5 Travel Technology Trends!
After two years of hiatus from the travelling, travellers are back to the skies and the seas. Here is how the travel scene has changed for the good post-covid with these emerging trends
VIRTUAL REALITY
Today’s customer have a myriad of options to compare, whether in Tripadvisor, Google or from the vast list of travel bloggers. A virtual tour offers a potential guest of your hotel, resort, or cruise the exact experience of your property at the comfort of their home. This way you can seal the deal faster and guests are left with least surprises when they check in. Many have already hopped on in this trend from hotel chains like Marriott, Best Western, and Holiday Inn to most major cruiselines adopting this in their websites
WEARABLES
Wearables and mobile based access were booming even before and the pandemic just accerlated their adoption. Hotel chains like Hyatt now let you open room with the tap your iPhone or Apple Watch. From Disney theme park’s Magicband to Royal Caribbean’ WOW band – wearable are getting smarter and smarter.
Take Carnival’s OceanMedallion pendant/wristwatch with NFC, Bluetooth and the thousands of sensors aboard the ship. The device has location detection where guests can simply place your cocktail or food order on the app, and staff can find you anywhere on the ship and deliver. Or if you’re traveling as a group, it can find where your family/friends are in real time. Also lets you make touchless payment in the ship’s retail stores, restaurants and even in the casino.
ROBOTICS
Humanoid robots have been used as concierge for some time now, from greeting guests when they arrive to helping them check in. A few hotels have expanded their use further, bringing in robots cleaning and luggage handling. And also customers getting more comfortable to ordering food on mobile apps –delivery by robots is set to become mainstream with those Doordash robots racing us on the sidewalks.
As with many other technology trends, the uses for robots can prove more useful in COVID times, as they have the potential to reduce human-to-human contact completely.
AI CHATBOTS
Everyone knows the pain of waiting for a call center agent only to have the call disconnected a soon as it connects. Or if you’re the business side of the things – trying to ramp up agents or save the team’s time from the routine queries.
A smart AI-powered chatbot can solve this and along the way also help improve the experience for cruise, vacation to travel bookings. multi-lingual chatbots also provide an extra level of personalization answering queries on 24/7 basis, regardless of staff availability with no wait times. And with advances to AI chatbots continually improve with more and more interactions. They can also be especially good at responding to queries about COVID policies and safety or hygiene measures.
VIRTUAL ASSISTANTS
With Alexa, Siri and Cortana being a part of everyday lives – it’s natural to see them extend to hotels and cruise ships. IoT enabled smart hotel rooms help you control everything from the lights, to the heaters and air conditioning with your voice. The devices keep evolving with more uses from luggage tracking to making reservations without the need of talking to a hotel staff.
