'Shareable' Travel Experiences Will be the Next Trend
The future of travelers is that they will gradually prefer to purchase and consume travel experiences on the basis of how shareable they are or how much capital they generate via social networks.
This, according to a recent study conducted by travel and tourism IT provider, Amadeus, will be the next trend over the next 15 years or by 2030.
Amadeus started its Philippine operations in 1997 and is currently the preferred global distribution service provider of travel agencies in the country.
According to Amadeus South East Asia distribution commercial Asia Pacific head Albert Villadolid, travelers “have more power than ever before.”
“They want to be recognized and served as individuals, not just as a demographic profile of age, nationality and income,” Villadolid said.
“By 2030, hyper-customization will be the default expectation among many travelers,” he added.
Hyper-customization or hyper-personalization, according to a global promotions agency is a tool used by companies to collect information about their customers. It works in such a way that data is used to provide targeted products, services, and customer loyalty through a type of customization.
Six types
Villadolid also remarked that travelers will be divided into six categories namely social capital, cultural purist, ethical, simplicity searchers, obligation meeters, and reward hunters.
“For the travel industry, this signals a pressing need to truly understand these emerging traveler tribes and make the right investment decisions now to gear towards future traveler preferences," Villadolid pointed out.
Villadolid described social capital seekers as travelers who will structure their holidays almost exclusively with online audiences in mind, relying heavily on peer reviews and recommendations to validate their decisions.
Meanwhile, the cultural purist will look at holiday travel as a chance to immerse in an alien culture where enjoyment depends on the authenticity of the experience.
He said that the ethical traveler will on the other hand, make travel plans based on moral grounds where they will often add some element of volunteering, community development, or eco-sustainable activity to their travels.
The simplicity searchers, he added, will prefer bundled offers, seeking to avoid managing trip details, expecting to be pampered, and being assured of their safety.
Obligation meters will be driven by a specific purpose for travel whether business or leisure and will have time and budget constraints, and finally reward hunters will crave for extraordinary rewards or premium experience as a return on their hard earned investment of time and energy in the work place.
Villadolid said that Amadeus expects that by 2030 more than 1.80 billion will travel internationally annually and what motivates individuals how they behave will be radically different.
He further said that the company is working closely with customers and partners including in the Philippines to drive the conversation to be able to better recognize these travel and tourism trends.
“The more we understand the future, the better chance we have to shape it,” Villadolid said. (PNA)FPV/Azer N. Parrocha
