of E-Tourism Frontiers, an initiative aimed at developing online tourism in emerging markets.

“People are not going to be content with just a holiday. They are going to expect a lot more and spend more. It’s about delivering high-value experiences and this factor is critical to how people market their travel products.”

Cook said that online tourism in general had fared well during the recession – it dropped by the least and came back most. He said it could be attributed to two things – online is where markets are headed. It is becoming the predominant channel for bookings. And when people are economically threatened, the Internet is a good tool for comparing prices.

Integration of social media into other elements like reviews is another important trend, according to Cook. “A lot more is happening in terms of merging of people’s web activity as far as social media is concerned. Individuals showing articles they have read and videos they have watched on their Facebook page, and allowing their audience to access that, carry a lot more weight when it comes directly from a trusted network of friends.”

He said when it came to reviews, hoteliers could be resistant to sites like Tripadvisor, because they think the advice is often too broad, and question how trusted the people writing reviews are. Now, Tripadvisor is integrating more Facebook content on to its website, and individuals can see their friends’ reviews, which adds a lot more value when it comes from people they know.

Another key trend in online tourism is that it has shifted away from text and become more visually focused. Cook says more and more people are posting videos and images on social networks, and when one looks at the rate of engagement in terms of people liking, commenting and sharing, it has become much higher than text.

This is also shifting into other areas. “Search, for example, is becoming more visually driven and you are seeing a lot of visual content in search results, and more visually driven websites and social networking sites such as Pinterest are emerging.”

He said, as a result of this shift, a new phenomenon had emerged in the online travel industry known as the inspiration engine. An increasing number of travel sites are being created that use a lot of visual content to get people interested and inspired, and use that as a means to find suppliers who can provide that service. “We will see a lot more visual search, and a lot more referrals and conversion as a result. Online travel sites are no longer about just showing the destination but about driving referrals and business.”

Another key trend is the greater integration of social media in mobile and the huge impact it is having on travel. “It has created ‘vicarious travel’. An increasing number of people are travelling with smartphones, they are getting access to ideally free Wi-Fi in hotels, and they are using that to post to social networks while they travel. Last year, 72% of Americans were posting updates on Facebook at least once a day while they were travelling.”

Cook said what this was creating was a real shift in marketing influence. “In terms of Facebook, every traveller has his/her own potential audience of people watching them on a daily basis while they travel. Each tourist who posts this information is in essence becoming a blogger to their own personal audience.”

When tourists bring in check-in mobile applications, they are also able to refer their audience to the hotels and attractions they are using.

“It’s a fundamental change, as this creates direct user-generated content and marketing. When you look at what people rate as being the key influences on them for travel, the number-one influence is the Internet and number two is friends and family. These two factors are now being combined in a literal and instant way,” he concluded.