“We have no choice but to embrace innovation and market disruption. The travel industry will thrive when new, better services replace those that have passed their sell-by date and such progress is to be encouraged”, said Tom Jenkins, ETOA CEO.
LUCERNE – At a summit of leaders of the European tourism industry, organised by ETOA, the European tourism association, which took place in Lucerne, delegates heard the message loud and clear that any travel business that fails to listen to its customers or delivers a sub-standard service is liable to be taken out rapidly by a new competitor.
On the theme of “Shaking Up the Marketplace”, delegates heard how Google is progressively developing new technologies to give the consumer a better travel experience, with ever more relevant information and ultimately a path to making a booking via a partner company, from Expedia to Lufthansa. Inevitably, if Google is successfully facilitating the consumer’s journey between dreaming about a destination and facilitating the final booking, it is providing a service not being offered by a more traditional competitor.
Google’s latest apps include Google Flight, which facilitates flight searching, Google Trips which is designed to enhance the experience in the destination without needing an internet connection (it integrates with one’s Gmail account to know where one is going and staying) and Google Now an app that figures out answers relevant to where one is. Philip Ries, Google’s Travel Industry Leader said that Google would continually look to find travel experiences that it considered to be ‘broken’ and to offer the consumer a better solution. In his view the first place for this to happen is on a mobile device, as searches are now more prevalent on mobile devices than they are on desk-top devices and they offer the prospect of superior integration with ways to pay for travel services. Whilst not official Google policy, he feels that the payment of hotel services is ‘broken’ because it involves too much time waiting around.
Andrew Aley, Regional Director of Viator, a provider of in-destination travel experiences, which was bought two years ago by TripAdvisor, said that there is a huge opportunity in his segment of the market. It is valued at over $70 billion; it is extremely fragmented and less than 10% is online. The key to disrupting it will be providing last-minute booking and booking on a mobile device. The evidence for this is viewpoint is that Viator is seeing 90% growth in mobile bookings and dramatically shortening of notice between booking and fulfilment.
David O’Kelly, CEO of SANDEMANs NEW Europe, a sightseeing company which offers free guided walking tours of city centres said: “Anyone who doesn’t listen carefully to their customer will be at risk.” The business was started by Chris Sandeman, who discovered he was making more from tips than he was from the up-front fees. By delivering a more theatrical and entertaining presentation of a city, his company has grown form a one-man operation in Berlin to a company delivering tours in multiple languages in eighteen cities across Europe, the US and the Middle East.
The road is not easy when setting up a business to do things in an innovative way. In establishing the tips-based guiding model, SANDEMANs has experienced a backlash form the established providers. In Spain, its guides were being harassed so much by locally-qualified guides that it withdrew for several years and it has not yet ventured into Italy for fear of harassment by the local authorities, looking to protect a monopoly of tourism guiding by locals.
Tom Jenkins, ETOA CEO concluded: “What happens with tourist guiding in cities like Rome is a scandal and anti-consumer. We have no choice but to embrace innovation and market disruption. The travel industry will thrive when new, better services replace those that have passed their sell-by date and such progress is to be encouraged.”
Angelos is the news editor for TravelDailyNews Media Network (traveldailynews.gr, traveldailynews.com and traveldailynews.asia). His role includes to monitor the hundrends of news sources of TravelDailyNews Media Network and skim the most important according to our strategy.
He currently studies Communication, Media & Culture in Panteion University of Political & Social Studies of Athens.
