Becoming the travel doctor

The world is volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous and travel trends have becomed closer, shorter, cheaper and later. While the tourism industry is set to achieve great potential, survival of the evolved fittest will become the key. Ashwini Kakkar, E

The US army was asked to reflect and redefine the world and they coined the term VUCA world. Volatile, uncertain, complex and an ambiguous (VUCA) world and in this situation we have to create a better and brighter future.

The tourism industry already has the ability to deal with the VUCA world. Crises such as Ebola, swine flue, emerging wars and rampant terrorism have added a cost of safety and security to our work. We are being told to manage problems and do the best for the customers. The ability to deal with uncertainty separates us, the travel community, from the rest of the world, as we are very good at it. If we can combine this ability with asset we have the perfect recipe for survival and sustainability.

The industry is changing so much around us. Products and technology is changing. A normal traveller is not available any longer. We have to look at new segments such as, IT techies, wedding tourism, religious tourism. The consumer travel behaviours is changing a lot. Closer, shorter, cheaper, later, are the new trends. People are travelling much more, for a shorter period and looking for better value for money. Impulse buying and booking as late as possible is now a trend.

In this evolving scenario, where are the new world travel agents and enlightened travel associations to lead them? Are we changing enough, are we enlightened enough to lead them? Are we making ourselves relevant for the future?

If you are not well we go to a doctor for diagnosis and treatment and don’t use the Internet to treat us. We trust the doctor and we don’t argue about the fee he is going to charge. Why is it that when people want to travel for work or leisure, we cannot convince them to use a travel company, time after time after time. Answer lies in our inability to convince them about our knowledge, protection and delivery every single time they travel.

The Internet has a lot of information but what is lacking is insight. We also bring the human network and business network, especially during and emergency where we can pull a customer out from anywhere, any time. But is all this enough?

Are we not showing our capability and bringing them to the table? Once this is acknowledged our clients are likely to stay with us and pay us the honest fee we demand.

Airlines are getting bigger but are they getting stronger? Our relationship is like a marriage and its better to keep it in a happy place than a lousy place. Airlines should realise that agents have the possibility of loyalty but software is looking for cheapest and will only take you in one direction.

Tourism industry is one with the greatest potential in the world and we are extremely lucky to be part of the travel and tourism industry on a whole. This industry is the fastest growing and largest in the world. We are poised to reach 2 billion international travellers in a decade. Corporate travel in India is at $25 billion and this market is growing at 7.6 per cent per annum for the next 10 years. Our outbound numbers are expected to go from 18 million to 50 million by the end of the decade and inbound is predicted to reach 15 million. The Icing on the cake is thatAsia is crucial forworld growth in travel and tourism

While 50 per cent of the travellers will use the online and mobile platforms in the future, the other 50 per cent will be double of what it is today. Travel through structured business will double. In the next 20 years the industry will change as much as it did in the last 20,000 years.