Amadeus helps shape the future of travel
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Last week Amadeus released a new study identifying six distinct traveller personalities and segments the industry can expect to emerge and become prominent over the next 15 years.
The Future Traveller Tribes 2030: Understanding Tomorrow’s Travellers report is based on a psychological rather than a demographic approach, acknowledging that future marketing will be based on travel behaviour rather than by age group.
The research, conducted in conjunction with the Future Foundation, involved interviews and workshops with industry experts as well as trend-spotting research with consumers in 12 relevant global travel markets including Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan and South Korea.
The idea behind the study, says Julia Sattel, senior vice president Airline IT, Amadeus, is to help the technology firm’s customers and partners “shape the future of travel”.
“When we commissioned this research we wanted to gain a greater appreciation for the changing consumer trends that will lead to different traveller behaviours by 2030,” she explains.
“We wanted to understand the new segments of travellers that are emerging and what their motivation for travel will be. We wanted to move away from pure demographics to a pure behavioural interpretation of trends.
“Societies are becoming more ageless and the world is getting more global so we believe demographic segmentation is not solely meaningful anymore; we want to understand motivation, behaviours and attitudes when people buy travel.”
The intention, says Sattel, is to share its study findings with Amadeus customers and partners and help them create the right merchandising tools to engage with and sell to the six ‘tribes’ identified in the report.
“In 2030, the travel companies that are able to package offers for customers based on understanding what drives their behaviour will win, and personalisation is critical to achieving this,” she notes.
“Getting the service experience right to suit each tribe is essential too. Travel firms must achieve the right balance between human interaction, technology and personalisation. The sharing of social media must also be part of their future strategies.”
Sattel says the research findings call for a “change in industry mindset”.
“Instead of focusing on their bottom line and their targets, if travel providers want to stay relevant over the next 15 years they must focus on people and their desires and motivation to travel,” she stresses.
“The travel business is about people, not demographics and statistics.”
Sattel says her “gut feeling” is that it’s time for travel companies to “change gears”, broadening their awareness and personalising their travel offering.
“Amadeus will provide the tools to help them to that,” she adds.
Future Foundation director Nick Chiarelli says travel agents have the chance to “re-engineer” their business and take a “concierge approach” both online and offline.
“People like to work with people and to have someone to turn to, but personalisation can also be delivered through technology,” he says.
“Travel firms should be providing constant reach out and treating their relationship with the customer as a lasting interaction, not something that ends with the click-to-pay.”
He notes the market for an online concierge service similar to Amazon’s Mayday, which could not only be used for troubleshooting and advice, but for selling add-ons, before and even during the customer’s journey.
Here, Sattel and Chiarelli give their take on each of the six key tribes identified in the report and what they mean for the industry going forward.
- SOCIAL CAPITAL SEEKERS
This tribe will structure their holidays almost exclusively with online audiences in mind, relying heavily on peer reviews and recommendations to validate their decisions. A whole new market may open up based on “Klout-boosting breaks”, filled with consciously feed-friendly moments.
Chiarelli says: For this tribe, travel is important for them in terms of how they are portrayed. Part of the reason for travelling is to post on social media to create a persona and an image of the type of person they are. We believe it will become more exaggerated with people using the social component throughout the whole journey planning and trip process. This tribe will be seeking feed-friendly experiences that will recreate re-Tweets and re-posts.
Sattel says: There is an opportunity for industry providers to link their services to this experience ensuring travellers are connected to the right sites during their trip so they can talk about it.
- CULTURAL PURISTS
This tribe will look at holidaymaking as a chance to immerse oneself in an alien – even uncomfortably so – culture, where enjoyment of the break depends on the authenticity of the experience.
Chiarelli says: This is a group where the main motivator is authenticity and really getting under the skin of a destination or location. They will want to stay with locals and ask their advice. They are less bothered about ticking destinations off the checklist an more interested in seeing what a place is like and what the culture has done to inhabitants of that place.
Sattel says: This tribe provides challenges and opportunities for travel providers. I can see an increasing number of providers trying to offer authentic experiences but the biggest art is to stay authentic because if you market it you are destroying the value of it. That’s why it’s a very challenging tribe, but it is a tribe that has money to spend. It’s a group you can approach to cross-sell and upsell to at any given time, before and during the trip. It’s important to understand the motivation for this tribe and then you can make yourself relevant to them.
- SIMPLICITY SEARCHERS
This group will prefer bundled offers, seeking to avoid managing too many trip details themselves. Holidays for this tribe represent a rare time in life to pamper oneself with the assurance of their safety and enjoyment.
Chiarelli says: In terms of the booking process and the destination experience, this tribe is looking for seamlessness and ease wherever possible. It will recognise the benefits of sharing their details for this purpose and in the future we will see subtle algorithms to help choices to become simple but as personalised as possible. For example, at the moment Amazon knows I buy opera. It’s for my mum, not for me, but still recommends it to me. In the future this issue will be addressed.
Sattel says: This tribe has been there in the past – we knew it in the form of package tours – but it is evolving and broadening and there are emerging markets contributing to this tribe who want to get out their country and have a travel experience. Providers that can personalise their offering to cater to this tribe will be able to take a big chunk of this market.
- OBLIGATION MEETERS
This tribe will be driven by a specific purpose for travel, whether business or leisure, and thus have constraints on time and budget; they will seek smart algorithm based technology that is able to remove the hassle of travel.
Chiarelli says: For this group, the primary motivation for travel will be a fixed objective such as a business meeting, family wedding, festival or pilgrimage. It touches on the blended travel – ‘bleisure’ – trend whereby business and leisure travel merge into one trip.
Sattel says: If you know your customers are at a specific event you can offer them extras. It’s a great opportunity for travel providers and all comes down to knowing your customers. Today it’s an untapped opportunity.
- ETHICAL TRAVEL
This tribe will make travel plans based on moral grounds, for example decreasing their carbon footprint or improving the lives of others. They will often improvise or add some element of volunteering, community development or eco-sustainable activity to their holidays.
Chiarelli says: People are looking for transparency and ways to reduce the impact of their travel and we believe even those who aren’t officially ‘in’ this tribe will increasingly expect the travel industry to do good stuff for them – more fuel-efficient planes, solar power in hotels etc. People will have higher expectations of the industry. There’s also the rise of micro donation and micro voluntourism whereby travellers build in small elements of good behaviour into a holiday. It’s by no means an ethical holiday but is all about doing little things to help offset other behaviours.
Sattel says: Amadeus collects micro-donations on behalf of UNICEF and we believe our role is to power this type of ethical behaviour.
- REWARD HUNTERS
This tribe is only interested in indulgent travel. Many have come to crave something that represents an extraordinary reward or ‘must have’ premium experience, a return on their hard earned investment of time and energy in their working lives.
Chiarelli says: This is very much on radar of emerging markets and the rewards can be in many forms, from indulgence to improved wellbeing.
Sattel says: This tribe currently focuses on emerging markets with millionaires and billionaires presenting huge opportunities for travel providers. But it’s not just about luxury travel. For instance, Russian, Chinese and Middle Eastern travellers are big consumers of medical travel. The industry needs to understand this market and be able to respond to the personal requirements of each market in this tribe.
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