Go on a technology trend spotting
Sharing Economy, Big Data and the Internet of Things (IoT) grabbed the spotlight last year and caused waves everywhere. Here are some of the emerging and prevalent trends in the travel and technology segment according to various online players.
Technology is ever-evolving and the technologies that are presented in India both for consumers and travel agencies (B2B and B2C) are bigger and better and in my opinion, more updated than the rest of the world. If you look at India, self-booking tools are getting more attention as users understand the value of it. Similarly, these are the tools that we, as travel IT providers, equip our subscribers (travel agencies) with, majorly to get the corporations online. It’s not only convenience that users gain, but it helps them save a lot of time and resources as well.
Social has and will continue changing behavioural trends as far as travellers are concerned and with more of voice-enablement or search, is the way forward for every business. You are consuming travel on a regular conversation and it has the capacity to address queries instantly. It is not only socially engaging, but the data which is available on the Internet as a medium is being utilised. The data, collected over the years, can be used to predict future trends and to strategise, which is going to change the travel industry.
The market is definitely growing, but on the other side, we see a lot of other segments which are shaky. If you observe in India, the online ecommerce companies are showing negative growth. The market is filled with constant disruptions and in such uncertain situations, it is difficult to say where the waves will eventually lead to, but travel as an industry will grow. There’s more consolidation expected in the content level where activities, sightseeing and tours are going to get more consolidated. More and more customers will start dealing with the supplier directly. I also expect to see a rise in marketplaces and that’s where the future will shape up.
Starting last year, we’re seeing a consolidation of the industry and I think this might continue as competitors are finding this a good way to sustain in the market. Online travel will continue to boom in general because of the economic growth, Internet penetration and because more infrastructure like online payment and booking tools are becoming available to users. We expect to see a higher adoption rate of online booking for travel. The Indian market will be a good one for many years to come as it has scale, a very large base of potential customers and also a desire to embrace new technology.
The big trend we have seen oflate is the move to mobile. A large portion of people are doing their research, planning holidays and even booking through this platform and we’re seeing people look at all the possible options that they have online. Acknowledging the potential this presents, we have also made the entire holiday booking process on MakeMyTrip live on mobile and is dynamically priced so you can pick and choose the itineraries you want. Additionally, social media is being leveraged to influence the customer’s decision on which destination they want to go to.
We’ve been seeing a strong growth in India especially on the mobile front. While web continues to grow, the gradual transition to mobile has been particularly exciting because it presents a huge opportunity in in-destination use. We feel there is a lot of potential in the in-destination activity space like attractions and restaurants as well and have been putting in concentrated efforts. We believe that the attractions segment is the next billion dollar opportunity and are going about increasing the supply of bookable attractions.