Technology

TripAdvisor's bold platform-driven approach to online travel tells us a lot about where the market is headed.

Europe has traditionally been a very active player in travel. Yet lack of funding, market fragmentation and other factors have held it back from producing global corporations. Nevertheless, Europe is finally warming up to the American-style, risk big and risk early venture investment culture that has given birth to so many tech megabrands out of Silicon Valley.

Facebook has transformed itself from a social media site into a powerful digital media platform that is now spreading its footprint across the travel industry. Facebook’s ability to dynamically retarget consumers combined with the ads being visual, aspirational, cost-effective, and largely in-app for Facebook’s massive and highly-engaged user base will make the platform an increasingly important tool for the travel industry.

Airbnb popularized a new type of rental product - i.e. the primary-residence urban rental, but now professionally managed properties are coming online with fury. Looking forward ten years, the landscape will likely look quite different. Consolidation is in the air; vacation rentals have gone mainstream with the consumer but inventory remains fragmented. Property managers, marketplaces, SaaS platforms and a host of other add-on services are evolving their strategies to capture greater scale and efficiencies.

The tours and activities segment is a two-sided race, with the big online aggregators clamoring to bring both suppliers and travelers into the digital age. The category has a relatively short booking window compared to accommodations and flights, leaving little room to use the latest in digital marketing and retargeting tech. Average booking values are also significantly lower than other categories. Yet, despite the challenges, the opportunities remain significant; the category is very much the next (if not final) frontier in online travel.

The mechanics of metasearch technology and how travel brands use it to effectively bring attractive products to market are extremely complex. While many have tried, very few are now doing it in a meaningful way that produces attractive scale and profits. Those that succeed long term will ultimately need the right mix of technology, connectivity, user experience, market strategy, and budget. This definitive report outlines the competitive landscape along all five of these essential benchmarks.

Travel search and booking looks completely different today than it did just years ago. But the value-add that agents can bring to the travel experience will be difficult to obviate completely, either through disintermediation or automation. The intersection between high-tech and high-touch is now a key battle ground for travel brands the world over. Those with the customer care infrastructure to deliver could stand to gain, if they can get their digital house in order.

Expedia has a lot going for it in the short to mid term but shifts in technology and consumer tastes have disrupted the travel space before, and will do so again. Dara and team will need to stay vigilant in addressing numerous vulnerabilities, especially as they go up against the big platforms including Google, Facebook, Amazon and others.

The global digital payments ecosystem is undergoing a rapid and monumental shift; smart travel brands should stay on top of the shifts in how we pay for goods and services. Peer-to-peer payment platforms, digital wallets, and cryptocurrencies may have been a thing of science fiction just years ago. Yet, many of the data points now clearly suggest otherwise.

The world of hotel technology software, or the “tech stack” as it’s often called, has long existed as a fragmented puzzle of competing platforms, competitors and solutions. Now, growing signs of consolidation loom as big players from both inside and outside the category vie for a bigger piece of the pie. What solutions and strategies will be most important to help hotel owners stay competitive, and profitable, in the years to come?

Traveler demand for, and use of, Internet connection services is soaring, creating a dilemma for travel brands that must walk a precarious tightrope between charging for access and risking customer anger over unreliable free service. How are travel brands coping with these challenges, and what future innovations in connection services might transform the industry?

Travel booking is transforming the mobile-first ecosystem. Messaging technology is replacing face-to-face and voice-to-voice commerce with a screen-to-screen conduit that stands to drive returns and open interactions to new levels of customer context and continuity that the travel industry has seldom, if ever, experienced before.