Amadeus, one of the leading providers of IT solutions to the travel and tourism industry in India, has released its new travel report.
Titled "Online Travel 2020, Evolve, Expand, or Expire", the report has identified the evolution of four different scenarios.
The main objective of this project was to answer the question: "What should travel players be doing today to prepare for the different scenarios unfolding before them?"
Mega Online Travel Retailers
The report says that the rise of mega online travel retailers is the consolidation between OTA and meta search business models. The research also said that rise of online advertising could lead to a new kind of online travel retailer.
According to the report, the average traveler searches nearly 50 times online, makes 38 site visits, reads a dozen reviews, researches for 15 weeks and does not have a particular destination in mind when he or she starts looking.
This gives OTAs an opportunity to felicitate the process by taking advertising from competitors.
Digital Tour Operators
The report recommended traditional tour operators and online tour operators to merge in order to become the ultimate traveler seller. Digital travel operators can provide a happy mix of digital and human interaction to create a personalized travel experience combined with convenience and speed.
Mobile Travel Retailer
Technology transformation is required to become mobile travel retailers. Becoming a mobile-first travel retailer will impact every component of the architecture and each feature will needed to be adapted to work better in this channel. Mobile travel retailers will also enhance open payment platform. Apple Pay, Google Wallets will be the norm moving forward.
Travel Marketplace
With more and more leading IT players and e-commerce giants creating demand for new and innovative platforms, the players of the travel industry could come together and build their own travel marketplace platform for OTAs, airlines, hotels and other travel related companies.
BW Reporters
The author is a journalist with BW Businessworld. He primarily covers Retail, Media & Entertainment and Travel & Tourism sectors