Technology has truly transformed nearly all industries, and the travel and tourism industry is not an exception. From online booking facilities to hotel check-ins to client interaction, technology has helped travel businesses enhance their customer experience and efficiency of business operations. With tourists’ needs, behaviors, and expectations changing over time, emerging technology has helped travel companies to offer a better experience. They are embracing various cutting-edge technologies for enhancing their client experience and other key operations. In this blog, we will discuss how emerging technology trends have transformed the travel industry.
As a leading mobile development company in India, we offer a comprehensive range of services for travel and tourism business clients across the globe. Right from flight and taxi booking app development to hotel booking app development to iBeacon app development, we can help you with any project requirement, offering solutions within your budget and timeframe.
Top Technology Trends Revolutionizing the Travel Industry
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1. iBeacon Technology
The travel industry, being one of the most aggressive adopters of mobile technology, primarily emphasizes on research and booking phase, itinerary management, and monitoring with mobiles. The other things like the enhancement of the travel process; interpreting, predicting, and serving according to the traveler’s needs are the points of concern to make travel life easy.
At this juncture, iBeacons evidently elicit interest as they are able to integrate fun, data, and other functional elements regarding travel. Let us explore about the use cases for adopting iBeacon development services may act as a true guide to the traveler.
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Act As You Move
Most of the travelers have the apps of the airlines already installed on their phones. It is advantageous for the concerned airlines when the traveler enters the airport. The beacon may trigger offers based on the traveler’s flight status and the contextual situation of the airport. The ancillary purchases may be re-targeted; priority check-in, expedited security lines could be made actionable; availing of the day pass into the air lounge, accommodations could be planned in case of unexpected flight delays; upgrade a seat on the flight, and so forth.
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Airport Navigation
Navigation may not be a challenge in one’s home airport while it’s not so in other airports. The iBeacons could provide precise and intelligent information to the passengers around the terminal based on the proximity and serve the traveler closely.
The analytic reports help to boost the non-aeronautical revenue as they could align with the passenger’s movement, and send push notifications for retail, entertainment layouts, or dining.
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Automatic Hotel Check-in
The installation of iBeacon at the hotels alerts the hotel admin of the guest arrival, dynamically allots room, and sends a digital key to the smartphone. This helps the guest to bypass the front desk line formalities, save time and enter the room directly.
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In-room Controls
The iBeacons may sense the presence or absence of the guest inside the room and accordingly enable the services on the mobile device such as managing lightings, temperature, television and its channels, access room services, and so forth.
The concerned staff like the kitchen, laundry, or the housekeeping team could be alerted.
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2. Virtual Reality (VR)
Apart from video games, Virtual Reality technology has helped businesses and marketers to create interactive 360-degree images and videos for users.
VR has emerged as one of the most promising technology trends for travel and tourism companies because it helps them digitally move customers to a virtual recreation of a specific region. This enables hotels to exhibit their rooms, reception areas, and local tourist destinations on their business website to generate more hotel bookings. Other instances may include 360 hotel tour videos, interactive virtual maps, etc. that can enhance the client experience.
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3. Augmented Reality (AR)
Augmented Reality involves augmenting a user’s real surroundings instead of replacing them. One of the main advantages of this emerging tech trend is that it is quite cheaper than VR as it requires users to have only a smartphone or a tablet with a good internet connection.
Travel companies can significantly enhance the client experience through graphical overlays, offering clients with useful information or entertainment. For example, applications can allow images to be augmented through special effects and filter options. Also, information related to local tourist spots can also be shown in real-time when a user points his or her smartphone at them.
As an experienced mobile development company in India, we are capable of integrating AR/VR technologies into your mobile applications to help you deliver a unique, immersive, and engaging customer experience.
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4. Recognition Technology
This list of emerging technology trends is incomplete without Recognition technology. This technology has huge potential for eliminating friction from purchases and ensuring smooth interactions. Recognition technology includes fingerprint scanning and recognition, facial recognition, eye retina scanning, and other different biometric identifiers.
Many hotels are already leveraging this technology to permit access to rooms through fingerprints, or to enable semi-contactless room checkouts. However, in the future, it is anticipated that recognition technology can allow customers to pay for meals in the hotel restaurant while walking through the exit.
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5. Robotics
The deployment of robotics within the travel industry is becoming extremely popular these days. Artificially intelligent robots, integrated with speech recognition technology, are being deployed in areas of information points by chains like Hilton.
Robots are being utilized for various reasons as well. For instance, in airports, they can be used to sense hidden weapons, while some manufacturers are leveraging robotics to build luggage cases that will follow you based on intelligence. Besides, travel companies are embracing robotics for pre-scanning, reducing waiting times, and making it more productive for clients.
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6. Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Other than robots, artificial intelligence is being utilized in several other ways in the travel industry. This technology is primarily used for customer service purposes, with AI chatbots being capable of delivering quick response times to customer queries and issues. AI chatbots can also learn from previous interactions with clients.
Moreover, hotels and other agencies within the travel and tourism industry can use artificial intelligence technology to precisely and continuously sort through data. Companies can draw conclusions about their business performance and trends related to client satisfaction and intelligently manage inventories.
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7. Big Data and Predictive Analysis
Modern travel and tourism management relies on big data and all successful companies implement their own data collection techniques to accumulate tons of customer data. This data is useful for improving personalization as companies can use the data they collect to make certain modifications to their offerings.
Big data can be also used to evaluate current business performance. Hotels and airlines can leverage big data for revenue management purposes using historic occupancy rates or load factors and other earlier trends to predict demand levels. Once you’re able to predict demand, you can effectively optimize pricing and promotional strategies.
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8. Internet of Things (IoT)
Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the most amazing emerging technology trends in the travel industry. IoT involves inter-connectivity across daily-use devices through the internet, facilitating them to send and receive data. There are several use cases of IoT in the travel and tourism industry.
For example, IoT is being used in hotel rooms to provide guests with a device that automatically connects to every appliance such as air conditioners, room heaters, lights, fans, etc., allowing all of them to be controlled from a single, centralized place. Meanwhile, in airports, luggage cases can be equipped with smart sensors that will notify passengers when they pass by.
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9. Voice Technology
The massive use of smartphones, smart speakers, and AI voice assistants has increased the significance of voice search when it comes to emerging technology trends in the travel industry. More and more travelers are using voice search to find and book flight tickets, accommodations, and travel experiences.
Therefore, it is important to design your mobile app keeping voice search in mind so that you can effectively capitalize on this emerging tech trend.
Moreover, voice control is also playing a crucial role in enhancing travel experiences. Hotel owners can install voice-controlled devices within hotel rooms to allow guests to control lighting, cooling, and heating within rooms, or to get valuable tourist information without speaking a word to a hotel staff member.
Wrapping Up
Companies can rightly harness the potential of all these emerging technology trends in the travel industry to enhance their customer service, offerings, and customer experiences significantly. Whether you opt for native app development or hybrid app development services, we, at Mobi India, enhance the travel experience by incorporating the latest technologies and industry trends into your travel apps.
Get in touch with us for more details or to avail of a better and unmatchable service.
FAQs
Q.1. What is the future of iBeacon technology in the travel and tourism industry?
Ans. iBeacon technology has a bright future in the travel and tourism industry and can take it to greater heights. It has enhanced the experiences of the tourists like never before. It has been offering personalized and relevant solutions to tourists and has truly transformed the way they explore new travel destinations. If you’re looking for iBeacon app development services, you can contact us right away!
Q.2. What features should a travel app have?
Ans. Here are some of the must-have features of a good travel app:
- A Travel Planner
- Travel Journal
- Transportation Services
- Flight and Accommodation Booking Services
- Translation Functionality
- Weather Forecasts
- Navigation Services
- Travel Reviews and Recommendations, and many more.
Have More Questions? Do Not Hesitate to Ask Our Travel App Consultants.