Summer 2023 saw some pretty extreme weather events take place across the globe. From fires in Greece, Hawaii, and across Europe, to heavy smog in New York and typhoons in China — and even Burning Man, an event known for dry heat and high temperatures, ended in flash flooding. Climate change was quite literally a hot topic for people and vacationers everywhere this year.

And this directly impacts travel agencies. In the short term, obviously you’ve got more requests for last minute changes and cancellations. Seasonal unpredictability and climate change may, in future, also create shifts in booking patterns e.g. around lead times or destination popularity.

Travelers want to make informed choices and travel retailers have a responsibility to help them do so. The challenge across the industry is how do we provide this level of detail, at scale.

 

At ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, we think eco-conscious travel starts with making more informed decisions. We’re doing our part by equipping agencies with tools to address emerging and changing customer expectations, especially when it comes to eco-conscious travel options. After all, modern retailing is about adapting to what customers need.

CONSUMERS ARE NOW WILLING TO DO MORE

Earlier this year, we shared research which showed just how much customers care about sustainability.

They want to know more about the effects of their journeys — 71% of leisure travelers, and 80% of business travelers said they want more information on carbon impacts to help them assess their journey options.

And travelers are ready to adjust their actions in real time to align with the cause, as our findings showed they’re willing to choose options that could take from their own wallet. Almost half of those surveyed (49%) said they would pay more for a route with lower environmental impact.

This shows that modern consumers care about the environment more than ever. So when you think or talk about modern retailing, sustainability and other ethical considerations have to be part of that conversation. We think this is going to be a huge priority for retailers into the future.

Travelers want to make informed choices and travel retailers have a responsibility to help them do so. The challenge across the industry is how do we provide this level of detail, at scale.

Robyn Binks, Senior Product Manager, ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½

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CORPORATE TRAVEL IS SHOWING A GREATER APPETITE

When it comes to sustainability, we believe corporate travel managers are going to play a huge role. While individuals like you or I aren’t typically held to account over our carbon footprint in our private lives, businesses and other big organizations are scrutinized more heavily. And that means: TMCs need to be enabled to understand the carbon emission impact of a trip, so everyone can make an informed decision.

As our Chief Technology Officer Tom Kershaw : expecting a consumer to spend an extra $100 for a longer layover to save on carbon emissions during their trip might be too much to ask for. But a corporate travel manager has the budget to incorporate that need.

We’ve already seen many companies announce their goals to become carbon neutral or achieve net zero emissions. Reputation, regulatory, customer and even employee pressures are changing the way companies think and act when it comes to managing carbon emissions from business travel. And, for teams where travel is a necessity, corporate travel managers must measure and report on emissions data, while equally providing what the traveler needs.

Expecting a consumer to spend an extra $100 for a longer layover to save on carbon emissions during their trip might be too much to ask for. But a corporate travel manager has the budget to incorporate that need.

We can’t forget that corporate travelers have their own environmental ambitions to account for too. So, businesses with reduction targets and eco-conscious travelers need to be able to access travel options that are accurate, credible and transparent about sustainability. And, they need the right technology to help do it.

WHAT NEW TECHNOLOGY CAN DO

Two things that are important when it comes to sustainability, accuracy and transparency. We must predict well in advance what the likely emissions are going to be. And we need to make that information readily available, and technology is the key to doing it. This is why we continuously adapt and update ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ products.

We know that customers are asking agencies more and more: what purchasing choices really make a difference? To be able to answer that, agents need accurate, transparent emissions data, on a consistent basis, and for every trip searched for.

That’s why ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ has partnered with a not-for-profit organisation, and coalition working to bring consistent, reliable sustainability information to agents and travelers. The Travalyst coalition has aligned on a single way to publish CO2 emission estimates for flights and the chosen method is the Travel Impact Model (TIM), a framework developed by Google that is publicly available.

And thanks to our partnership with Travalyst, powered by the TIM, we’ve just launched a new carbon emission estimation tool in our platform, ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½+.

This displays higher, typical, or lower options based on the estimated median CO2 emissions for the route being searched. For agents, this means being able to compare options across carriers, and present that information back to the buyer. So now, when you search for a flight on ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½+, you see the price, duration, and carbon emission estimates.

For TMCs, this makes it easier than ever to service business travelers who want to know the finer details of their trip, including information on flight emissions.

The good news is, these features are available in one place, ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½+, and can be accessed via Smartpoint Cloud, Desktop, and API. And the advantage for airlines is that agents can offer the most suitable flight for their customer, using a consistent, and publicly available model. Now, when you decide to book travel, you’ve got three options that can easily be considered, all in one place: the journey time, the cost, and the environmental impact.

WORKING WITH OTHERS TO AFFECT CHANGE

Right now, software and tools provide vital visibility into eco-conscious trip choices. But the bigger picture is, driving real change means adopting an attitude.

The industry as a whole needs to be transparent about eco-conscious information across all travel options, but also it’s about instilling change for the future with new, higher standards of monitoring our impact on the environment.

Co-operation and collaboration is vital, and at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, we’re ready to help. Through our Travalyst partnership, we’re taking an active role in industry-wide collaboration: to drive transparency and consistency in sustainability data necessary to empower travel agents and travel managers.

Now, when you decide to book travel, you’ve got three options that can easily be considered, all in one place: the journey time, the cost, and the environmental impact.

And, our commitment to industry partnerships doesn’t stop there, as ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ is one of the founding members of the Global Business Travel Association’s (GBTA) Sustainability Leadership Council. As the first travel retailing platform to join this we’re driving cross-industry collaboration between the consumers and the providers of corporate travel services.

People will always need and want to travel. But, planned more mindfully, travel can be used to create positive change. And collectively, we can provide customers with the tools and information to make better choices.

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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. Let’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 — not just for the employees’ benefit, but for the good of the entire sector.

“If 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.

“The reason 40% of Americans don’t have a passport isn’t because they’re uninterested in traveling. It’s because they don’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.

“And this isn’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.

“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? And I think we often, we need to ask more interesting questions.â€�

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

Jen Catto, CMO of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, 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 “travel is the number one most enjoyable thing for people, they find shopping for travel to be decidedly underwhelming, creating a chasmic experience gap.� For example, in the US (the largest travel region), 43% of respondents said they don’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 “more like the internet�. With standard taxonomy (there are more than 60 different branded names for the ‘premium economy’ seat alone), common standards, and a more collaborative approach travel retailing, we can help achieve this.

“All of this would make the process much faster, cheaper, and an overall better user experience. And what’s more modern than building things together?â€�Ìý

3. Travel’s moment for the metaverse has arrived

Whether you believe the hype or not, it’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 “see� a place, which can “create the emotive drive to see it for real�.

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 that’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.

ÌýSteve also says in the next five to 15 years, we’re going to be looking at holidays in the metaverse. “Should 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 — the idea of virtual trips to impossible places, to the past, to the future,â€� he says. “People aren’t going to stop taking real trips, but they will start to supplement their in-real-life travel with crazy stuff like this.â€�

4. You can measure people’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.ÌýWe 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.

“Oftentimes we measure what’s easy to measure — clicks, likes, views — and we see that as valuable intel on what people are feeling, but it’s not,� Zak says. “Attention just opens the door to having an amazing experience. The experience is actually the emotional state, the feeling state that you get.�

“And highly emotional experiences you want to repeat, you remember them and they motivate us to share the experience with others.� At the end of Paul’s talk he put the algorithm to the test and showed which speakers at our Dubai event held people’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, “amazing� 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. “The super fans will work for you for free,â€� Paul says. “Let them help you. Leverage their energy, their passion, their emotion … they’re also the greatest test market.â€�
• 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 you’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 ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ 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 didn’t inconvenience them. And convenience isn’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. “They 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 we’ve cracked that and have reliable data, then that will automatically appear in leisure and influence leisure travelers,� Bevan says. “So I think through necessity and through setting strict targets, the corporate businesses are putting pressure on us.�

Steve Barrass, Chief Executive Officer, of TAG — an agency that also caters for a lot of celebrity travel – said that green travel is an emerging and major consideration for his clientele. He said while carbon footprint reduction — not carbon offsetting — is the best solution, at a minimum “everybody should be doing somethingâ€�, including individual leisure travelers. “Is 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 it’s the right thing to do. And is it going to be less convenient? Yes. But the price, I promise you, is worth it,â€� 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, it’s not just a matter of stimulating demand for it, but also supply — which she says is lacking. “It 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,� 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 “could be solved today, if airlines and hotels went to open up their loyalty programs, we have been begging for that,� he said. “We 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.

“As a TMC, we have always wanted that data because we have mutual customers.ÌýBut 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.â€�

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. “You are never going to be able to win loyalty of a consolidator or a travel agent if you are an opportunist,� he said. “We are in it for the long haul. We strongly believe in give and take and even, perhaps, in data sharing, yes.�

Anand Lackshminarayanan said it is a “two-way street� and data privacy rules like GDPR in Europe are setting the standards by which Emirates is taking its responsibilities seriously. “We have been far behind other industries and it’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.�

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. “We 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.�

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.

“The end traveler is not always the owner of that data,� he said, “it could be the corporate, it could be the TMC. I don’t know it’s as simple as the traveler opting in. GDPR or California privacy law would actually step in. Plus, if there’s a breach, I can’t just hand out data to anybody anytime.�

7. Other businesses can accelerate change in modern retailing

Last year ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ launched its with Amazon Web Services. With over 120 applications, the program connected some of Ìýthe 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 they’ve progressed with their proof of concepts since the end of 2021.

Diego Acuña, 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. They’ve been working with the new ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½+ 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 ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½+ and the opportunities he sees in travel now. What’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 ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½.

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 ‘unseen opportunities’ — often small contextual changes, which have enormous effects on decision-making.

Rory’s take on behavioral economics is that people are irrational beings, who often don’t make decisions based on facts and figures. At a recent ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ 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 you’re working in travel, you’re working in the entertainment industry. But don’t forget the nuts.

Rory jokes that the “sad 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.â€�

Rory says the thing he loves about airlines is that you’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, it’s “the mixture of absolutely hardcore logistics —how do you get a replacement fan blade delivered from Dubai to Kuala Lumpur by three o’clock in the morning — 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 ‘I don’t think I’ll fly with that airline. Last time I went the nuts weren’t very nice.’ And that’s the point — those small contextual things have the biggest impact on people’s decision making.â€�

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, “why don’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.

“It 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?â€�

He goes on to say, if you really want to spend a billion pounds, here’s what you could do: “Hire all of the world’s top male and female supermodels and get them to walk up and down the train and handing out free Château Pétrus 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.â€�

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 — like distance, speed and capacity — we’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.

“The 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.

“No 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 ‘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.’ They secretly admit how disappointed they were: ‘I was looking forward to riding on the pod.’

“Now 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.â€�

The one feature that makes Uber amazing is the map. Here’s why.

Rory says, “the human brain doesn’t hate waiting, it hates uncertainty�, and that’s why people like digital bus/train timetables. Uber’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.

“The map feature on Uber, where you can see your driver coming, doesn’t change how long you need to wait, but it changes the experience of that wait.

“The 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 Goldfinger’s car is. And one of the founders of Uber said, that’s what should happen when a car arrives.

“Because 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 aren’t standing around in the rain thinking, “I wonder if that’s my car over there?â€�. That’s low status behavior. You don’t get many rappers doing that generally.â€�

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. They’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 “the whole experience of waiting to board a plane is messed up by the eight people who insist on forming a queue too early.�

“So 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.â€�

“Their 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.â€�

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 you’re an OTA or an airline that has only 10% business travel today, but Rory goes on to explain;

“If 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, ‘I’d like you to go somewhere sunny sometime vaguely in late August.’ 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.â€�

“To a consumer, all of those questions are “it dependsâ€�. 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.â€�

“I 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.â€�

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 we’re asking the wrong question. What we should be asking is: do we want our customers to work more flexibly?

“If 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 don’t have a passport isn’t because they’re uninterested in traveling — it’s because they don’t have time to go anywhere.â€�

“If 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.�

This isn’t a mad idea, and it isn’t necessarily a new one according to Rory. “Henry 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.�

“So 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?â€�

“And I think often, we need to ask more interesting questions.�

Watch Rory Sutherland’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 ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½.

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 you’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. There’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. We’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, there’s so much to choose from now that it’s all too easy to abandon cart. Travel agents also help consumers avoid bad choices — be it an unsuitable destination, inconvenient flight time, or too many stopovers (unfortunately they can’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 — compounding the buyers’ dilemma and intensifying the need for change.

Travel Retailing Is Broken

Before we go any further, let’s be really clear about what we mean by ‘retailing’. Other travel tech companies refer to ‘travel retailing’ in the context of agencies that have physical stores. But for ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, travel retailing is the entire process of buying, and even servicing of travel — 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. They’re fast, simple, convenient, provide choice, have excellent customer service, take responsibility for fulfilment and delivery, and work hard to meet their customer’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 hasn’t really kept with the times — which means we aren’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 ‘late adopter’, especially compared to retailers in other industries, like Amazon, Netflix, or Spotify. The result? Agents aren’t set up to succeed, and so suppliers can’t get the most from this über-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 they’re buying (or booking) in bulk — or if the ‘store’ isn’t visible (i.e. it’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 agents’ 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 it’s not the one they’ll go for. Price comparison sites are a step in the right direction, but they still don’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 isn’t just a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ view — it’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 you’re not disrupting, you risk being disrupted. If you let shopping become overwhelming, tedious, or a chore for your customers, they’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 it’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, who’s going to fix it? ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ is in a unique position to help.

Your Retail Toolkit

My two cents is: you can’t solve travel’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 ‘retailing’ really means, and what it requires.

At ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, 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 ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½+. Ones that make it easier for agents’ 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) — 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 we’re making it a priority to support retailing through different devices (web and mobile responsive) via our API toolkit. And, we’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 doesn’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 — and onwards through trip management — the overall customer experience is the result of multiple interactions, not just the first, simple sale. Because at the end of the day, that’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. There’s so much more to explore, and we’ll continue to do that through ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½+ and our other industry initatives like ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Accelerator, the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ NDC Leadership Council, and other events that we tailor around aspects of modern retailing.

Modern retailing isn’t just a buzzword to us. It’s something we’re really passionate about. Frankly, we built a whole new platform to enable it — that’s how serious we are about it. We don’t want travel to be the late adopters anymore. And we don’t want customers to feel like they’re standing confused in the aisle of a Target, unable to make up their minds. Travel retailing is broken, but we’re fixing it. So stay tuned for more.

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Hidden costs were once a tolerable irritation for travelers. But more recently, they’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 isn’t quite what it seemed. Common frustrations include fare-only prices that don’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 it’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 — 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 — like PCR tests, mandatory quarantining, travel insurance, premium-rate flexi-fares. Plus, there’s a risk of losing out entirely if you can’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.

– ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ 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 — 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. That’s because ‘everyone else is doing it’ (hiding fees), and therefore retailers who don’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 that’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 don’t? Some travel businesses their ‘no hidden costs’ policy as a USP. They will use this as an advantage to grow customer trust and improve their brand perception of ‘doing the right thing’. The topic of hidden costs and travel horror stories are fodder for . Right now, no travel company can afford to have it’s brand tarnished by association.

People Can’t Afford to Buy Twice

Travelers are itching to get away. There’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 don’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. It’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 aren’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.

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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 forÌý10% of global GDPÌýand 1 in 10 jobs. There’s too much at stake to allow our leaders to forget that.Ìý 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 — with each asking policymakers to consider their specific needs. Many assume the voice that shouts loudest gets heard, but that’s rarely the case.

The past year has shown that the more powerful approach is to come together to present a unified front. ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ has taken a leading role in shaping our path to recovery and ensuring nobody gets left behind. We’re joining forces with others in the industry to support job growth, the global economy and a safe return to travel. Here’s how we’re effectively advocating across the board:

Securing industry support and job safety

My role at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ is to inform policymakers on our industry’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 ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ 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, we’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.

“We’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.”

Here’s some of the initiatives we’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. ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ is an active member of the Travel Technology Association (TTA) —Ìýwhich represents the sector that powers the industry, from startups to legacy technologies and everything in between.

Last May, I shared aÌýbehind-the-scenes glimpseÌýof 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 onÌýÀÖ²¥´«Ã½â€™s role in lobbying for these intermediaries. After months of discussions within the Treasury Department, our efforts came to fruition whenÌýÌýunder 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, ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ joined forces with the U.S. Travel Association (and numerous other travel and tourism organizations) in October, to urge Congress to supportÌý.

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, ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ is a member of theÌý, 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 — rather than each country making and adapting its own rules, restrictions, and plans.

We’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 — which will help to restore confidence and get them moving again.

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

Global recovery needs us all

Earlier I said that it’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. ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ 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 ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ worked with the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), to developÌý. 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 ‘Safe Travels’ stamp — which has now been earned by more than 100 destinations worldwide — 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 we’ve been supporting recovery so far. ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ is committed to staying at the forefront of this process — and recently our CEO Greg Webb wasÌýappointed 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 “new normal� 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.

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Safety is of paramount importance to travelers right now, and hoteliers should be mindful that this brings a new challenge for travel agents. During the search and booking process, they now need to be able to find your safety information and communicate it back to the traveler. Unfortunately, this often means using multiple sources outside their workflow, which is inefficient and frustrating — especially for those working with reduced resources.

At the same time,Ìýhotels are equally looking for ways to communicate what they are doing to the agents that are booking these trips. To make matters more complicated, restrictions, policies, and safety measures can vary significantly by property location, type, and more.

ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ has been looking for ways to make communication between hotels and agentsÌýeasier, and more efficient for everyone. That’s why we’re rolling out a new feature on our platform: our new Stay Safe searchable amenity.

What is Stay Safe?

Since the pandemic hit earlier this year, several trade and government bodies, including theÌýÌýand theÌýÌýhave issued guidelines to support recovery in the hotel sector. These are designed to define what the necessary health and safety attributes are, andÌýto enable hoteliers to communicate them in a consistent way. These initiatives focus on enhanced hotel cleaning practices, social interactions, and workplace protocols to meet the newÌýchallenges and expectations forÌýhealth and safety.

ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ has added our Stay Safe amenity onto our platform to allow agents to quickly and easily filter results based on hotels or chains who have signed up to the initiative.

For agents

The filter is designed to give travelers and agencies alike confidence that appropriate safety measures have been taken at a hotel property. This will be available to Desktop & API points of sale. Smartpoint Desktop Agencies will be able to search/filter hotel results for Stay Safe hotels using entryÌý/F-SAF

This will benefit agencies greatly by reducing the need to consult multiple sources for advice on safety measures at the point of sale. For agencies that have reduced headcount, or are operating with limited resourcesÌýin particular, being able to stay within their primary workflow is a huge advantage.

For Hotels

Hotels will welcome this development as it provides them with a consistent and widely recognized industry standard to adhere to. It’s also another opportunity to communicate with agents at the point of booking. You can further enhance your message viaÌýbanner ads and sign-on messages within the booking platform to help you to reach agents and keep them up to date on your latest safety news, offers, and changes.

Find out more

This concludes the last of our blog miniseries —ÌýI hope you have found it useful.

The key takeaway forÌýhoteliers is that you have a range of measures, tools, and options available that can help give travelers the confidence to book. From safety measures to flexible policies, different rates, and promotions — all of this can help accelerate your recovery journey.ÌýÌýCommunication is key, and there are so many ways that you can use our platform to improve your reach and get your messages out there.

As always, we’re on hand to help you as you get back to business, so please reach out to us for more information on anything covered in this miniseries that you’d like to know more about.

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The typical trip itinerary is not what it was this time last year. With the COVID-19 situation varying across regions, many people are still avoiding international travel — or due to restrictions, simply cannot right now. And though IATA hasÌýfound the risk associated with air travelÌýto be very low, domestic drive destinationsÌýÌýfor now. This is causing travel agencies to rethink their marketing and offers, changing the focus from air ticket sales to retailing hotel stays instead.

This is good news for the hotel industry, which wasÌý. But with all of this change taking place, and in this competitive climate, it’s vital to know how to catch an agent’s eye. This first blog in our miniseries focuses onÌýwhat you can do to help them secure bookings for you.

Overview: what has changed?

The hotel sector is showing the strongest signs of early recovery. This is largely thanks to the staycation trend — driven by uncertainty, the reintroduction of restrictions, government advice, and campaigns by destination marketing organizations.ÌýFrom ourÌýrecent research, we know of two significant shifts that hoteliers should be aware of:

Travelers want additional safety measures in place before they will travel

It’s only natural that in the middle of a pandemic travelers want as many safety measures in place as possible. Until we have a definitive solution to COVID-19, this will remain top of mind for them when making a booking. Here are the measures they sayÌýare most important:

More people are using travel agencies than before

The second key area of change is that more people are turning to travel agencies to make a booking than before COVID-19. This is because theyÌýhave confidence in agencies to provide assurance on safety measuresÌý(65%), plus their ability to change or cancel a trip if required (23%). Interestingly for hotels, 39% of young travelers (18-38yrs) are now more likely to use a travel agency to book their trip than before.

Remember: for travel agencies, a hotel stay isÌýno longer just an attachmentÌýto an air booking, but something that people traveling domestically will seek their advice about. This is an important consideration for hoteliers, as it demonstrates the renewed focus agents will have in retailing your offers from now on.

5 ways to drive agency bookings

You now need to understand how these changes have impacted agents, and how to present new content to them. Here are some ways to do that:

1. Thoroughly document and communicate on your safety/hygiene measuresÌý

To be able to inform and advise travelers, agents need to know the latest updates on your safety measures, such as social distancing requirements, regulations, amenity restrictions, as well as information on government restrictions on travel. Since these are constantly changing, agents often need to look at many different sources for the most up-to-date information before making a booking. Some platforms like ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ have consolidated this information —ÌýÌý— making it as easy as possible for them to sell your offers.

On our platform, you can communicate your latest safety measures, restrictions, and changes to agents through banner and sign-on message, plus digital advertisements. You can also use ourÌýbest practice guidesÌýfor advice on how to update your room and rate descriptions to communicate the safety measures that travelers can expect to see in place. This is key to restoring traveler confidence and encouraging them to book again.

This will compliment yourÌýowned direct channels (like website, social media, and email) that you are likely already using to distribute your safety messages in text, images, and video formats.

2. Standardize where possible

Numerous trade and government bodies, including theÌýÌýand theÌýÌýhave issued guidelines to support recovery in the hotel sector. These are designed to define what the necessary health and safety attributes are, and communicate them in a consistent way.

ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ is aggregating hotel safety information into a new amenity called Stay Safe, which enables agents and travelers to quickly and easily filter results, based on hotels or chains who have signed up.

3. Stay flexible, honest, and transparent on policies and pricingÌý

Given the fluid nature of the situation, travelers are finding it impossible to plan ahead. This is reflected in the changes in booking lead times that we’re seeing across the board. Those who are traveling want reassurance that if their plans change then they can get their money back, or change their bookings if needs be. So, be sure to update your cancellation policies, and have all rate plans loaded.

Your hotel should therefore have the appropriate cancellation policies in place to reassure them. Again, travelers are seeking agency advice on this front right now, so you need to be sure yourÌýcontent on booking platforms is set upÌýto enable agents to quickly and easily find this information.

4. Rekindle the desire to travelÌý

Agencies want to know what special offers you have that may entice travelers. Although consumers are no longer as heavily influenced by price and are now more concerned with safety measures, they are stillÌý.

For this reason, it’s also important that your hotel loads the same prices as OTAs and .com sites. All of this may encourage travelersÌý— who are eagerly anticipating a full return to travel in 2021 — to book ahead. Like safety messages, this can also be done using headline banner advertisements and advertising within the booking platform.

5. Deliver reliable and accountable customer service and follow-up

For travel agencies representing hundreds of hotel brands, it takes heavy-duty support to ensure customers have all the information they need to buy with confidence. Once they do, it’s important that your hotel matches this standard of customer service — particularly when you considerÌýhow important customer reviews areÌýto agencies and travelers alike.

Find out more

I hope you’ve found these first steps useful.Ìý In the rest of this miniseries, I’ll be exploring how you can optimize your GDS content to communicate your safety messages to agents, sharing tips to restore traveler confidence and boost your hotel’s appeal, plus giving details about our new Stay Safe platform filter.

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To find out, ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ carried out research focused on travelers’ changing needs in the era of COVID-19. We cross-checked these findings against what our supply partners (air, hotel, car) are actually doing and published all of this in ourÌýGuide to Travel Recovery. What emerged from our research is that people want to travel, and are willing to — but only if stringent safety measures are implemented across all touchpoints of their journey. In addition, people also want the flexibility to cancel or amend their booking if their situation changes.

We have identified 10 categories that we found to be key to restoring consumer confidence — nine safety measures plus the added driver of keeping travelers’ money safe through flexible change/cancellation policies. The importance of each factor varies by supplier-type, but — overall — this shows that travelers want as many precautions in place as possible, plus the freedom to change their plans, if necessary, without losing out financially.

1. Enhanced cleaning and/or disinfection

Travelers want to be sure that rigorous cleaning procedures are being followed, across all touchpoints of their journey. This includes:

• during and between flights (71%)
• aircraft disinfection before departure (70%)
• enhanced hotel cleaning (73%)
• enhanced cleaning between car rental bookings (72%)

2. Access to sanitizing gel/disinfectant wipes

Suppliers can meet or exceed traveler expectations and give them extra peace of mind by supplying them with sanitizing products:

• at baggage collection (69%)
• readily available disinfectant wipes on flights (61%)
• access to sanitizing gel, face masks and gloves at hotels (70%) and car rental locations (66%)

3. Social distancing

Social distancing can be one of the trickier safety measures to implement, and for airlines it is not commercially viable to block the middle seat in the long run. Travelers say that effective social distancing will encourage them to book a flight, and they want to see this implemented:

• throughout air travel journey (68%)
• socially distant seating on aircraft (66%)
• in hotels (66%)
• at car rental locations (64%)

4. Temperature checks

The merits of widespread temperature checks, and who should conduct them, isÌýÌýby travel stakeholders, medical experts, and governments. From our research though, we can see that until a vaccine or effective treatment is available, air travelers, in particular, would like to see temperature checks being carried out both:

• at the entrance to airports (66%)
• before boarding (66%)

5.ÌýMandatory mask wearing

Mask wearing is becoming standard practice in many public settings, beyond just travel. This is acknowledged as an effective way of reducing community transmission of COVID-19 and is a simple solution for situations where social distancing is more difficult. Travelers seem to be embracing this trend too, with the results showing that they want this required:

• in airports (64%)
• in the air (64%)
• in hotels, by staff (64%)
• in car rental location, by staff (61%)

6. Plexiglass at check-in

Like mask-wearing, plexiglass is also becoming more common in retail and customer-service environments. Where contactless or entirely automated processes are not possible, this is the next-best alternative, with travelers wanting to see this, in particular, at airport check-in desks (56%).

7.ÌýManaged aircraft boarding by row

Ìý— perhaps one small positive from the pandemic. Travelers are likely to exercise much more caution at this stage of their journey now and want airlines to prevent crowding by managing boarding by row. This is important to 56% of travelers.

8. Air filtration

Travelers know that on many flights, full social distancing will not be possible. Like mask-wearing, HEPA air filtration provides them with some reassurance that they are safe in the cabin. This is important to 62% of travelers.

9. Contactless services

Before COVID-19, having a human face at a check-in desk or front of house was important to many people, and symbolic of quality customer service. But now, as people seek to reduce their in-person interactions and close contacts, technology will enable many travel businesses to creatively adapt their processes, increasingly support self-check-in. Travelers prefer contactless:

• air check-in (58%)
• hotel check-in (58%)
• car collection and drop-off (55%)

Like contactless services, mobile guest services will also allow travelers to rely less on in-person interactions in hotels. This may include room service, making reservations in a restaurant, booking leisure facilities, transfers, and more. This was important to 51% of travelers.

10. Flexible change/cancellation policies

In addition to feeling physically safe throughout their travels, consumers also want to know that their money will be safe if they book. The COVID-19 situation is changing by the day, creating uncertainty and making some travelers hesitant to book. Travel suppliers now need flexible policies to make it possible for people to change their trip without incurring charges, or cancel and get a full refund if they become unwell, or if travel restrictions are reintroduced in either their departure point or destination.

At the same time, suppliers need to make agencies aware of this information so they can confidently guide people during booking. A notable 64% of people said that having fully flexible or refundable tickets was a ‘very important’ consideration that would influence them to book a flight. During our research, our airline, hotel, and car partners mirrored this view that flexibility around change/cancellations would play a key role in restoring traveler confidence.

Let’s talk safety: communication is key

Speaking about safety measures, Derek Sadubin, Managing Director, CAPA – Centre for Aviation, noted “Health and safety is understandably front of mind for travelers right now. The travel industry recognizes and respects this and, what’s encouraging, is that many suppliers, such as airlines, have already implemented the safety measures travelers say they need to book a domestic or international trip — but we still have a long way to go. Collaboration and communication are now key to restoring traveler confidence and securing a strong and responsible industry recovery.�

The research in ourÌýGuide to Travel RecoveryÌýshowed that airlines, hotels, and car providers are — by and large — implementing the right measures that travelers want and need. So, the next step towards recovery is to thoroughly document and communicate all of this to people, something not as straightforward as it may sound.

Right now, people are inundated with information, news, and updates about COVID-19, across personal, professional, and public channels. The World Health OrganizationÌýÌýthis type of ‘infodemic’ makes it hard for people to find trustworthy sources and reliable guidance when they need it — even when they have access to high-quality information.

For travel businesses, this information overload makes it particularly difficult to cut through the noise and ensure safety messages are seen and heard. Plus, the situation on the ground in destinations — and the associated entry and exit requirements — are changing regularly, creating an additional challenge for agencies and destination marketing organizations.

But opportunity exists — even in a crisis of this magnitude.

Travel agencies have more potential than ever to add value in the booking process, and indeed our research is showing that people are now 33% more likely to use an agent than before COVID-19, with 82% more or as likely. Of this, 65% said that the reason they feel more confident booking through an agency is because they can provide the latest travel safety information. This highlights how important it is for agencies to be able to find this information quickly and conveniently.

In March, ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ noticed agencies were facing a similar challenge when it came to staying on top of cancellation/change policies, and so we developed ourÌýpolicy tracker toolÌýto support our agency customers. Based on the positive feedback we received about it, we developed something similar to aid industry recovery:Ìý our newÌýAirline Health and Safety tracker.

We created the Airline Health & Safety tracker to help inform agents and consumersÌýwhat to expect when travelling with 80+ airlines globally, and have expanded this for hotel and car providers.

To make life easier for our agency customers, we also developed a Smartpoint plugin, which gives travel agencies access to information on government restrictions, lockdowns, and safety measures across the globe — all within the agent’s workflow.

And on the supply side, we’re also helping our partners to communicate their safety messages directly to agencies via our platform. They’re doing this using our digital media solutions, which delivers safety messages to agencies at the point of booking.

All of this combined is helping to deliver safety information to travelers, giving them confidence that their well-being is of paramount importance across the travel ecosystem.

Read on: Guide to Recovery in Travel

It’s more important than ever that we as an industry are aware of — and in tune with — what travelers want. We must continue to work ever more closely together to build our understanding of our customers’ needs and deliver it in such a way that they feel protected, both physically and financially. This is how, together, we can reconnect the world and drive real recovery.

You can read more about this in ourÌýGuide to Travel Recovery. I’m sure you’ll find it as insightful, interesting, and instructive as we did.

Safe travels, everyone.

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Our findings helped us to identify nine safety measures plus the added driver of flexibility in change/cancellation policy. We’ve captured this information in a handy snapshot for you here.

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