TECHNOLOGY

The brave new world of technology-driven travel and tourism

By Septi Bukula, founder and director of business events firm Osiba Management and Seeza Tourism SME Network.

In a 2018 report, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) identified “enabling technologies” as one of four megatrends shaping the future of tourism. The report highlighted the current and future role and impact on travel and tourism of technologies such as booking platforms, virtual reality, augmented reality, machine learning and artificial intelligence, big data, and blockchain. It concluded that digital technologies would continue to reshape tourism value chains, driving an evolution of business models and opening up new entrepreneurial opportunities while at the same time disrupting some of the existing business models.

In a 2016 article, Bournemouth University e-tourism academics Dimitrios Buhalis and Adrian Tanti capture the pervasive role of technology in travel and tourism. They visualise a traveller embarking on a trip, listening to music on Spotify while on the way to the airport. The traveller keeps socially updated on Facebook and completes online check-in for the flight, which most likely was booked online via an OTA. To board the plane, the traveller uses a boarding pass retrieved on a smartwatch. Upon arriving at the destination, the traveller books a ride to the hotel with Uber using an app on a mobile device.

At the hotel, the visitor searches for and books a restaurant via TripAdvisor, and then navigates to the eatery using Google Maps. The visitor captures a photo of the food and uploads it on Instagram and Facebook and shares the location and a short comment on Twitter. During the experience, the visitor chats on WhatsApp and reviews the restaurant on TripAdvisor. To help the visitor make the most of the destination, Google Now suggests nearby attractions that the visitor might wish to check out. Once at the chosen attraction, the visitor shares a livestream of the experience on Periscope. Not to mention the likelihood that the visitor had applied for an e-visa for the destination country. The advent of e-tourism has been upon us for some time and will only continue to accelerate.

Even prior to the onset of Covid-19, the business events industry witnessed growth in the utilisation of a variety of digital technologies for activities such as conference registration, attendee connection before and engagement during the event, and livestreaming to reach those attending the event remotely. Videoconferencing and a plethora of meeting apps have meant that phygital events are well and truly with us, and the trend is not likely to decelerate.

Recognising this trend and its transformative impact on the industry, certain major business events facilities had already built impressive phygital (is the concept of using technology to bridge the digital world with the physical world) event capabilities before Covid-19 set in.

Partly driven by travel and tourism industry players such as UNWTO and by consumer demand, and accelerated by Covid-19, digital technologies will play an even more pivotal role, shaping the future outlook of the industry in hitherto unimaginable ways. As one indication of what the future is shaping up to look like, travel technology tracker, co-founder and former Chief Marketing Officer at eDreams, Mauricio Prieto, observes that between early 2018 and February 2021, some 878 travel and mobility start-ups around the world successfully raised significant amounts of venture funding.

There’s strong likelihood that there are many more similar start-ups all over the place. Recognising the opportunity presented by these technology start-ups and betting on their future success, well-known players in the venture capital industry the world over are investing heavily in them, thereby spurring even more innovation activity. These new technologies will usher in new or improved ways of communicating with customers and enhancing customer service and satisfaction, mainstreaming touchless check-in in compliance with Covid-19 requirements, driving phenomena such as “social booking”, providing lucrative upselling opportunities for the hospitality industry, connecting impact-minded travellers to authentic experiences within communities, and delivering revolutionary travel insurance products.

In response to these trends, the World Travel Tech Forum, of which Seeza Tourism SME Network is a co-founder, and Johannesburg Hub was established in October 2020 to monitor developments in travel and tourism tech worldwide. With hubs in Barcelona, Cumbuco (Brazil), Jerusalem, Lisbon, London, and Paris, and more in the pipeline, the Forum showcases emerging and existing technologies and encourages their adoption as crucial tools to strengthen competitiveness and growth, particularly for smaller industry operators.

Septi Bukula