Articles tagged “megatrends 2015”

We’re still in the early days of the Instagram Influencer, but the one thing we do know is that great visuals will catch on no matter who’s doing the sharing.

The sharing economy has spread to every sector of the travel industry and every corner of the globe pushing it from a small community of global explorers to a full-fledged industry needing regulation and customer protection like the traditional market it sought to complement.

It would be prudent for the established leaders in online travel not to get over-confident. They are going to have to work extremely hard to maintain their positions, which will undoubtedly be altered

Amid increased competition and more sophisticated marketing tools, a lifestyle brand that connects to travelers’ ideals of themselves and the world has become the one vehicle left for building a long-term meaningful relationship with customers. It will be the key differentiator for future generations and a staple of product development moving forward.

Walking into a travel terminal, beginning a journey and then following it through, is poised to become an increasingly autonomous experience. It may well be marked not as much by lines at a kiosk but instead by the wave of a watch or band at a sensor, followed by an instant interaction in which seamless add-ons and ancillary sales could become a major market factor for travel brands who lean into the convergence of mobile payments and wearable tech.

You are, therefore you book. From maps to mobile and wearables, booking becomes ubiquitous, ever-present.

Smaller destinations are finding smart ways to market what they are, not what they think others want them to be. And they’re finding success reaching visitors outside of traditional media and advertising.

The event of the future is a co-created hybrid mechanism of live and virtual engagement, fluidly connecting more people through more channels over longer periods of time to leverage the collective knowledge of the community.

For the first time since online booking of travel became mainstream, hotels are being rewired and rethought from top to bottom, and every obvious part of hospitality is being turned over, questioned, and retooled.