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How Disruption Has Changed the Travel Industry - Technology, AI, and How the Future Will Look Like

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Over the last few years, momentous changes in how the world operates has given rise to a new buzzword and hot topic: disruption. Initially coined by Clayton Christensen, the term is currently often used to refer to the “fourth industrial revolution”, where new companies and their products started to deftly interweave technology with various parts of our lives that were then unprecedented, although the term has been used for far longer - something which will be explored later in the article.

Overview

Introduction

Disruption, Defined

What This Means For The Travel Industry

Disruptions In Ground Transport - Uber, Lyft and Grab

Disruption in Hotels

Disruption In Airlines

Disruption For Travel Agents - AI, and the Substitution of Labour

Problems Travel Agents Have To Overcome To Thrive

Conclusion

Introduction

To many, recent “disruptions” have led to drastic changes in how industries function and how consumers fundamentally live, work and relate to each other. As the World Economic Forum (WEF) puts it, the fourth industrial revolution we see today is best characterised by the blurring of lines between “physical, digital, and biological spheres”. Although the description is hazy, several hallmark examples have come to rise as industries all over the world start to experience this revolution. Most of them are recent breakthroughs in numerous fields, such as nanotechnology, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence so advanced it can now beat the world’s best in mind sports - one of which involves the Chinese game Go!, a sport which is widely recognised as one of the hardest games to master in the world. There are even other artificial intelligences which can swiftly navigate the nuances of human conversation, such that now, there are times where they are indistinguishable from another human being. (Watch how Google's new talking AI just beat the Turing test here!)

While these advances may bode well for the future and the world as a whole, the biggest worry that many people hold is this - how ready is society for this new revolution? In the same vein, given the far-reaching effects of disruption, how will this ultimately affect the travel industry, which currently remains one of the most important sectors in the modern world?

However, to fully understand the effects of disruption, we must first ask: what exactly is disruption?

Disruption, defined

The term disruption first took off after its initial appearance in Professor Clayton Christensen’s 1997 book, The Innovator’s Dilemma. In the book, Christensen - a world-renowned American academic and business consultant - introduced the idea “disruptive innovation”, and used the phrase to refer to successful companies not just meeting their customers’ current needs, but anticipating their future and unstated needs as well.

This theory, now taught in many a business school, worked to explain how small companies with minimal resources were able to enter a market against established competitors, and displace the conventional and prevailing system.

In 2015, Christensen also published an update on the term and what it should encompass, but the core ideas remain the same: a disruptive business starts to come about when they look to meet the needs of either less-demanding customers, or when they create a market where none existed before.

This is something that is made even clearer when looking at the different types of disruption that have been laid out: Low-End Disruption, and New Market Disruption, both of which will be referenced throughout the article across the various sectors of the travel industry.

While the terms seem alien, both types of disruption have already been witnessed countless times by the markets they affect.

Low-End Disruption is a form of disruption that takes place when a competitor is able to give consumers a lower-cost offering that often takes away price-sensitive customers from established industry players. This can be observed in ride-hailing apps such as Uber and Ryde, when they managed to steal over a large part of the consumer base from the taxi industry.

However, the second type of disruption, New Market Disruption, is one more commonly associated with the word. Specifically, it refers to disruption that occurs when a product is able to address key needs that consumers have, either current or future, when current offerings do not. A great example would be Ryanair from the airline industry. Ryanair, a low cost airline, created an entirely new market of budget travelers in an industry dominated by full-cost carriers. Rather than just directly stealing customers from larger airline companies by engaging in a price war, Ryanair instead offered routes and personalisation options that no one else did, which also allowed lower prices overall.

Both of these types of disruptions are important to understand when analysing a market as complex as the travel industry. While we now understand disruption a little bit better, for now, let’s go back to look at how ready people are for new industry “disruptors” all around the world.

What this means for the travel industry

According to Forbes, the world doesn’t seem ready for this revolution at all. In fact, they estimate that only about 15% of today’s companies are prepared for the future.

The reason for this is because these companies neglected adapting new and current technology into how their businesses were run, and as a result, they were woefully unprepared when “disruptors” like Uber and Airbnb came into the market and started to dominate a huge part of the market share.

The speed at which technology is progressing also means companies that fail to adapt are going to be easily left behind, and will have a tough time catching up in the long-term if they fail to act soon.

While the outlook for companies as a whole is applicable to the travel industry, the industry is also unique in how integrated they are with the public’s lives, due to the ever-growing desire to travel. This means that every part of the travel industry - from flights, to hotels, to ground transport - will always need to adapt to society’s ever-changing needs and habits, especially in how they make their purchases and their preferred mediums.

But the problem here is this - that oftentimes, technology changes much faster than people do, and people already often have trouble catching up to new technological advancements in their own lifetime. And the truth is, companies usually change much, much slower than people do, for many deep-rooted structural reasons in how they are often run.

Of course, the travel industry is complex and multi-faceted, which means disruption in one of its parts can be completely different from disruption in another. In this article, we are going to look at how disruption has looked like in the past for the transport and hotel industries, and what this may mean for airlines and travel agents in the future.

Disruptions in ground transport - Uber, Lyft and Grab

Founded in 2009, Uber’s ride-hailing app took the world by storm, spreading its reach beyond its own soil in the United States in a mere two years. Only two years after that, the company grew into a behemoth worth billions of dollars - a number that has only continued to grow since - and revolutionised the ground transport industry as we knew it.

This change started to precipitate to other countries, where competitors such as Lyft, Grab and Didi Chuxing (its US, Southeast Asian and Chinese competitors and counterparts, respectively) all sprung up within the same month of each other in June 2012 and grew into million-dollar companies shortly after.

How did this all happen?

Uber was a solution and alternative to a transport industry that consumers always viewed with distrust and uncertainty. It:

set standards and regulations that many felt were missing in taxi industries and companies

worked with newer technology, utilising online booking systems and integrating GPS softwares to make getting rides faster, safer and easier, and

engaged their drivers as agents rather than employees.

All these culminated in a service which provided customers with a cheaper, more convenient app that could give them a peace of mind, and made Uber the go-to for a pricier transport alternative to public transport. This in turn gave drivers a large, growing customer base to tap on if they worked as agents for Uber, and crucially,lowered the barrier of entry for both drivers and riders alike in their ability to provide both supply and demand to the ground transport industry as a result.

This set in motion the actual disruption which took place, where people found an attractive alternative to satiate their needs. Both cheaper and held to a higher standard, these very alternatives turned into a new norm, and changed the industry entirely. In the end, it revolutionised what it meant to be a service-provider by cutting out the need to own inventory - much like in the case of Uber and Airbnb - and changed how people conducted business within it.

Disruption in hotels

Of course, this does not mean shifts in consumer attitudes - often the main reason why disruption occurs in service industries, as supplies move to meet a high demand - all happen for the same reason. A great example of this would be the hotel industry, where, while the disruption that took place is one that is rather similar to that of the land transport industry, the reasons consumers had for moving are slightly different.

A great example to look at would be Airbnb, a hospitality company that also happens to be one of the most iconic examples of New-Market Disruption.

For those unfamiliar, Airbnb is an American company which operates an online marketplace and allows locals to lease their available accomodations to travelers, usually for short-term stay. Currently, the app also links locals up with tourists who are looking for new experiences in the country - such as walking tours, surfing, or exploring the local cuisine - and allows people to make reservations at restaurants through the app.

The unique thing about Airbnb - and what sets its disruption apart from Uber’s - is it added a new dimension to how people can travel and immerse themselves in the culture of the places they are visiting. While cost was certainly a factor, it is not always enough to sway people from age-old brands or established hotels - rather, the real deciding factor in whether or not consumers switch who they buy from is the value that consumers feel like they get out of their purchases. In Airbnb’s case, the value-add was in getting the chance to know the culture of the place you are visiting more intimately, because you are eased into it by either your friendly local host, or the slew of experiences available to purchase on the app. Such experiences were missing before due to the nature of hotels- including the scale of their operations - and thus appealed to travelers who wish to immerse themselves more deeply in their overseas trips.

The Similarities in Both Cases, and What This Shows About the Fourth Industrial Revolution

The single, most obvious similarity between both Uber and Airbnb is this: they are both app companies that made it much easier for the average person to become providers and suppliers of car rides and empty rooms. The lowered barrier of entry and potential for a side-income for their “partners” hence increased the supply of these perishable goods, and created a marketplace which incentivised lower costs in attempts to attract better business - a tactic that has evidently worked, and drew crowds away from the traditional options of standard, metered taxis and clean but impersonal and indistinct hotel rooms.

None of this would have been possible without the technological advances which came from the third industrial revolution - a digital revolution characterised by the use of electronics and information technology to automate production, and the first revolution to involve the internet, computing and wireless communication technologies.

The birth of these advances was able to reach so many people at once that not only did it become far easier for individuals to remain connected with each other with the use of technology, but it became indispensable in how people lead their lives in the modern age.

It was thus this technology that formed a new foundation for our society - where we found spaces for new technological breakthroughs to integrate with our daily lives. The greatest impact of this was that we could lead lives of better quality, as tedious processes are shortened for us and repetitive menial tasks start becoming automated.

In retrospect, it seemed inevitable that the fourth industrial revolution would eventually come about much faster than its predecessors, especially as an extension of the third. The constant use of all of these large-scale technological systems and software by a significant portion of the global population eventually meant that all the information that was and could be collected could no longer to be overlooked.

Years of the internet, social media and increasingly advanced software gave way to the advent of big data, where information and data collected from the past - as an accumulation of most of the world’s recent knowledge and memory - started being utilised for machine-learning (also known as deep learning) and increasingly detailed trend analysis, all of which we still see today. At its simplest form, the effects of the revolution exists in the smallest bits of our lives, in the form of more personalised special deals, targeted advertisement, recommendations for music or travel.

But what the world should brace itself for is the unlimited potential this revolution carries with it. As the computer scientist and futurist Ray Kurzweil elucidates in his book The Singularity Is Near, the technological progress we achieve is often not linear. Rather, we make breakthroughs more and more frequently the more advanced we get - and while the first three industrial revolutions were also disruptors in their own right, the fourth industrial revolution, with these things taken into consideration, could prove to be a different beast entirely - evidenced by the ability for markets to be entirely upended by new competitors with innovative technology and unconventional business models.

Uber and Airbnb are, hence, only symptomatic of the major change that is underway. Still, they were one of the first to shape the path towards a better world, each with their own unique contributions in the services they offer to the public.

Of course, both of these companies have their own share of problems, and in the future, will also struggle to remain relevant to the public as we progress even further along technologically. But these are also struggles that other parts of the industry can learn from - something we will touch on later. For now, let’s first look at how the other major parts of the industry - namely the airline and travel agent sector - will change.

Disruption in airlines

Previously, we did an article on the air industry’s technology here, and discussed the possible futures of the GDS system - including the industry’s possible move onto a new GDS alternative with the use of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and New Distribution Capabilities (NDCs), a data transmission standard that uses XML coding lanaguage. What the article didn’t mention is how its alternatives may look like given the context of the fourth industrial revolution, and what the effects of this change will look like if disruption does in fact take place.

According to the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA), the upcoming disruption that is waiting to happen in the airline industry is due within the next decade. This disruption is also one that is long overdue, due to the industry’s inertia and inability to move away from their reliance on the GDS providers who rely on their own outdated technology, while both they and their competitors look for ways to move forward with newer software or ways to circumvent the problems. And most airlines are, unsurprisingly, ill-prepared.

As the report by CAPA puts it: “It seems inconceivable that the structure of an industry with so many artificial constraints can remain intact much past 70 years, while all around it has changed. This decade alone has been witness to major disruptions in the travel and transportation industries. Most prominent have been in ride sharing – Uber – and in hospitality – Airbnb. Telecommunications, media and music industries have also been turned on their heads; banks and payments are in the firing line; retail generally is being rapidly transformed. There is scarcely an industry whose fundamental structure remains intact. Except the airline industry.”

There are a multitude of reasons why this is so, but the greatest problem is that even newer startups have taken on the use of this outdated technology by the GDS, and only tried to apply their own IT solutions onto the software. Meanwhile, the cornerstone of the industry - namely, the GDS systems that most agents and airlines still rely on for a large chunk of their flights - remains stubbornly outdated.

But even as technology progresses far more quickly than ever before, change is still difficult. Currently, the search for better alternatives has long been underway, and many - including CAPA - seem hopeful that the fourth industrial revolution can only accelerate this transition to a better, more technologically-savvy industry. But the ability for disruption to occur in areas that are key aspects of commercial aviation is still undetermined, and while many alternatives - such as blockchain - have been looked into, implementation still remains a question as questions about these alternatives’ limitations arise.

But there’s no doubt that change can still occur in the form of improvements - in efficiency, performance and even customer satisfaction - when it comes to the technology airlines use, both in flights and out.

According to American Marketing Association, the amount of data airlines collected has not only allowed them to offer more immediate resolutions for customer service issues on-board (by offering compensation such as frequent flyer miles and travel vouchers through an app) - airlines can now even integrate data touch points with technology. An example would be Delta Air Lines, which has started introducing software which can track basic customer information for better, more personalised customer service. They also utilised heart rate monitors on volunteer customers to track their heartbeats at 11 stressful moments during the travel experience, including finding a parking spot at the airport, moving through security, and boarding the plane, in a bid to delve deeper into customer behaviour.

Said Andrew Wingrove, Delta’s managing director of product and customer experience: “We do focus groups with biometrics and biodata on where customers are looking at things on screens, where their eyes are on the airplanes to make things more intuitive. The heart monitor was one of the tests we used for focus groups to better understand where their anxiety is.”

Certainly, such changes definitely bode well for the industry and its customers as a whole - but even then, it is going to remain difficult for a proper “disruptor” to come about and change up the airline industry’s operations entirely.

This is because the greatest problem is not that there is a lack of demand in the market for something newer and better, but because, as we explored in our previous article, that the GDS providers have far too much power within the industry, which means that any form of change is going to be quite difficult due to the sheer volume of travel agents they have. Briefly, this is because the sheer volume of inventory and data owned by the GDS leaves it as the most reliable medium by which travel agents make flight bookings. Studies also show that even Online Travel Agents such as Booking.com and Expedia continue to rely on the GDS for a majority of their bookings.

As a result, any airline who shifts onto an alternative might just jeopardise their current earnings and ticket sales if they get taken off the GDS database, and therefore would rather stick with the GDS providers, who guarantee them reach to both the average consumer on the ground and the hoards of travel agents that give the GDS providers traffic, than move elsewhere, even if onto a new “disruptor”.

And the greatest problem is this - that the airline industry’s growth is oftentimes very much because of the GDS’ existence and international reach - something that doesn’t exist in most other industries or businesses, such as Uber. Without its connectivity and ability to aggregate data from a majority of airlines across the world, it is unlikely that the industry would have continued to experience year-on-year growth across international corporate and leisure travelers. Even more crucially, the GDS enables travel agents to make travel services available to consumers globally, including in places where they may not be able to reach these very same consumers through direct marketing efforts - meaning it makes it easier both for airlines and travel agents to sell, and consumers to buy - or even know who is selling in the first place.

But what if we take away the flying process entirely?

If the air travel industry’s way of transportation and conducting their bookings cannot be disrupted in a straightforward manner (such as in the way of Low-End Disruption), then perhaps it is possible to subvert the travelling entirely. In some places, this is already starting to become reality.

The way to achieve this is through the use of Virtual Reality systems such as more advanced versions of the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive that we currently know.

There is already much headway done in the realm of virtual and augmented reality technology, and now the next step of Virtual Reality is this: total sensory immersion.

What this entails is something that is entirely different from all the augmented and virtual reality softwares we’ve seen before. An ability to engage with all five senses in a simulation, the simulation is likely able to let people truly feel like they’ve travelled to a different country almost entirely - while walking around only in a room that has been constructed solely for virtual reality, they are able to hear the sounds of the streets they stroll down on, or smell the aromas of tantalising street foods that surround them at the local markets.

Currently, technology has progressed so far along that even our interactions with others and our sense of taste can be simulated. With artificial intelligence that can interact with people so naturally it passes the Turing test, and special cups that make plain water taste like your favourite beverage, including lemonade and wine, it seems like being in another country when you’re not actually there in person is now in the realm of possibility.

Perhaps the technology involved may not be advanced enough yet for all types of experiences to be simulated, but for now, the future looks promising. Of course, problems unique to the use of technology, such as technical glitches, may affect how real these experiences feel, but this is still a great alternative to having to travel to another place entirely just to wind down and relax - something that often costs not only a large amount of money, but time as well.

This, of course, makes it much easier for more price-sensitive consumers to enjoy some of the luxuries that their richer counterparts do on a more frequent basis, which means that, much like in the case of Ryanair, a new segment of the market has opened up, and the barrier of entry is lowered for people wish to purchase the supply.

Moreover, in the case of technology, it often does not take long before people can also start being the supply, or at least have a hand in its production - which is likely the next step in being able to simulate events or environments that no one else has been able to dream of before.

This kind of disruption, as we looked at before, is New Market Disruption, something far harder for companies to guard against - often because what eventually became an industry’s disruptor never looked like one at all. Technological advances only serve to exacerbate this problem as new tools emerge for creative competitors to utilise, making it easier to disrupt the market with more innovative technology every time it comes about. While some companies can try to prevent their own irrelevance by diversifying themselves and attempting to ride new waves of technology as they spot them - such as the case of Google and their early, initial investment in artificial intelligence - it is unlikely that most existing companies are willing or able to do so due to the high risk from unpredictable directions that technological advances can take. Meanwhile, the race to innovate only continues, even for disruptors themselves - lest they become the disrupted, and left behind.

But when companies are ill-prepared for this change - or at least, often under-prepared - what does this mean for travel agents?

Disruption for travel agents - AI, and the substitution of labour

While there have emerged many reports that speculate the death of the job of a travel agent - mostly by substitution of labour by artificially intelligent robots - this disappearance can perhaps still be prevented.

This is because travel agents are key in being the bridge between different key components of the travel industry - from its consumers, to its airlines, the GDS providers, and even other travel and travel-related agents and agencies across the world.

In a circumstance where change is just around every corner, it is likely that human versatility and adaptability are key in being able to maintain these connections that industry players and consumers have with one another.

This means that while the current job description of a travel agent may become less relevant in the future, the job of a travel agent is not going to be. Rather, the job description of a travel agent is simply likely to have to evolve as technology and the travel industry does. And many travel agents seem to be catching on - over the the past few years, while brick and mortar travel agencies have diminished in number, the number of travelers engaging a travel agent’s services have only risen.

Meanwhile, the latest Portrait of the American Traveler surveyconducted by MMGY Global, a travel and hospitality firm, showed that 19 percent of travelers used an agent’s services in 2016, up from 13 percent in 2013. This increase seems to have happened at the same time there was a widespread move away from traditional storefront agencies, and towards agents working as independent contractors who usually join up with a bigger consortia for training, marketing tools, and access to better travel content.

How is this happening? The answer, fortunately, is quite simple.

Problems travel agents have to overcome to thrive

The key to a travel agent’s survival is to see digitalisation as an opportunity, rather than a threat. As technology continues to take over and it becomes easier for consumers to handle their own bookings, travel agents must first question what unique thing they can offer to consumers that technology and artificial intelligence can’t.

As briefly explored in one of our previous article , the first edge that travel agents have over artificial intelligences is that they are supposed to be reliable collaborators with their customers during the process of trip-planning.

This is especially important, because most artificial intelligences cannot fully adapt to complex, human situations filled with countless variables, such as in the case of driverless cars. Rather, an inability to understand and adapt to social nuances and settings could even cause customer satisfaction to drop, even if AIs were given a large amount of data to work with.

And even if these artificial intelligences were to be developed for very specific and specialised purposes - which we will explore below - this is a cost that companies may not be willing to make - the amount of time and money put into developing these artificial intelligences to completely learn something new can be quite considerable, as these AI often start from scratch and form their own understandings with the abundance of data they have. If the industry were to suddenly change, their investment in these artificial intelligences may even be completely gone in the face of newer competitors and circumstances.

Some may argue that the inability of AI to adapt will change in the future, but even when looking at the world’s newest inventions, it seems improbable that AI will eventually be able to fully understand the complexity of interactions humans have with each other. One example to look at is Google’s new innovation, the Google Duplex, as shown in a recent showcase. While the AI seems impressive on surface - able to mimic a person’s speech down to tics such as “ums” and “uhs” - it did not truly pass the Turing test, which evaluates a machine’s intelligence.

To pass the test, it requires a machine to behave in a way indistinguishable to a human, and while Google Duplex seems to have done so, the truth is the test was conducted under the wrong conditions, where the topic of conversation and the purpose of the AI were both very narrow and focused only on the booking of appointments in two differing contexts - first for a hair salon appointment, and next for a restaurant reservation. And despite its ability to navigate both situations swiftly, it is likely that even as the AI and softwares similar improve over time, most of them are still likely going to only book your appointments, flights or rooms for you, and not with you.

Why?

Because there are too many variables, options and alternatives that can exist during the process of planning a trip. And unlike travel agents, the AI will have to work off of incomplete data collected mostly on the internet, and they cannot personally vouch for vacation spots they suggest to travelers, nor fully cater to the full extent of a traveler’s wants and needs. Even when they do try to suggest these vacation spots, most of these locations are already popular and commonly visited, which means these suggestions may not offer the unique experiences that some travelers are looking for, while hidden gems will remain undiscovered and unexplored.

Therefore, due to the failings of artificial intelligences, it is imperative that travel agents remain sensitive to their clients’ needs and provide them a peace of mind with their expertise and credibility - after all, the process of trip-planning can often become fraught with uncertainty and doubt, especially when you have to plan an itinerary on your own - or worse, leave a machine to plan it for you - without any assurance beyond some online reviews from strangers you’ve never met.

To be able to alleviate these worries and remind travelers they have someone to count on so their travel plans don’t go awry will put travel agents at a huge advantage, at least when consumers consider how they should go about planning their trips (travel agents have other problems they face when appealing to travelers, which we will explore later).

Meanwhile, as disruptors keep popping up across various segments of the travel industry, travel agents that are versatile and adaptable are definitely going to benefit, for more reasons than one. Besides being able to give those unfamiliar a peace of mind - especially for clients that are less familiar with newer technology - travel agents are also able to buffer against one of the greatest problems with disruption: that it causes a lack of maintenance in standards.

This problem of a lack of standardisation is one that starts to appear when disrupting companies abruptly grow in size, much like in the case of Facebook and Uber. Due to the nature of disruption and these companies’ need to cast a wide net, rapid expansion from their success is inevitable. But as a result, they often cannot regulate all the different parts of their businesses. Meanwhile, the quick increase in both supply and demand - sometimes provided entirely by the public in the new “sharing economy” - will introduce so many new variables that these companies cannot always keep up and deal with all of them.

The result is this - that sometimes, consumers suffer, as they receive drivers, hosts or attendants that are indifferent or even hostile to their needs, and who do not provide them satisfactory service for what they paid for.

The problem looks even worse when put in the context of travel, where consumers sometimes sink up to tens of thousands of dollars for their dream vacations. When looking at such a substantial investment, the margin for error is hence lowered, as any problems that arise could easily ruin all the effort and money that has been sunk into the trip to make it enjoyable. For others, they may be put way above their spending budget as they are forced to look for alternatives to what they already bought.

For this problem, the role of a travel agent is not just to give people a peace of mind or a cheaper travel package, but rather, to prevent a ruined experience entirely. And to do this, they must be prepared for changes across the travel industry, and to familiarise themselves with new wants that consumers have developed and turn to these very “disruptor” companies for. This means that inevitably, some travel agents will have to diversify as consumers look for not just good experiences, but unique ones.

Of course, even as travel agents try to bridge this gap, there are also problems they have to face themselves. First, travel agents are still engaged by only a small portion of travelers - hovering around 15 to 20% every year. The reason for that is this: that people often don’t trust travel agents to be good to their wallet, and many clients also report their top concern as their travel packages not being unique or customised enough for them - something that possibly prevents a market of repeat clients from forming.

If these problems continue to persist, it is unlikely that travel agents will see a better environment to operate in anytime soon. And while change in perception is happening, it is still painfully slow. Meanwhile, dubious travel agents and agencies only worsen the problem of perception that travel agents have.

To deal with this, travel agents obviously need to earn their potential clients’ trust, so that they are willing to put the process of trip-planning in their hands. But how?

Perception 1: Travel Agents are Too Expensive / Money-Hungry

Of the two problematic perceptions that travel agents need to deal with, this is perhaps the more insidious one. This is because most leisure travelers are price-sensitive, meaning to say if they think they can save more money arranging their itineraries themselves, they sometimes will.

Worse still, when they know that travel agents get a commission from their expenditure on airfare, tourist attractions and accomodation, they are also likely to start viewing members of the profession with distrust, and suspect that the itineraries recommended are meant more for their own profit, rather than the quality of services travelers receive.

A lack of price-comparison also means that these travelers can sometimes feel like their travel agents are ripping them off, or that engaging their services made the trip more expensive than necessary.

To deal with this, perhaps it would be wise for travel agents to provide their clients with more transparency when it comes to the issue of payment.

One solution would be to offer price comparisons for clients, as well as receipts with a price breakdown. In an industry with constantly fluctuating prices influenced by a myriad of factors, from how far away the departure date is to which day of the week it is, travel agents need to help their clients find some grounding and give them reasons to trust them. And being able to give them some perspective on the price of their trip is one of these reasons, especially when the issue is financial.

This is because travel agents, with their experience and expertise, are definitely familiar enough with the market to do this, and given that they usually save their clients an average $452 per trip, they should have rightly have nothing to hide.

More importantly, being upfront about how much your clients are paying you for your services helps to alleviate the doubt they carry, in part because they understand where their money is going and how it is spread across their itinerary.

Perception 2: Travel Packages by Travel Agents are Not Unique / Customised Enough

The second perception problem travel agents face is one that should be easily fixed - after all, it should be their job to not just plan trips for their clients, but plan ones that they will enjoy, especially if they asked for some customisation options.

But what if they didn’t?

While some travel agents may need to do better at listening to their clients and catering to their needs, this is an issue that could easily be due to a mismatch in expectations and a lack of communication between both parties.

There are countless reasons why what a traveler got was not what they expected, but the best way to ensure that they are satisfied is always active communication - asking for their preferences is only the first step, and following up is always necessary to make sure what a travel agent suggests actually meets their desires.

Asking for their opinions or providing questions are therefore important to get both parties on the same page - and is especially important in when some clients seem suspiciously pliant or quiet during trip-planning discussions.

But more importantly, the ability for travel agents to provide their clients with something unique lies in their knowledge of these places’ or events’ existence to begin with. Meaning to say, a part of the problem could be the supply of experiences that travel agents are offering to their clients. Therefore, as mentioned earlier in this article as well, it is important for travel agents to diversify and look beyond common tourist destinations, and into other possible experiences for more thrill- or adventure-seeking travelers.

And travel agents have a unique advantage here too. Their ability to leverage their relationships with their suppliers for accommodation and experiences means that it is likely they can get their clients into exclusive locations or events that are not widely available or easily accessible by the general public. If travel agents are able to incorporate more of these experiences into their clients’ itineraries and give them something only they can offer, it’s far more likely that their clients will think their trips were unique, and their money well-spent.

Conclusion

In conclusion, while disruption is inevitable across most sectors and the future remains uncertain, there are countless possibilities that travelers can look forward to. In the face of these possibilities, travel agents need to constantly adapt, and find ways to position themselves as trustworthy, experienced, and credible trip-planners who listen to their clients and have new, unique experiences to offer. While it may seem like a high burden, if they are able to do this, then it is unlikely that they will become obsolete in the future even with the advancement of artificial intelligence. Rather, it is more than likely that travel agents will defy the myth of their dying profession, and will continue to be important players in the travel sphere for travelers and travel providers alike. Complete with what technological wonders lay ahead, the future of the industry teems with endless promise for something better, and is definitely one to look forward to.

#travel #distruption #airline #hotel #travelagent

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