Euromonitor International presented its latest tourism Global Trends report at the Arabian Travel Market (ATM 2015). The report provides state-of-the-art insight into MENA economic trends with specific emphasis on the future impact of smart technologies and opportunities for business tourism growth in the region.
“In next five years destination services, personalisation, mobile bookings and peer-to-peer are expected to be the main unruly forces in the travel industry, above all the rise in mobile technology as a transformational channel for the tourism landscape in terms of bookings, customer service and consumer behaviour will be the crux of the matter.”
If we take Middle East specifically, Euromonitor key performance indicators (KPIs) for 2013-15 show US$ percentage growth in air transport value set to rise from 6.1% to 12%, hotel value rising from 7.4% to 9.1% and travel retail value predicted to jump from 7.1% to 9.7%.
With the GCC countries as the primary beneficiaries driven by infrastructure developments, inward tourist receipts will also grow by as much as 10.9% in 2014 and 10.4% in 2015.Projecting design industry as a potential catalyst for growth the report has also highlighted new zones of tourism development opportunity in the forthcoming Dubai Expo 2020.
Another observation by the presentation is the mainstreaming of wearable electronics and the correlation between the growth in travel technology and upswing in online travel sales, which reached US$590 billion in 2013, or 27% of all travel sales.
“While Asia Pacific is expected to drive global growth in online travel, with its online travel sales set to double from US$90 billion in 2013 to US$180 billion in 2018, it is a growing global trend. As mobile devices are playing a crucial role in the travel industry in terms of both customer service and bookings with mobile bookings are expected to reach 35% of online travel bookings by 2018,” states the report.
Presently the fastest growing trends in online travel are big data analytics, peer-to-peer services and in-destination services and wearable electronics is all set to become the next big thing for travellers.
Source- www.voyagersworld.in
Author: Manoj .S
Manoj works as Team Lead in Teknokraaft and looks into the Flights vertical primarily.