Category: Travel Industry

The travel industry is undergoing a seismic shift, and OTAs must adapt to survive and thrive. As we navigate the complexities of 2024, a clear understanding of these 11 trends is paramount. From the rise of AI-powered personalization to the evolving expectations of the modern traveler, OTAs must embrace innovation and customer-centricity. By mastering these trends, OTAs can not only weather the storm but emerge as industry leaders, shaping the future of travel.

I’ve discussed the ideal Travel AI Service should feel like a personal extension of myself and I would like to visualize what a highly automated, and eventually completely autonomous, Travel AI-powered booking might look like. I believe everything I describe below is possible today for a travel startup or travel tech platform to incorporate into their feature stack to (i) increase conversion rates, (ii) increase engagement, (iii) increase brand loyalty to the travel retailer, and (iv) a less friction filled travel experience.

Travel is no exception. I demand solutions to travel problems I didn’t even know existed, before I even realized they’re problems. Mind-Reading Travel AI In the context of travel, it dawned on me that what I truly desire is for Travel AI to read my mind. It’s a simple yet ambitious idea - just reading my mind. No one can accuse me of thinking small. 😉

I propose that a new generation of travelers, born natively into natural language travel searching, will embrace natural language consumer-initiated travel searches (note the word consumer-initiated).

AI does have consumer-facing use cases, but these are nowhere near the hype surrounding its impact on consumer-initiated travel products and services.

I believe the US travel industry (companies, media, prognosticators) is currently spending too much mental energy, attention, opportunity cost and focus on the inbound Chinese traveler market while overlooking opportunities from other lucrative source markets. Fixating on ‘the Pre-pandemic level return of Chinese Inbound Travelers’ is like a friend who’s separated from his longtime girlfriend that keeps talking about the good old days; hoping and praying they’ll get back together. I’m afraid, wishing, hoping, and praying isn’t a strategy and as far as I’m concerned it doesn’t matter who separated first and who’s at fault. Chinese Travelers Aren’t Returning Anytime ... Read more

Every aspect of the travel industry benefits from shorter tourism visa processing times --- hotels, guides, tourism boards, airlines, transportation companies, attractions, restaurants, etc. I am speechless (and that’s hard for somebody as opiniated as me) to the point of being shell shocked at the wait times people are experiencing to enter the USA as a tourist or for business. I had to re-read, and then double and triple check, the current USA visa processing times because I thought it was a typo and the decimal point was in the wrong place.

Larger travel companies have and will continue to dominate the initial wave of large language model AI benefits. Where does that leave (comparatively smaller) travel startups

While it can be challenging to differentiate travel startups & travel apps from a customer viewpoint (the most important of viewpoints at the end of the day since they are paying all the bills so say), it's an essential step in identifying, attracting, and retaining hyper-niche customers. By focusing on unique value propositions, user-centric design, excellent customer support, continuous innovation, and unique strategic data sets, travel startups and travel apps can set themselves apart from competitors and communicate their unique strengths to customers.

As a traveler or even as somebody from the travel industry, have you ever struggled to differentiate between two different travel app offerings? Perhaps you've found yourself comparing two travel apps, or two different travel software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers (expense reporting services, trip itinerary aggregators..), and felt like they were virtually indistinguishable from one another. This can be very frustrating for somebody within the travel industry so you can imagine how it would be for consumers, especially when they're trying to make an informed decision about which service to choose within a narrow band of time and interest.