Was glancing through the Top travel trends for 2011 published by Phocuswright and thought of sharing some interesting snippets.
So here we go.
The big news for the industry is of course that vacations are finally making a comeback. People all over are tired of waiting for an economic recovery and are planning to go on vacations. That is indeed good news and the interesting point here is that more customers now want to deal with the supplier and Travel agent directly rather than through an Online Portal.
Other key trends included
- GDS and Air lines planning to have a retail entry for air distribution
- Shift in travel search patterns once Google/ITA merger is complete
- Emerging markets to be led by India, China and Brazil
- Singapore, Mexico, Hong Kong, Argentina, Chile and Indonesia are strong followers
- Advances in mobile and tablets will improve customer service and enhance the overall travel experience.
The trends portray a mixed bag of results for Travel Technology players. On the one hand there is the news that people are planning to travel more and then the point that they would go ahead other than the online route. This would lead to a decrease in the use of OTA's but then growth of mobile and tablets will only help OTA's to grow.
What would be the end impact on OTA use? As they say let us wait and see!
Author: Sathish Kumar .S
Sathish works as Project Lead in Teknokraaft and heads our OTA team.