There are 50 kinds of cereal in the supermarket. So many tasty options on Uber Eats. So many TV shows to choose from, and before you can even pick one you first have to choose between Netflix, Apple TV+, Disney+, and more.

And for every purchase you make, once you hit ā€˜buyā€™ the FOMO on all the choices you didnā€™t make is real.

And sure, these arenā€™t necessarily bad problems. Having options is, of course, a privilege. But decision fatigue is something that modern travel businesses need to keep in mind.

Why? Because in the past 10 years, the number of travel products available to buy has exploded ā€” rising from 500 in 2010 to 10,000 in 2024, according to ĄÖ²„“«Ć½ estimates.ā€ÆThis abundance of choice is largely being driven by NDC.

Every one of us has spent way more time than weā€™d like researching and booking a vacation. Flicking between apps, entering the same search multiple times, and eventually reverting to multiple browser tabs on a laptop to be able to compare the best picks side by side.

Recent studies suggest that having can be demotivating. So, itā€™s unrealistic to assume travelers will spend valuable hours comparing multiple versions of ā€˜premium economyā€™, infinite pairings of timings and price, and over 10,000 branded products from the worldā€™s top 250 airlines.

And of course, shoppers do like having some choices. Itā€™s just that thereā€™s so much on offer today, theyā€™re now exhausted and struggling to make decisions. We cover this in more detail in our recent Trends 2025 research.

Thatā€™s why, at ĄÖ²„“«Ć½, we believe travel agencies have a defining role to play in the modern retailing movement. Only agencies can offer customers both the choice that they crave AND the curation needed to cut through the volume of options that NDC is introducing.

Weā€™re supporting that through our revolutionary AI-powered content curation layer, which refines results for billions of trip options and consolidates everything in one place.

Travel is a joy. Booking it should be too. And that requires the right platform to give bamboozled shoppers the clarity, curation, and comparison functionality they need to make a confident choice.

about curation capabilities on ĄÖ²„“«Ć½+

The post Less is more appeared first on ĄÖ²„“«Ć½.

Jack, thanks for joining us.

What do you think travel businesses can gain by looking at whatā€™s happening in retailing in other industries?

Cross-sector learnings are incredibly valuable for the travel industry. Right now thereā€™s a ton of overlap between travel and sectors like banking, fashion, or consumer goods. If you can tap into the trends and patterns happening elsewhere, it could help spot opportunities that others havenā€™t yet explored. By taking this kind of ā€˜outside-inā€™ perspective, you can unroot seeds of ideas you wonā€™t necessarily find in the usual places.

Thereā€™s so much rapid change happening in the world of retail today. How do you think this is impacting consumer sentiment?

Weā€™ve spent most of human history making decisions with a pretty limited set of options. Buying things used to require minimal effort, because there were only a small number of choices available. But in recent years weā€™ve gone from zero to a hundred in almost no time at all. We now evaluate more brands for everything we buy ā€” clothing, groceries, travel too. This does something huge to our brains.

Look at some of the biggest retail players now ā€” not just Amazon, but the likes of Shein, Temu, TikTok Shop. If you go into the Shein app for example, youā€™ll never see the same items twice. Basically itā€™s an infinite loop of products. We havenā€™t been trained to manage that as consumers, and weā€™re frantically trying to adapt.

What does that mean for travel?

Travel, like other industries, is trying to deal with saturation, and itā€™s really important that businesses understand the ramifications for shoppers. They need to do whatever they can to make sure the joy of booking a trip doesn’t become incredibly stressful, purely because we have too many options.

In the fashion world youā€™ll see brands like Wolf and Badger enjoying huge success because theyā€™ve actually reduced the number of choices they offer. On a bigger scale, weā€™re seeing the likes of Amazon and Temu area addressing this challenge using data and highly targeted personalization to make sure customers get tailored options every time.

Letā€™s stay on the topic of decision-making for a second. Why do you think people find booking trips so overwhelming?

Travel is a really significant purchase, and often comes with a lot of pressure to get it right. Especially in a world where our disposable incomes are shrinking, relatively speaking. Consumers today often want experiences more than material things, but the financial stakes have been raised, as have their expectations. What Iā€™m seeing again and again is that shoppers of all ages are investing more money in experiences than material things than ever before.

The difference now is that there’s just more riding on those purchases. That might be because thereā€™s more information available to us now, or that weā€™re seeing othersā€™ lives more through social media. Regardless, the outcome is the sameā€” the fear of missing out is huge.

What role can travel agencies can play in alleviating that stress?

Unlike other industries, travel consumers are lucky because there IS a party that can help guide consumers through the confusion. And that is, of course, travel agencies. You donā€™t get that in fashion (unless youā€™ve got a personal shopper, which is rare). Travel businesses curate something for the customer that helps them manage saturation. By presenting the right information to the customer at the right times, they can make informed decisions. And that leads to good experiences, great reviews, and long-term loyalty.

That leads us nicely onto a point from ĄÖ²„“«Ć½ā€™s recent research ā€” ā€˜consumer washingā€™. What are your thoughts on that?

ā€˜Consumer washingā€™ is a great term. What strikes me is that it seems to have become easier and more normalized for businesses to pull the wool over peopleā€™s eyes, disguising profit-making strategies as ways to serve consumers better. The reason itā€™s happening more now is because retailing has become more chaotic.

Think about it ā€” there are more businesses than ever, selling via more channels, using more advertising. This creates a framework where itā€™s easier for businesses to flood customers with different claims. The rules of the game remain the same, but with all this choice overload, itā€™s become easier for businesses to get away with it.

How are consumers responding to this trend?

Customers are becoming increasingly suspicious, no matter the industry. Theyā€™re actively looking out for tricks, reading reviews, etc. And when they feel wronged, they share their opinions online and so, the cycle continues. This is why transparent pricing is so important. Any doubt in the customer’s mind about whether the price is the actual price is another layer of stress, another reason to not book. Transparent pricing is a way to establish a sense of trust.

When it comes to improving the customer experience, who can travel can learn most from?

One example is legacy banking, which has been massively simplified through digital disruptors and now offers a much better customer experience as a result. We see that in retail to some extent. The heart of the growth behind e-commerce, mobile commerce, buying through apps is just the simplification of processes. Most consumer studies show that convenience is priority number one. Sure, price is always there ā€” but convenience is massive.

In banking it was about removing barriers ā€” Monzo, Revolutā€¦they were able to spot ways to speed things up and make it more convenient. Sure, there’s a whole front-end thing they did to jazz it up and make it feel younger, there’s a big marketing piece around that. But fundamentally what people liked about FinTech at the beginning ā€” and probably what people still really like ā€” is that it was quicker, simpler, more convenient.

What would travel need to do to make that happen?

You canā€™t really underestimate the importance of having a very modern and infrastructurally sound tech stack. Businesses have great ideas, and legacy retailers have brilliant ideas all the time, they just can’t do them because the tech stack isn’t in place to give them that freedom to overcome legacy issues.

If you want to be that fast growing, fast moving, modern looking and feeling brand, your tech stack has to be sound and reliable, so that you can be agile and flexible and innovative. Without that, it doesn’t matter if you have the best creative ideas. But, like ĄÖ²„“«Ć½ says in the recent research, itā€™s broader than just technology that needs to change. Itā€™s a mindset shift, too.

Whatā€™s your take on all the recent AI hype?

What people often overlook is that predictive AI has already been doing great things for businesses, for a long time, making things more efficient, (sometimes) cheaper, and more convenient. And those great things can continue to be supercharged as AI gets better. Data analysis is a big area of opportunity in this sense.

But now we’ve got this public-facing idea of generative AI in the mix too, and customers are still trying to figure out what they should be doing with it. We’re basically all learning as we go, which is fun, but also means that a lot of people are getting it wrong. Some people are overestimating the value. Some people are underestimating the value. It can be fun, it can be scary, but we’re all figuring this out at exactly the same time.

Where are you seeing the best use cases of AI in retailing?

We’ve seen lots of cases where generative AI has been used, for example, in chatbots to help create more sophisticated, automated customer service. For instance, IKEA invests massively in this, and it solves 90% of people’s customer service issues. They then had way more scope to retrain that staff to become interior designers, improving their skill sets, helping more customers.

Within travel, I can absolutely see the potential for generative AI to do really interesting, imaginative, and creative things. Not to just automate and speed up processes, but to make services great, and even very human-like. We have to accept that reality, and that is quite possibly where we’ll get to.

Where do you see AI having most value for travel?

Thereā€™s the obvious answer in that it can help simplify things and help businesses spot new opportunities and so on. I think the other potential value of AI in travel, and we’ve seen this in lots of different industries, is streamlining different sources of information, so things are technically easier to manage.

In that sense, I think AI can really support better search and NDC in a multitude of ways. And while there are many examples of AI being merged into search, all that really matters is the end result. This way, the customer gets more personalized and relevant information faster, which was always the goal of search engines from the beginning.

What other retailing trends could we see coming to travel?

One example from ĄÖ²„“«Ć½ā€™s research is subscription services, which have grown hugely in popularity in the past five years. And the reason why is that people have increasingly less time. Subscription boxes like HelloFresh feeds into the idea that youā€™re solving for a busier life. We also can’t deny the significance of COVID. Itā€™s not like the idea of subscription didn’t exist before then, but it exploded during COVID as people were subscribing to everything ā€” from bacon, to pet food, to toilet roll.

Toilet roll? Really?

Thatā€™s right. A business that’s absolutely killing it is the Australian toilet paper company . Five, ten years ago this would have seemed crazy, but it’s been a massive success and they’re now one of the three biggest players in that little corner of retail. Their marketing is amazing, but more interestingly, this trend points to the idea that customers now are willing to subscribe to almost anything if itā€™s convenient. It goes back to the earlier point about how busy modern life really is.

What do you think that says about modern consumers?

I wonder if it points to the lure of membership. I see a lot of customers really wear on their sleeve that they subscribe to a craft beer company or coffee company for example. It’s almost an identity thing. Costco is another one. Itā€™s basically the world’s biggest membership organization and makes like five billion dollars a year before theyā€™ve even sold any products. Why? Because of that annual membership you paid to get the discounts on products. It’s not just about the money savings. Itā€™s like being in a big club or something.

Do you think that identity piece extends to travel too?

Absolutely. Travel very much forms part of someone’s identity, much more so than bacon or pet food (or toilet roll). Travel is part of culture and an individualā€™s personality. I think the idea of a travel subscription really makes sense to a modern customer because it tells the world, “I’m a traveler and I go to lots of different places. I have my finger on the pulse about where to go next and therefore what the best deals are.”

Jack, finally, what does ā€˜modern retailingā€™ mean to you?

My opinion is that, ultimately, itā€™s about the customer. And thatā€™s a viewpoint I know ĄÖ²„“«Ć½ shares too. At the end of the day, people vote with their wallets, so businesses in every industry need to be focusing on giving them what they need. And being mindful that that will continue to evolve ā€” so too must retailing continue to evolve. And whatever kind of transformation you go through, everyone has to feel like they’re part of that transformation.

Want the full set of insights from ĄÖ²„“«Ć½’s latest consumer research?

GET THE REPORT

The post Retailing: from the outside in appeared first on ĄÖ²„“«Ć½.

In travel, the buzz so far has mostly been about how AI can do the heavy lifting in customer service. Which is music to the ears of the many travel agencies who have been seriously understaffed since the pandemic. GenAI has been received with mixed feelings in that respect. Those that implement it well and at the right point sing its praises, and those that have been on the end of a Chatbot that can’t seem to help them feel very differently about it. But suggests it alone could unlock $2-4 trillion of incremental value across various sectors in this industry.

But the generative tools are just the beginning. More broadly, AI is set to be the biggest disruptive force in our lifetime. At ĄÖ²„“«Ć½, weā€™ve identified a huge new opportunity to use AI beyond customer service and solve a different, yet equally big challenge. Which is: trip search and curation. Iā€™m going to share more with you about it here. And donā€™t worry, this isnā€™t going to be one of those clickbaity AI articles that just promises whatā€™s to come. Iā€™m going to tell you about something thatā€™s real, and available right now.

ANSWERING BIG QUESTIONS, FASTER

Ultimately, AI exists to solve problems. Done right, it lets us skip over unfulfilling tasks and makes us happier, more productive, wealthier, less stressed, etc. Google changed the world because it made it easier and faster to get answers to difficult or nuanced questions. Travel now has an opportunity to do something similar.

Our latest customer research shone a spotlight on the fact that shopping for travel has become incredibly difficult and time consuming, while the inability to compare results is now one of the biggest bug bears for bookers today. Whatā€™s causing this? Well, only ten years ago, there were far fewer airlines, car rental companies, and ways to get hotel content. Combine that with the explosion of offers arising from NDC, and you can see how the world of travel retailing is a very different place today, with more content, and more product options than anyone could ever imagine.

And though having choices is absolutely a good thing, it canā€™t come at the expense of making it easy to find the right offers and make good decisions. The good news is that AI can now help alleviate these challenges. And at ĄÖ²„“«Ć½ weā€™ve just introduced some really exciting new AI search controls to do that. Hereā€™s a closer look at what they can do for you.

NEW AI-POWERED SEARCH TOOLS

As AI goes mainstream, people canā€™t wait to see the futuristic things it can do. And while it is already making things easier in many respects, the travel industry has more work to do on more fundamental aspects of retailing in order to deliver a really satisfying retailing experience that keeps people coming back for more.

So, when we think about the future of AI in travel, at ĄÖ²„“«Ć½ we believe the conversation should now go beyond the potential for GenAI tools. And instead, focus on the opportunity to enhance accuracy, relevance, and efficiency in search, and improve the ability to sell and service trips as part of the overall experience. So, without further ado, I present to you our new AI-powered search tools.

CONTENT CURATION LAYER

What it is: NDC has created a lot more product choice, which is great, but itā€™s also made it harder for agents to find and cross-compare options from different content sources. And sifting through offers from a variety of channels ā€” traditional distribution systems, NDC, aggregators, and direct connections ā€” can be time-consuming and expensive.

The new Content Curation Layer within ĄÖ²„“«Ć½+ uses AI to simplify the volume of travel offers all in one place. It serves up only the most relevant options for customers, removes duplicate content, and filters out irrelevant offers, so agents can focus on increasing conversions.

This offers you:

• Smarter searches that deliver enriched and transparent offers from any source that are easy to compare like-for-like
• De-duplicated offers reducing the clutter on screen, and presenting your customers with only the best and most profitable options
• Faster results with an impressive average response time of 1.07 seconds

CONTENT OPTIMIZER

What it is: Content Optimizer is a rules-based engine that allows agencies to control what traditional air and NDC offers appears on screen to better align with your business goals and your customer expectations. In a split second, it reduces the number of offers into what makes sense for the consumer (most relevant, no duplicates) and what makes most sense for the agent.

This offers you:

• More conversions when you deliver the optimum offer to the right traveler at the right time
• More traveler satisfaction when expectations are met, benefitting everyone in the retailing and supply chain.

HOW WILL THIS CHANGE WAY AGENTS SEARCH?

Until now, agents using legacy technology have been forced to search for travel offers through very disparate, separate pipelines ā€” NDC or EDIFACT ā€” and cross check them against each other. Now, Content Curation Layer means agents are shown a complete list of results from any source, with the content ā€˜de-duplicatedā€™, and only the most suitable and valuable offers are shown.

Just like customer service, this isnā€™t about using AI to replace humans. Itā€™s about using AI to take care of the basics so agents can concentrate on the higher-value aspects of retailing. And in the search space, this represents a big opportunity for more upsell and cross-sell.

With less time spent searching, agents have more scope to understand customer needs. And, because the tools drive sales toward preferable, more profitable offers, this tees up more chances to earn more through throughout the booking, like premium seating, upgrades, ancillaries, etc. Plus, because everything is presented on an easy-to-use interface, itā€™s easy to deliver the right offer to the right traveler at the right time, or set up long/short term campaigns to meet specific business objectives.

Sounds good, right? Well, hereā€™s the really good news. These new tools are already live ā€” you donā€™t need to do anything apart from log in to ĄÖ²„“«Ć½+ to use them. And weā€™re not stopping at NDC and EDIFACT, weā€™re going to keep working to put forward more relevant and faster sets of search results across even more content types.

WHATā€™S NEXT? USING AI TO CLOSE THE FEEDBACK LOOP FOR SEARCH

Travelā€™s journey with AI is just beginning, and thereā€™s much more innovation on the horizon. In the next few years, just as weā€™re going to see customer service get better and be less cumbersome. Weā€™re also going to see way more happening in the search space, with an even greater ability to understand what a customer is really asking for. We think thatā€™s one of the most exciting things that AI can offer ā€” the ability to understand, learn from and predict detailed traveler needs.

AI brings with it a new capacity to continuously monitor vast datasets and use deep learning to identify market trends, demand signals, and consumer behavior ā€” not just for initial ticket purchases, but also for ancillary products and value-added services. This unlocks new value from data in ways that were previously difficult to achieve, and with that comes new opportunities for everyone in the travel ecosystem over time.

As we refine the data models, technology will give better answers because it will better understand. Thereā€™s going to be more potential to help suppliers understand what sells and what doesnā€™t. And ultimately, better intelligence, better access to data, and better tools will change and enhance relationships that exist between sellers and buyers. With that will also come a larger emphasis on standardization, however. So, weā€™ll continue looking at AI hand in hand with data science and data models to make sure that each remains as good and as powerful as the other.

AN OPPORTUNITY FOR TRAVEL TO BE AMAIZING

I promised earlier this wouldnā€™t be one of those clickbait AI articles that are all hype and no delivery. And I hope that youā€™re now as excited as we are about the new AI-powered tools out now on ĄÖ²„“«Ć½+. Theyā€™re already making searching for a trip feel much closer to the experience offered by Google, Spotify, or other AI-first companies, and freeing up a ton more time to focus on the things that matter.

The evolution of AI really is such an exciting development for our industry. Itā€™s a moment in time where new opportunities are materializing in front of our eyes, and thereā€™s so much potential to apply AI beyond customer service. This will undoubtedly be a huge area of focus for modern retailing over the coming years, and ĄÖ²„“«Ć½ will keep using AI to remain the best multi-source content aggregator in the industry.

Click here to find out more about our new AI-powered search tools Content Curation Layer and Content Optimizer.

The post Introducing: AI-Powered Search appeared first on ĄÖ²„“«Ć½.

The 7 Wonders Challenge was a true test of the power of our technology. If you donā€™t already know what itā€™s about, hereā€™s the deal. We asked an agency partner, Travelbag, to plan a route to get our hero from the Great Wall of China to ChichĆ©n ItzĆ” in Mexico ā€” plus every Wonder in between ā€” in less than one week. All powered by ĄÖ²„“«Ć½+.

And now that itā€™s all over (and weā€™ve got a world record under our belt), everyoneā€™s asking the same thing: how did we do it? Hereā€™s a few technology secrets from behind the scenes.Ģż

SOPHISTICATED SEARCH, ON SMARTPOINT CLOUD

When youā€™re planning a trip like this youā€™re faced with no one single airline that can take you to all the destinations on the itinerary. And because every minute counts, you have to find the fastest, simplest, and most reliable route.

Travelbag planned this trip using Smartpoint Cloud, the modern retailing interface that connects agents to ĄÖ²„“«Ć½+. On it, agents could see all the flight options in one single interface, saving a ton of time and energy searching and comparing.

Plus, itā€™s integrated search functionality took all the various combinations, put them together, and scored them ā€” including low cost carriers, NDC content, and private fares. For the planning stage, this combination of choice and convenient search really was critical.

Flight search on ĄÖ²„“«Ć½+

ALL THE DETAILS, IN ONE HANDY PLACE

Keeping customers up to date is tricky for agents, even on straightforward trips. Itā€™s just the nature of travel ā€” things change and people do unexpected things. But when you’re doing something as big as setting a world record, you need everything to run like clockwork. AND thereā€™s a lot to contend with: time zone differences, flight changes, or just having no WiFi.

Trip Quote on ĄÖ²„“«Ć½+

We needed crystal clear, real-time communication throughout the entire journey. Thatā€™s where Trip Quote on ĄÖ²„“«Ć½+ came in. Using this automated, online tool, Travelbag could send any updates to Adventureman easily, keeping him informed no matter what.

Trip Quote consolidated his flight and hotel details in one designated, easily accessible place. And thatā€™s super valuable when youā€™re sprinting from one Wonder to the next, or when youā€™re really down to the wire getting through a busy airport.

UNEXPECTED CHANGES? NO PROBLEM

On a massive trip like the 7 Wonders Challenge, something on the journey was bound to go awry. A combination of heavy traffic in Rome and Adventureman going to the wrong terminal caused him to miss a crucial connecting flight along the way. To stop this ruining our world-record attempt, Travelbag needed to find a solution quick snap.

Luckily, ĄÖ²„“«Ć½+ has an easy exchange capability, so the agent could find and book a new flight quickly, without a bunch of manual entries. Obviously in this case the agency had to react under extraordinary time-pressure, but things like this happen every day working in travel.

When something unexpected changes, customers need agentā€™s help to get things resolved immediately. Having the right technology ā€” that enables a rapid response and supports you in the crunch times ā€” is what makes or breaks a really good customer experience.

Easy flight exchanges on ĄÖ²„“«Ć½+

STAYING ONE STEP AHEAD

The challenge for Travelbag was not only to react to changes outside their control, but also to constantly be looking for changes that could save time here and there. After all, even ten minutes difference could make or break this record-setting attempt. The agency had to stay one step ahead the whole time, and ĄÖ²„“«Ć½+ helped them do it.

Using Productivity Automator, a tool on ĄÖ²„“«Ć½+, they could see if new flights or a better option became available, pre-trip and during the trip too. Travelbag could set up various rules and automations to flag when a better flight became available somewhere on the itinerary.

Just like how Google Maps will proactively tell you if it finds a faster way to your destination, Productivity Automator anticipates the best options when there’s millions of different alternatives and things change continuously. And this meant Travelbag didn’t have to keep manually searching for ways to optimize time, and they could detect changes automatically.

Productivity Automator on ĄÖ²„“«Ć½+

EVERYTHING ON MOBILE

Travel is fast-paced, especially if youā€™re running late. Adventureman was on the go all the time, he couldnā€™t stop and fire up a computer to check an itinerary or make changes. Having everything to hand was critical, and so Trip Manager played a huge role on this trip.

It puts all of the power of our modern tools onto mobile, allowing the customer to make changes with a few taps. Adventureman could pick seats with extra leg-room. Or add bags when he bought too many souvenirs. Which came in pretty handy, when he picked up a giant stuffed llama for his daughter at Machu Picchu.

Accessibility and convenience on all devices is something that modern travelers expect now. Sure, the 7 Wonders Challenge is an extreme example, and customers wonā€™t always be so tight on time. But broadly speaking, you canā€™t overstate the power of having everything you need in the palm of your hand.

Trip Manager on ĄÖ²„“«Ć½+

HOTEL REQUESTS, HANDLED

After seven days of nonstop, round-the-clock, round-the-world travel, Adventureman really needed (and deserved) a good nightā€™s sleep. He got just 12 hours shut-eye in seven days, so you can imagine how tired he was by the time he reached the final stop in Mexico. We wanted him to finish off the trip by staying somewhere really special. And he had a few specific asks (a pool, a room with a view, and a great restaurant). After all, itā€™s not every day you set a world record.

So having all of that detail on hotels options was essential during booking. With hotel search in Smartpoint Cloud, the agency could access detailed property information, like room attributes, maps, photographs, and comparative rates, to choose the perfect property.

And itā€™s not just Adventureman. More and more, modern travelers want agencies to help them with hotel as well as flight tickets. Those who do it well, get the rewards.

Hotel Search on ĄÖ²„“«Ć½+

CONSCIOUS OPTIONS CONSIDERED

Sustainability is one of ĄÖ²„“«Ć½ā€™s driving philosophies, so getting that right for 7 Wonders was critical from the beginning.Ģż We know that travelers today want to see sustainable options on their trips.

Our recent research on what consumers want found that 84% will pay more for environmentally friendly travel options. So ĄÖ²„“«Ć½+ is arming modern agency retailers to deal with these changing demands. On Smartpoint Cloud, you can get integrated flight emissions data in every search.

So, whenever you look for a flight, you see not only the price and duration, you also see the carbon emissions.ĢżWe could take this into account for Adventuremanā€™s trip, and so too can customers/agents when making choices or building itineraries.

Environmental search on ĄÖ²„“«Ć½+

A RECORDā€“SETTING PLATFORM

I’m beyond proud that ĄÖ²„“«Ć½+ powered this challenge. This was truly one of the biggest asks Iā€™ve ever seen. Just look at the numbers: four continents, nine countries, 13 flights, and 29 ground transport trips to cover 22,856 miles in 6 days, 16 hours and 14 minutes.Ģż Itā€™s staggering.

Nothing exemplifies modern travel retailing more than a record-setting itinerary like this. Because modern travel is all about rising to the challenge, making things easier for everyone.

This challenge proved that epic adventures ā€” even really, really complex ones ā€” can be made possible with the right tools by your side. And Travelbag had just that, with ĄÖ²„“«Ć½+.

The post The platform that works wonders appeared first on ĄÖ²„“«Ć½.

This isnā€™t going to be another one of those articles that starts with pointing out that the internet changed everything, and not just because it started by claiming not to be one of those articles. Weā€™re all past that. Innovation, change in habits, etc.

But since, yes, the internet changed everything, it would be shocking if it had somehow missed retailing. Some changes are tectonic and obvious ā€” for example, Amazon exists while Woolworths [in the UK] no longer does.

But beyond the evolution of e-commerce, the fact is that retailing innovation has caused consumer expectations to similarly evolve and retailers who want to thrive must understand what modern consumers need of them.ĢżRetailers must understand modern in order to be able to become modern. That dual meaning is behind my companyā€™s message to travel retailers: itā€™s time to Get Modern.

Why does travel need to get modern?

There are retailers out there that everyone can learn something from, no matter what industry youā€™re in. But letā€™s focus on travel, which has, arguably, had good reason to be slower to innovate because of its complexity.

As much as people love to travel, our industry isnā€™t frequently praised for its retailing experience.ĢżFrom the drawn-out research process, to winnowing down booking choices, to difficultly assembling a single itinerary across multiple purchase points, to the burdensome exchange/refund process, getting modern, and thereby meeting customer expectations, is crucial.

The key thing customers want of modern retailing is simplicity, and the main reasons they want it is to save time and gain transparency.

What do modern customers want?

When thinking about where you should book your next trip, travel agencies are best placed to offer a modern retailing experience for customers because they have the have all the available choices under their umbrella ā€“ transit, lodging, packages, and more.

Having the ability to compare is an important aspect of what customers want. Choice is a key value for consumers, and the ability to easily filter from an overwhelming amount of options down to the ones that best meet their needs is the difference between a good experience and a frustrating one.

Retailers who have built their processes around modern expectations can tailor the entire customer journey from end to end ā€“ transportation, accommodation, destination activities.ĢżAs modern retailers, agencies can compare products from various suppliers and reassure the customer that they are getting the best value while finding the right offer for them.

And itā€™s important to note that the right offer isnā€™t the cheapest offer; itā€™s the cheapest offer that meets their needs and wants.

What are other industries doing?

Taking learnings from modern retailing disruptors such as Amazon and Alibaba will allow the travel industry to modernise and simplify the way we sell to our customers.ĢżInternet retailing experiences, however, can sometimes feel soulless, and the customer can feel like theyā€™re wandering alone in a well-stocked store where thereā€™s no one to help them.

Despite their acceptance of technology and e-commerce, consumers crave support. Even ā€“ and here Iā€™m previewing one of the most interesting findings from our upcoming research ā€“ younger digital natives want both tools and people to support their purchases.

So, travel agents can add meaningful value when you consider the servicing element they bring to the table. They can help mitigate the real risk of making a solitary choice that doesnā€™t actually meet expectations.

A modern digital experience doesnā€™t punish you by taking away the store or the contact center ā€“ it rewards the consumer by offering them the choice to self-serve for some tasks and making that process easy, while still providing confidence-building help for those who seek it.

Letā€™s consider for a moment, how companies like Amazon and Alibaba have differentiated themselves. A single marketplace for suppliers of all sizes, locations and offerings. Consumers who have had good experiences come back for all their shopping behaviours, from browsing for inspiration to dropping in for a quick purchase theyā€™ve already identified.

Why are travel agencies this industry’s true retailers?

Travel agencies are uniquely positioned to be this sort of one-stop-research-through-purchase-then-service shop for travellers.

The trick is that there is a lot of competition in the space, so a modern travel retailer needs to think about how to craft a user experience that makes them the landing spot for purchase after what could be many hours of researching. Empowering agents even more through retailing and merchandising technology can help that happen.

Consumers want, but donā€™t expect, personalisation. They want it because it will save them time. They donā€™t expect it because no retailer, not just in travel, has done a very good job of providing it. So, curation isnā€™t up there with their expectations, but it is way up there with their wants. In the meantime, they want powerful search and filtering tools because they do believe that is possible in the here and now.

Modern retailing is set to revolutionise travel and meet those needs by making the process of searching and booking trip options efficient and reliable, and the decision-making then becomes so much easier.

Content provided to agents can be normalised, enriched with brand logos, and delivered via data that is then used by artificial intelligent (AI) algorithms to ensure shoppers see just what they need on the shelf.ĢżBy making travel content more ā€˜retail readyā€™, we ensure agency shelves are displaying the right fares, personalised offers, and ancillaries across air, hotel, car and rail.

Better retailing reaps rewards

Is there such a thing as too much choice? Decision paralysis is becoming an increasingly big problem in everything we do.

When there might be hundreds, if not thousands, of routes from Point A to Point B, smart technology is crucial to ensure weā€™re not bogging down the customer or agent with irrelevant options.

Luckily, modern retailing sets the right customer expectations from the outset, making it super clear what the offer (or product) entails and detailing its relevance to the travelerā€™s unique needs.

Better retailing also sells more ā€“ because theĢżrightĢżproduct for one specific customer is usually something more than theĢżcheapestĢżproduct. In the long-term, this also builds loyalty and earns the ultimate compliment ā€“ repeat business.

Getting modern is a mindset and a process. The modern retailing journey can be a long and challenging one for agencies without proper technical support and know how.

Get Modern with ĄÖ²„“«Ć½

Here at ĄÖ²„“«Ć½, we started the journey of modern retailing with many of our partners and our strong, hands-on, technical background, combined with our cutting-edge platform, have enabled us to work seamlessly and smoothly with our agency partners.

We make it easier for agents (but again, we like to refer to them as ā€˜travel retailersā€™) and shoppers to find, understand, and compare products from suppliers. We also make sure theĢżafter-sales serviceĢżis excellent, whether self-service or through an agent.

It has also been encouraging to see that travel industry suppliers have continued to invest in and improve their direct channels.

Theyā€™ve done a fantastic job at broadening their offers and providing more choice, with updated routes and transportation schedules. Weā€™re now even seeing those options evolve further with more choice in seat sizes, extra legroom, pre-ordered meals and more.

So, just like the Amazon and Alibaba suppliers, itā€™s up to us in distribution and travel retailing to put our technology to use, to add the most relevant offers to individual shelves and make shopping easier for our corporate and consumer customers, and to provide the transparency consumers expect so that they arenā€™t surprised at the airport that their fare doesnā€™t include something they expected.

Apart from enabling suppliers to sell more of their own products, they can now provide more choices for agents to choose from in the system when servicing customers.

And everyone benefits

When travel agencies Get Modern, suppliers also benefit. Travel retailers that deliver a better experience, make things easier for consumers and deliver superior customer support will ultimately generate more bookings.ĢżIn a nutshell, modern travel retailing elevates the travel industry to new heights and requires a new way of thinking.

Suppliers, youā€™re doing a great job at servicing travellers and giving them more choice, but now itā€™s time to support and elevate the travel agencies, the true modern retailers, to help us all deliver a great experience for our customers.

The post Get Modern, Get Rewards appeared first on ĄÖ²„“«Ć½.

The headline: travel retail is in need of modernization. It has lagged behind other industries for far too long, and there are things we can do right now to help propel it into the future.

1. Letā€™s lobby for more time off for our employees. Not just for altruistic reasons; it makes business sense for the sector.

TED Talk superstar and Ogilvy legend, Rory Sutherland deep-dived into the topic of creative thinking and looking at things differently, giving practical examples of how this can be applied. He covered insights into how travel business can improve, to why you might want to think about installing a second dishwasher during your next kitchen remodel (no, really). You can catch his full talk .

One radical idea that Rory suggested was for the travel industry to lobby the US government for more time off for employees ā€” not just for the employeesā€™ benefit, but for the good of the entire sector.

ā€œIf I were in the travel industry in the United States, I’d spent 90% of my lobbying budget lobbying for four weeks of guaranteed paid vacation. I don’t understand why you don’t do that. Bernie Sanders was the only person they thought he was mad. I didn’t think he was mad.

ā€œThe reason 40% of Americans donā€™t have a passport isn’t because they’re uninterested in traveling. It’s because they donā€™t have time to go anywhere. Given that money spent in leisure time is actually more labor intensive than money spent on goods, it would probably benefit the American economy if people had more time to spend it.

ā€œAnd this isnā€™t a mad idea. Henry Ford largely created the two-day weekend for his workers. Not entirely out of his own beneficence, but because he felt that if that spread, if the two-day weekend spread across American workers, then it would be worth buying a car.

ā€œHenry Ford asked a different question, which was not, how can I get my workers to work as hard as possible? He asked the question: is it possible to create more leisure in wider society so that it’s actually worth owning a car in the first place? And I think we often, we need to ask more interesting questions.ā€

2. Travel retailing needs to work like the internet to fix the experience gap

Jen Catto, CMO of ĄÖ²„“«Ć½, introduced new research at the event which showed the need for our industry to make big changes. She talked about the experience gap that exists in the industry.

While ā€œtravel is the number one most enjoyable thing for people, they find shopping for travel to be decidedly underwhelming, creating a chasmic experience gap.ā€ For example, in the US (the largest travel region), 43% of respondents said they donā€™t find booking travel enjoyable. However, 95% of that same group enjoy actually being on holiday.

Jen outlined a new vision where travel retailing can become ā€œmore like the internetā€. With standard taxonomy (there are more than 60 different branded names for the ā€˜premium economyā€™ seat alone), common standards, and a more collaborative approach travel retailing, we can help achieve this.

ā€œAll of this would make the process much faster, cheaper, and an overall better user experience. And whatā€™s more modern than building things together?ā€Ģż

3. Travelā€™s moment for the metaverse has arrived

Whether you believe the hype or not, itā€™s impossible to talk about the future of travel retailing without looking to the metaverse. Expert Consultant, Steve Bambury, introduced three applications for metaverse in travel during our event in Dubai.

The first application, which has been around for several years, is using VR to showcase a destination or travel experience. Users can explore the travel experience using VR tools today like Wander, Sygic Travel, and Travel World VR as examples of how virtual reality can help travelers virtually ā€œseeā€ a place, which can ā€œcreate the emotive drive to see it for realā€.

Next, Steve predicts that every travel business is going to have a shop or a building in the metaverse to reach the customers there. And like the real world, the most important thing to think about is location, location, location. The land next to Nike or Atari or Snoop Dog is at a premium because thatā€™s where the highest virtual footfall will be. These parcels of land have increased by 10 to 20 times versus the price they were at a year ago.

ĢżSteve also says in the next five to 15 years, weā€™re going to be looking at holidays in the metaverse. ā€œShould I go to France in real life, or maybe Ancient Rome or the fictional island of Atlantis in the Metaverse? As ridiculous as this might sound it is a distinct possibility ā€” the idea of virtual trips to impossible places, to the past, to the future,ā€ he says. ā€œPeople arenā€™t going to stop taking real trips, but they will start to supplement their in-real-life travel with crazy stuff like this.ā€

4. You can measure peopleā€™s experiences using wearable devices. We put it to the test in Dubai.

During the event in Dubai, the audience wore a smart wearable wristband to monitor mood, energy, and reaction to content.ĢżWe wanted to measure the unconscious and emotive response to the materials they were shown at the event. People are irrational beings, and the traditional method of self-reporting or asking people what they think is inherently biased. What if we could see what they feel, and predict what they were going to do in future, based on the data? Paul Zak, founder of Immersion gave an amazing talk on topic.

ā€œOftentimes we measure whatā€™s easy to measure ā€” clicks, likes, views ā€” and we see that as valuable intel on what people are feeling, but itā€™s not,ā€ Zak says. ā€œAttention just opens the door to having an amazing experience. The experience is actually the emotional state, the feeling state that you get.ā€

ā€œAnd highly emotional experiences you want to repeat, you remember them and they motivate us to share the experience with others.ā€ At the end of Paulā€™s talk he put the algorithm to the test and showed which speakers at our Dubai event held peopleā€™s attention the most, kept them engaged and excited, and which topics struggled to get the pulses moving.

Paul introduced the SIRTA methodology for travel companies to work with to create an extraordinary experience. By analyzing the brains of more than 50,000 people to measure their unconscious reactions, Paul says his agency has formulated a five-stage plan to creating a highly emotional, ā€œamazingā€ experience.

• Staging: Paul describes staging as making a customer feel comfortable. In the case of a travel provider, this can be done by saving user preferences and using artificial intelligence to streamline and expedite the booking experience.
• Immersion: The next step is immersion, which can take the form of providing photos and content that help the consumer understand what the experience will look and feel like before, during, and after a trip.
• Relevance: Paul says consumers respond more positively when digital interactions with a brand are relevant and customized to their needs.
• Target: Brands should target their most loyal customers. ā€œThe super fans will work for you for free,ā€ Paul says. ā€œLet them help you. Leverage their energy, their passion, their emotion … theyā€™re also the greatest test market.ā€
• Action: And finally, Paul says to solidify the experience with a clear call-to-action.

5. Does green travel sell? Yes, but it depends on the sector youā€™re in.

There was no debating that sustainability is important. After all, working in the travel industry is a celebration of the incredible wonders to be explored across the world. But do consumers care enough about sustainability to vote with their wallets, and pay more, or potentially even inconvenience themselves slightly, for greener options? During a discussion on the topic, we heard from all sides on the conversation.

Jason Toothman, Chief Commercial Officer, Agency at ĄÖ²„“«Ć½ introduced some research on the topic, explaining that 82% of people said sustainable travel was important to them. Half (48%), however, said they would opt for such trips only if it didnā€™t inconvenience them. And convenience isnā€™t the only limitation. Only 4% said sustainability was primary consideration when booking a trip.

John Bevan, Divisional Senior Vice President at Dnata Travel Group, says companies such as his have to figure out how to provide meaningful climate impact data to their corporate clients. ā€œThey have huge targets, very fast targets to net zero. They want to know what is the least impact route to go from A to B. Once weā€™ve cracked that and have reliable data, then that will automatically appear in leisure and influence leisure travelers,ā€ Bevan says. ā€œSo I think through necessity and through setting strict targets, the corporate businesses are putting pressure on us.ā€

Steve Barrass, Chief Executive Officer, of TAG ā€” an agency that also caters for a lot of celebrity travel ā€“ said that green travel is an emerging and major consideration for his clientele. He said while carbon footprint reduction ā€” not carbon offsetting ā€” is the best solution, at a minimum ā€œeverybody should be doing somethingā€, including individual leisure travelers. ā€œIs it going to cost more? Yes. How will we deal with that cost? Some will be passed on to the customer, some providers are reducing margins … because itā€™s the right thing to do. And is it going to be less convenient? Yes. But the price, I promise you, is worth it,ā€ he says.

Nicole Sautter, Manager of Global Sustainability for American Express Global Business Travel, explained what her company is doing in this area:

1. Track & report on Co2 for clients
2. Influence choice at POS
3. Offset and empower clients to offset
4. Promote SAF (sustainable aviation fuel).

She says large corporations can also stimulate progress on sustainability by using their size and influence to spur change. For example, Sautter says on the question of sustainable aviation fuel, itā€™s not just a matter of stimulating demand for it, but also supply ā€” which she says is lacking. ā€œIt would only take a few decision-makers [in business travel] to make a decision to invest in sustainable aviation fuel to send a market signal to producers,ā€ she says.

6. Data sharing could revolutionize travel, but only if everyone is onboard

Josh Cameron, Chief Strategy Officer of Utah-based Chistopherson Business Travel, said the debate about data sharing ā€œcould be solved today, if airlines and hotels went to open up their loyalty programs, we have been begging for that,ā€ he said. ā€œWe are happy to help those who keep asking for it [our data], but they have to be prepared to give it up. If it was beneficial for any airlines that has a loyalty program to open up and share that data it would already have been done.

ā€œAs a TMC, we have always wanted that data because we have mutual customers.ĢżBut whatever data is taken out of that mutually beneficial landscape and put into a competitive one is the very data they are asking us for, and they do not want to share it. What Google is doing with cookies is indicative because they do not want to share that data, they want to make monetary gains from it themselves. The very people that want that data are the ones that do not want to share in the first place.ā€

Anand Lackshminarayanan, Senior Vice President of Revenue Optimization for Middle Eastern carrier Emirates, said there are clear benefits of using shared data for the right purposes.

And he said while there is always the risk that agent data will be used to direct market, airlines are able to capture consumer data anyway when they fly and check in. ā€œYou are never going to be able to win loyalty of a consolidator or a travel agent if you are an opportunist,ā€ he said. ā€œWe are in it for the long haul. We strongly believe in give and take and even, perhaps, in data sharing, yes.ā€

Anand Lackshminarayanan said it is a ā€œtwo-way streetā€ and data privacy rules like GDPR in Europe are setting the standards by which Emirates is taking its responsibilities seriously. ā€œWe have been far behind other industries and itā€™s time we caught up. We have got to get data coming through in some digital means, either NDC or direct connect with airlines because it will add value to the consumers.ā€

Anand Lackshminarayanan said as airlines move from pricing a seat to pricing a customer they need more information from the indirect channel to understand what segment they are in. ā€œWe do not want to push consumers toward a particular channel, but we need some sort of information about the consumer. A lot is happening to try to calibrate this data to give the consumer what they want.ā€

Although more digital data-sharing of customer data is expected, Josh Cameron said simply asking consumers to agree to that by opting in is not necessarily the answer.

ā€œThe end traveler is not always the owner of that data,ā€ he said, ā€œit could be the corporate, it could be the TMC. I donā€™t know itā€™s as simple as the traveler opting in. GDPR or California privacy law would actually step in. Plus, if thereā€™s a breach, I canā€™t just hand out data to anybody anytime.ā€

7. Other businesses can accelerate change in modern retailing

Last year ĄÖ²„“«Ć½ launched its with Amazon Web Services. With over 120 applications, the program connected some of Ģżthe brightest minds in tech to the biggest names in travel. Out of all the applications, it came down to two winners, and we took the opportunity at the event to get an update from the those businesses to talk us through how theyā€™ve progressed with their proof of concepts since the end of 2021.

Diego AcuƱa, of The Data Appeal Company, presented a tool that gathers and visualizes travel destination data from more than 500 million social and review posts every day. Theyā€™ve been working with the new ĄÖ²„“«Ć½+ API to offer an additional layer of information to their data visualization platform.

Managing Director, Dean Maidment of Taguchi Marketing Automation, shared how they had progressed with their ground-breaking marketing automation platform for the travel industry. Dean explained how the business had had developed a proof of concept, integrating with ĄÖ²„“«Ć½+ and the opportunities he sees in travel now. Whatā€™s more, there were several expressions of interest from the audience in Dubai, which is what the accelerator is all about.

Watch some of the keynotes from The Future of Travel Retail event.

The post 7 ways we can modernize travel retailing appeared first on ĄÖ²„“«Ć½.

We believe one of the best ways to do this is to get fresh perspectives, inspiration, and learnings from businesses and experts outside the travel industry. So, who better to speak to than Rory Sutherland?

Rory Sutherland is a TED Talk superstar and Ogilvy advertising legend. He works with a consulting practice examining consumer behavior to find ā€˜unseen opportunitiesā€™ ā€” often small contextual changes, which have enormous effects on decision-making.

Roryā€™s take on behavioral economics is that people are irrational beings, who often donā€™t make decisions based on facts and figures. At a recent ĄÖ²„“«Ć½ event, he shared unique perspectives on what travel could gain by exploring the irrational side of customer behavior and doing things differently. These are the highlights.

If youā€™re working in travel, youā€™re working in the entertainment industry. But donā€™t forget the nuts.

Rory jokes that the ā€œsad but inescapable truth about not so much travel, but the transport industry, is that it’s effectively a business of engineers who are desperately trying to pretend they’re not in the entertainment industry.ā€

Rory says the thing he loves about airlines is that youā€™ve got to balance the technical ingenuity with the demands of customers who have very little appreciation for that side of the business. He says, itā€™s ā€œthe mixture of absolutely hardcore logistics ā€”how do you get a replacement fan blade delivered from Dubai to Kuala Lumpur by three o’clock in the morning ā€” combined with the fact that you’re dealing with a bunch of completely irrational passengers. Regardless of the extraordinary genius of putting them into the air in a pressurized metal tube at 35,000 feet, they say ā€˜I don’t think I’ll fly with that airline. Last time I went the nuts weren’t very nice.ā€™ And thatā€™s the point ā€” those small contextual things have the biggest impact on peopleā€™s decision making.ā€

Stop looking at the quantity of time and start looking at the quality of time. Fix the Wi-Fi and hire supermodels.

In travel, Rory says, a lot of energy is focused on rational things, like journey times. But the experience of time can be fundamentally different. Engineers measure time in seconds, but humans measure it in boredom, pain, or enjoyment.

He illustrates this with a now-famous TED Talk example about the Eurostar in 2009, when they were spending billions of pounds to reduce the London-Paris journey time by about forty minutes. He felt they were trying to solve the wrong thing, and if you looked at problems psychologically, rather than technologically, you might come up with different answers.

He says, ā€œwhy donā€™t we stop looking at the quantity of time and start looking at the quality of time? Because even though it took longer to get to Paris by train, before they’d spent this money, people were still deserting airlines in droves and traveling by train; even though it took three hours and 20 minutes.

ā€œIt was nothing to do with the quantity of time; it was to do with the fact that on a train, you plant your ass in your seat, you have three hours to read, watch a film, or get on with some work. And then you arrive in central Paris. Rather than spending six billion pounds making it faster, if you want to compete with the airlines, why don’t you just spend 50 million pounds putting Wi-Fi on the trains?ā€

He goes on to say, if you really want to spend a billion pounds, hereā€™s what you could do: ā€œHire all of the world’s top male and female supermodels and get them to walk up and down the train and handing out free ChĆ¢teau PĆ©trus to all the passengers. You’ll have saved yourself five billion pounds, and people will ask for the trains to be slowed down. In a similar vein, nobody boasts about how fast their cruise ships are.ā€

People will pay more for a longer journey if the experience is better

If we continue to optimize travel and transportation using only rational information ā€” like distance, speed and capacity ā€” weā€™re going to miss out on a lot of things. In fact, people will often be prepared to pay for a longer journey if the experience is better. Take for example the Heathrow pod parking, a system of driverless autonomous vehicles, which run on virtual tracks.

ā€œThe extraordinary thing about these is the price for the pod parking, which is about a mile from the airport, often exceeds the price you have to pay for parking in the short stay car park.

ā€œNo one will actually admit, but it’s because they want to ride on the pod. I have business colleagues who are serious people in their sixties, otherwise highly intelligent adult people, And occasionally they turn up for the pod parking and are told ā€˜terribly sorry, the pod parking is full today, so we’ve upgraded you for free to short-stay parking, which is right next to the airport.ā€™ They secretly admit how disappointed they were: ā€˜I was looking forward to riding on the pod.ā€™

ā€œNow the problem with that is you probably can’t justify that as a mode of transport if you used conventional metrics, because a bus would be just as effective. A bus might be quicker, but it just doesn’t feel the same.ā€

The one feature that makes Uber amazing is the map. Hereā€™s why.

Rory says, ā€œthe human brain doesnā€™t hate waiting, it hates uncertaintyā€, and thatā€™s why people like digital bus/train timetables. Uberā€™s map allows the customer to track exactly what time the car will arrive, so they can spend the waiting time on more enjoyable activities.

ā€œThe map feature on Uber, where you can see your driver coming, doesnā€™t change how long you need to wait, but it changes the experience of that wait.

ā€œThe guy who had the idea for the map had seen the movie Goldfinger. James Bond has to follow Auric Goldfinger through the Swiss Alps, while remaining unobtrusive. He attaches a tracker to Goldfinger’s car and he can follow him at a distance and see on a scrolling map on the dashboard where Goldfingerā€™s car is. And one of the founders of Uber said, that’s what should happen when a car arrives.

ā€œBecause waiting for a taxi under conditions of uncertainty is agony for the human brain. We hate uncertainty. With the map, the duration of the wait may be the same, but you go, ‘oh, look, he’s stuck at those traffic lights, I’ll have another pint’.

There’s also an element of status with it. People time their departure from the building to coincide exactly with the car drawing up, because it makes you feel like Keyzer Soze at the end of The Usual Suspects. You arenā€™t standing around in the rain thinking, ā€œI wonder if that’s my car over there?ā€. Thatā€™s low status behavior. You don’t get many rappers doing that generally.ā€

How to stop the buzzkill of the early airport queue

The transformation of waiting time is already being looked at in airports, such as Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. Theyā€™re looking at a program that makes it intentionally unclear where the plane boards, so nobody forms an advance queue that encourages others to join. Rory explains that ā€œthe whole experience of waiting to board a plane is messed up by the eight people who insist on forming a queue too early.ā€

ā€œSo instead of just sitting there having a cup of coffee and reading a book, once the queue forms, you feel you have to join the queue for fear of missing out. Which means that the last 25 minutes aren’t spent in comfort and convenience, but they’re spent standing there like a fool to prevent anybody getting in front of you.ā€

ā€œTheir plan in DFW is to make it really ambiguous where the plane actually boards. So no one can form a queue in advance and people will spend the time waiting doing something enjoyable. Again, it’s not changing the duration. It’s changing the quality of time.ā€

Travel websites are all designed for the business traveler

Rory thinks that travel websites, particularly airline websites, are designed with the business traveler in mind. That sounds ludicrous if youā€™re an OTA or an airline that has only 10% business travel today, but Rory goes on to explain;

ā€œIf you look at every single airline website, it’s designed for the business traveler. It says, where are you going, when are you going, and what class of travel do you want? For business travel, that’s fine because they know when and where they’re going. My boss very rarely says to me, ā€˜I’d like you to go somewhere sunny sometime vaguely in late August.ā€™ The reality is I have a place to go and I have a time I have to get there. And the class of travel is determined by my employer.ā€

ā€œTo a consumer, all of those questions are ā€œit dependsā€. Search, for consumers, is an iterative process. Whether I go premium economy or business or economy depends on what the price of the other available ticket is.You can’t decide to go premium economy until you know what the economy price was. Secondly, whether you go in July or August, depends on the ticket price, and where you go might depend on the ticket price.ā€

ā€œI don’t think we’ve yet designed a really, really good interface for consumer travel selection. We need a much better way of looking for travel, which acknowledges the messiness of human decision-making as opposed to the neatness of business decision-making.ā€

Lobbying for more staff time off could boost the industry

One of the big questions corporations have right now in post-pandemic times is: should employees be able to work more flexibly? Rory thinks weā€™re asking the wrong question. What we should be asking is: do we want our customers to work more flexibly?

ā€œIf I were in the travel industry in the United States, I’d spent 90% of my lobbying budget lobbying for four weeks of guaranteed paid vacation. The reason 40% of Americans donā€™t have a passport isn’t because they’re uninterested in traveling ā€” it’s because they donā€™t have time to go anywhere.ā€

ā€œIf America had a greater degree of autonomy around working patterns, it will be a huge injection of cash into the discretionary economy, which benefits the travel industry.ā€

This isnā€™t a mad idea, and it isnā€™t necessarily a new one according to Rory. ā€œHenry Ford, created the two-day weekend for his workers. Not entirely out of his own beneficence, but because if the two-day weekends spread across American workers, then it would be worth buying a car.ā€

ā€œSo Henry Ford asked a different question, which was not, how can I get my workers to work as hard as possible. He asked the question, is it possible to create more leisure in wider society so that it’s actually worth owning a car in the first place?ā€

ā€œAnd I think often, we need to ask more interesting questions.ā€

Watch Rory Sutherlandā€™s full talk, and discover more radical insights from retailing pioneers outside of travel.

The post It’s time for more creative thinkers in travel appeared first on ĄÖ²„“«Ć½.

People love choice. Having options makes us feel in control and reassured in our buying decisions. But the is when an overload of alternatives leads to inaction. Imagine youā€™re shopping to get kitted out for an upcoming vacation. You go into a huge retailer like Target, or a department store that sells an enormous range of big-brand products. Thereā€™s so much on offer, you end up feeling overwhelmed and leave empty-handed. Or, you deliberate for ages over which pair of sunglasses, Hawaiian shirt, or luggage you want, but still make a bad decision. Weā€™ve all been there.

Having options is exciting. But it can equally make decision-making long and stressful. And because choice puts the onus on the chooser, it means you only have yourself to blame if things go wrong. Personal shoppers help consumers navigate these situations. Their unique value is being unbiased, and having expertise in finding the right fit and the best deals.

This is what travel agents do too. When it comes to travel, thereā€™s so much to choose from now that itā€™s all too easy to abandon cart. Travel agents also help consumers avoid bad choices ā€” be it an unsuitable destination, inconvenient flight time, or too many stopovers (unfortunately they canā€™t help on the Hawaiian shirts though).

But as retailing becomes more and more digitized, the travel industry is failing to give our personal shoppers the right tools for the job. And as time passes, more and more products, technology, retail channels, and suppliers are coming on the market ā€” compounding the buyersā€™ dilemma and intensifying the need for change.

Travel Retailing Is Broken

Before we go any further, letā€™s be really clear about what we mean by ā€˜retailingā€™. Other travel tech companies refer to ā€˜travel retailingā€™ in the context of agencies that have physical stores. But for ĄÖ²„“«Ć½, travel retailing is the entire process of buying, and even servicing of travel ā€” regardless of agency or supplier type.

Modern digital retailing in travel is about putting the customer (the traveler, guest, or passenger) at the centre of what you do and taking responsibility for their entire journey, from initial shopping through to completing the trip. The modern digital brands that consumers love have a lot in common. Theyā€™re fast, simple, convenient, provide choice, have excellent customer service, take responsibility for fulfilment and delivery, and work hard to meet their customerā€™s needs. And this grows trust and builds loyalty.

So why do we think travel retailing specifically is broken? In a nutshell: the system that was built thirty or forty years ago hasnā€™t really kept with the times ā€” which means we arenā€™t delivering that modern, digital customer experience. While other industries embraced new retailing technology with open arms, too often travel shied away from change. In innovation terms, travel is a ā€˜late adopterā€™, especially compared to retailers in other industries, like Amazon, Netflix, or Spotify. The result? Agents arenā€™t set up to succeed, and so suppliers canā€™t get the most from this Ć¼ber-valuable sales channel.

And hey, airlines are great at selling their own products. But for the customer, shopping is all about seeing different options, being able to clearly compare and contrast them, and ending up with the right deal for what they want or need. Especially when theyā€™re buying (or booking) in bulk ā€” or if the ā€˜storeā€™ isnā€™t visible (i.e. itā€™s online). But, just as there are , there are literally trillions of possible travel offers/combinations out there, and guiding the decision is the travel agentsā€™ forte.

There are isolated silos of retailing excellence (some OTAs have built a great business out of selling hotels), but nobody is getting the most from doing it end to end, for full journeys, and across all channels.

What Does Modern Retailing Look Like?

Back to choice. Having more options and full price transparency is always better for the consumer. Like I said, the perception of choice helps to reinforce buying decisions, builds trust, and makes customers feel in control. That means showing the cheapest offer, even if we already know itā€™s not the one theyā€™ll go for. Price comparison sites are a step in the right direction, but they still donā€™t fully solve the challenges of personalization, brand loyalty, and ensuring repeat business. Just ask online travel agencies (OTAs).

Modern retailing happens when the consumer gets the right product/offer, at the right time, and at the right price. And in doing so, those customers immediately recognize the value of agencies in solving their choice paradox. This isnā€™t just a ĄÖ²„“«Ć½ view ā€” itā€™s backed heavily by the airline industry and IATA as the primary strategy for change and managing digital transformation. The nuance in the wording says it all: IATA have even replaced NDC certification with its ARM () index.

We all know the score. If youā€™re not disrupting, you risk being disrupted. If you let shopping become overwhelming, tedious, or a chore for your customers, theyā€™ll go elsewhere. Travel itself is a joy, so it should be inherently easy to sell. But the fact that customers before booking proves that itā€™s not. The question is: how do we help agents cut through complexity, manage choice, and be the personal shoppers their customers need? If travel retailing is broken, whoā€™s going to fix it? ĄÖ²„“«Ć½ is in a unique position to help.

Your Retail Toolkit

My two cents is: you canā€™t solve travelā€™s complex retailing challenges unless you tackle them from an impartial, independent standpoint. Just like travel agencies, being neutral is the only way to really understand the problems, and propose unbiased solutions that prioritize customer needs above all else. And, you also have to actually understand what ā€˜retailingā€™ really means, and what it requires.

At ĄÖ²„“«Ć½, we talk to travel businesses about their retailing challenges every single day. And we use this continuous feedback loop to develop future-focused solutions within ĄÖ²„“«Ć½+. Ones that make it easier for agentsā€™ to manage choice, build better digital experiences, and sell more effectively. That means access to more and more products that are ready to sell (i.e. no development work) ā€” including both traditional and non-traditional offers, like NDC.

Modern retailing is about embracing new technology that makes retailing better, easier, and faster than before. So weā€™re making it a priority to support retailing through different devices (web and mobile responsive) via our API toolkit. And, weā€™re bringing out smarter displays that are set up to give agents more control, more detailed searches, and intuitively help to sell more extras and add-ons as they guide customers through the decision-making process.

When I said earlier that retailing is the entire process of buying and selling travel, that doesnā€™t just mean booking. There are opportunities to sell, upsell, and impress your customer with excellent service throughout the trip too (or rather, there should be, if your technology partner is doing its job right). From ticketing to exchanges ā€” and onwards through trip management ā€” the overall customer experience is the result of multiple interactions, not just the first, simple sale. Because at the end of the day, thatā€™s what modern retailing is all about: impressing your customer in every transaction.

Driving Retailing Excellence

The choice paradox is just the tip of the iceberg in modern retailing. Thereā€™s so much more to explore, and weā€™ll continue to do that through ĄÖ²„“«Ć½+ and our other industry initatives like ĄÖ²„“«Ć½ Accelerator, the ĄÖ²„“«Ć½ NDC Leadership Council, and other events that we tailor around aspects of modern retailing.

Modern retailing isnā€™t just a buzzword to us. Itā€™s something weā€™re really passionate about. Frankly, we built a whole new platform to enable it ā€” thatā€™s how serious we are about it. We donā€™t want travel to be the late adopters anymore. And we donā€™t want customers to feel like theyā€™re standing confused in the aisle of a Target, unable to make up their minds. Travel retailing is broken, but weā€™re fixing it. So stay tuned for more.

The post The Paradox of Choice appeared first on ĄÖ²„“«Ć½.

Hidden costs were once a tolerable irritation for travelers. But more recently, theyā€™ve become a real threat to consumer trust. To tackle this, we need more transparency and less trickery during booking. This will be central to both accelerating recovery and modernizing travel retailing.

The Cost of Hidden Costs

Booking a trip is one of the most exciting purchases to make. But excitement fades when you reach the end of a buying process only to realize that an amazing deal isnā€™t quite what it seemed. Common frustrations include fare-only prices that donā€™t cover seat selection, checked luggage, or even a carry-on bag. Hotel rates that exclude the cost of breakfast, resort fees, or tourist taxes. Or arbitrary rental-car charges imposed upon its return.

But itā€™s been this way for years. So why change things now?

When travelers had less to contend with, they may have had more patience with hidden costs. But times have changed. When things are uncertain, hidden charges and frustrating booking experiences do greater damage to trust. They also create a feeling of suspicion ā€” especially in the era of misinformation, fake news, scams, and so on.

At the same time, retailers must remember that travel is incurring new costs that never existed before ā€” like PCR tests, mandatory quarantining, travel insurance, premium-rate flexi-fares. Plus, thereā€™s a risk of losing out entirely if you canā€™t travel.

It stands to reason then, that people want to know what things cost up-front, without any nasty surprises. Price transparency is now the most important factor impacting consumer trust. This is what we discovered when we surveyed 10,000 travelers around the world to find out what they trust about the travel industry, and what they don’t.

Transparency Determines Trust

Our research results said it loud and clear: consumers are tired of having their pockets shaken or feeling like they’ve been baited-and-switched. And nowhere were trust issues more apparent than in New Zealand and Australia, where the study revealed a huge chasm between expectation and performance. The takeaway is: our industry cannot view pent-up demand as a guarantee of bums-on-seats.

Price transparency is 16% more important than long-term safety records.

ā€“ ĄÖ²„“«Ć½ Trust in Travel research 2021

Overall, price transparency and fully flexible or refundable tickets were ranked as the top two most influential factors in deciding whether to trust a travel firm. In fact, respondents ranked it 16% more important than a long-term safety record. Yep, you read that right ā€” more important than safety. This indicates that price transparency may be the next big battleground for retailers as travel resumes.

But Everyone Else is Doing it

For travel businesses, the irony of giving customers complete price transparency is that it leaves them at a direct disadvantage. Thatā€™s because ā€˜everyone else is doing itā€™ (hiding fees), and therefore retailers who donā€™t will appear less attractive at that all-important first glance.

Higher prices up front mean appearing further down in search results, which means lower chances for conversion (even if the overall cost is lower at the end of the day). And, given how impactful we know search rankings are on revenue, broken trust tends to be written off as an unfortunate, but unavoidable cost of doing business.

However, our data proves thatā€™s not the case. Restoring and maintaining strong trust is easier than people think. It starts with better merchandising and retailing. That doesn’t mean discontinuing basic fares, but they must be accompanied by restriction disclosures, so travelers can manage expectations about what is and isn’t included. Make it clear a rate is non-refundable, seat selection is extra, or no bags are included. And above all, get the right product to the right customer.

The risk if you donā€™t? Some travel businesses their ā€˜no hidden costsā€™ policy as a USP. They will use this as an advantage to grow customer trust and improve their brand perception of ā€˜doing the right thingā€™. The topic of hidden costs and travel horror stories are fodder for . Right now, no travel company can afford to have itā€™s brand tarnished by association.

People Can’t Afford to Buy Twice

Travelers are itching to get away. Thereā€™s no doubt that owing to pent-up demand, some are prepared to pay extra for the privilege of doing so, particularly for features they value. But people still have limits, and they donā€™t appreciate being duped or wasting their time during booking.

Yet almost always, the product the customer needs is not the cheapest one, especially when you take customer value into account. Airlines have proven this in the past and now incorporate that thinking into their retailing strategies. Itā€™s time for travel agencies to follow suit. This means upselling carefully, cross-selling relevant extras at the right time, without breaking trust or appearing to lead the customer towards a pricier shopping cart simply for their own gain. And, it means allowing the customer to still see the cheapest offer, even if they arenā€™t going to buy it.

The takeaway is: with successful retailing, passengers tend to buy something better than just the basics. This represents an opportunity for OTAs if they are willing to invest in air merchandising and see not only the cheapest offer, but also the best offer, and from multiple carriers. But the industry needs new technology that has the right capabilities to do this. Progress must be genuine and consumer centric. The days of price trickery are numbered, and anyone wondering if we should just make that trickery more sophisticated needs to think again.

Retailers that continue to squeeze consumers’ hard-earned pennies via hidden costs are playing the short game. These companies will eventually struggle to engage those seeking a value exchange that better reflects the realities of a post-pandemic world.

The appearance of affordability is misleading, and the illusion is starting to wear thin.

The post Buy Cheap, Buy Twice appeared first on ĄÖ²„“«Ć½.

And with so many sectors clamoring for support, we need to get travel the backing it deserves.

Travel and Tourism contribute massively to the global economy. These industries generated US$8.9 trillion in 2019, which accounted forĢż10% of global GDPĢżand 1 in 10 jobs. Thereā€™s too much at stake to allow our leaders to forget that.Ģż We must have representation present where decisions are being made, be it about fiscal aid, travel restrictions, quarantines, or other areas that impact travel businesses.

But ours is a complex and segmented industry. There are hundreds of different lobby groups and associations representing businesses across our ecosystem ā€” with each asking policymakers to consider their specific needs. Many assume the voice that shouts loudest gets heard, but thatā€™s rarely the case.

The past year has shown that the more powerful approach is to come together to present a unified front. ĄÖ²„“«Ć½ has taken a leading role in shaping our path to recovery and ensuring nobody gets left behind. Weā€™re joining forces with others in the industry to support job growth, the global economy and a safe return to travel. Hereā€™s how weā€™re effectively advocating across the board:

Securing industry support and job safety

My role at ĄÖ²„“«Ć½ is to inform policymakers on our industryā€™s needs, strengths, and capabilities, as well as pushing for further beneficial legislative and regulatory actions. In doing so I work closely with airlines, hotels, agencies, travel technology companies, travel management companies (TMCs), and many other industry players to develop proposals for better, more effective resolutions to government leaders.

One of the most critical functions ĄÖ²„“«Ć½ has undertaken since the pandemic began is to represent a collaborative voice, so government leaders can make better decisions in the interest of all industry stakeholders. In this way, weā€™re using our seat at the table to champion the value that ticket agents, technology companies and everyone in our industry contributes to economies around the world. Together, we must demand the support we need to safely and effectively restore travel.

“Weā€™re using our seat at the table to champion the value that ticket agents, technology companies and everyone in our industry contributes to economies around the world.”

Hereā€™s some of the initiatives weā€™ve prioritized:

1. Looking out for US travel agents and travel technology companies

The technology companies that facilitate travel commerce and the connections between suppliers, agents, and travelers are a vital part our ecosystem. ĄÖ²„“«Ć½ is an active member of the Travel Technology Association (TTA) ā€”Ģżwhich represents the sector that powers the industry, from startups to legacy technologies and everything in between.

Last May, I shared aĢżbehind-the-scenes glimpseĢżof how we ensured the CARES Act would also cover travel agents, ticket agents, and travel technology companies severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a proud moment when US lawmakers agreed with our proposal and granted these businesses eligibility to participate in the various programs that protected many jobs and offered financial relief.

Simon Gros and I reflected onĢżĄÖ²„“«Ć½ā€™s role in lobbying for these intermediaries. After months of discussions within the Treasury Department, our efforts came to fruition whenĢżĢżunder the lending program established by the CARES Act. But this is just one example.

2. Strengthening job security for the US hospitality and travel sector

Alongside our allies in the TTA, ĄÖ²„“«Ć½ joined forces with the U.S. Travel Association (and numerous other travel and tourism organizations) in October, to urge Congress to supportĢż.

This legislation provides various tax incentives to help return millions of people to their jobs, including enhancements to the Employee Retention Tax Credit, and a modest tax credit for many Americans who choose to travel again.

3. Driving a centralized plan for recovery in Europe

Outside the US, ĄÖ²„“«Ć½ is a member of theĢż, an alliance of more than 60 European public and private organizations. It actively calls on EU policy makers to support the travel sector with a centralized approach ā€” rather than each country making and adapting its own rules, restrictions, and plans.

Weā€™re urging European governments to agree on a harmonized approach to travel restrictions within the region. This makes it simpler for everyone, especially travelers, to understand ā€” which will help to restore confidence and get them moving again.

Weā€™re also helping to ensure that travel gets the government support it needs to continue driving economic growth and job creation in Europe. Specifically, weā€™re advocating that travel and tourism is a part of national recovery and resilience plans. Weā€™re also well as raising awareness on how new online payment rules impact travel recovery.

Global recovery needs us all

Earlier I said that itā€™s better for the travel industry to act together and seek support collectively. Rather than risk one voice being drowned out, we can be so much stronger, and more persuasive by presenting a unified front. ĄÖ²„“«Ć½ has been using its seat at the table to speak up and support the industry associations that serve as a collective voice for the many, making sure nobody gets left behind.

By working together as an industry, we can deliver a more holistic approach that eliminates the need for varying travel restrictions at country level. We can also advocate for standards that allow for a safe, unambiguous return to travel.

For example, last year ĄÖ²„“«Ć½ worked with the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), to developĢż. These 18 measures helped to formalize what we needed to deliver a safe, secure and seamless return to flying, with contributions from industry organizations around the world. Destinations and companies that comply with these protocols can use a WTTC ā€˜Safe Travelsā€™ stamp ā€” which has now been earned by more than 100 destinations worldwide ā€” helping to further restore consumer confidence.

All of this is helping to reinforce the value of travel and tourism, and to gain further attention and support from governments and decision-makers around the world.

What next?

This is just a snapshot of some ways weā€™ve been supporting recovery so far. ĄÖ²„“«Ć½ is committed to staying at the forefront of this process ā€” and recently our CEO Greg Webb wasĢżappointed to the United States Travel and Tourism Advisory Board. This will further enable us to share our knowledge and insights, and ensure the new travel experience is safe, secure and exciting. It will also allow us to shape current and emerging issues, and to advocate for our partners in proposing solutions to industry-related problems.

This pandemic has shown itself to be unpredictable, and it will remain so. But something we can control is working more closely together to promote the value and viability of our industry. We must work together to implement unified safety measures, and to use quality research to prove they do in fact reduce risk. We must also share insights on how measures like COVID-19 testing at airports impacts traveler confidence.

Collaboration of this nature will help to discourage travel restrictions and will strengthen our case in pitching for more government relief. This is the most effective way that we can restore trust and consumer confidence, because continued testing and a widescale vaccine rollout will likely become a standard in the ā€œnew normalā€ for travel. And it is up to us, as an industry, to help travelers adjust and become accustomed to the necessary changes that will get people moving again.

The post Fighting travel’s corner appeared first on ĄÖ²„“«Ć½.