Personalise with data

Technology is driving consumer choices onboard and enabling new levels of personalisation. Mariette Abrahams explains how

FOCUS ON PURPOSE

Personalisation can happen on different levels – it can be as simple as a passenger favouring a specific cuisine or opting for a low-salt diet. Today, it is possible for air, rail and cruise operators to collect a wide range of data – from age, gender and ethnicity to lifestyle choices and specific dietary needs of their travellers – and use it to create truly bespoke services.

CONNECT CATERING

There has been a significant shift in recent years to consumers seeking out ways to improve their health and wellbeing. More than ever, people work and travel globally. A wide choice of dining options is just another factor in offering a seamless travel experience There are already a number of examples of good practice. EasyJet offers products from the health and wellbeing snacking company Graze, and Turkish Airlines gives passengers the ability to select their meal beforehand. In time, a tailored offer will be available to everyone.

BE SMART

We’re already seeing consumers using smart eating apps to monitor consumption and receive recommendations. The apps can be based on image recognition, where they can analyse the nutritional content of food through a picture. Other apps use barcodes or QR scanning. This enables companies to provide details of the ingredients are nutritional value of dishes.

THINK LOGISTICS

Logistics are key. We need to see how far suppliers can transition into offering a truly DIY mealordering system. It will either move on through the adoption of new technology or the implementation of a new business model.

TAP TECH TRENDS

Blockchain technology and chatbots will be used more frequently. Artificial intelligence and big data analytics have huge potential to analyse trends in behaviour and airlines can use this to make personalised recommendations. •