BASED on the results of its recent survey, Travelport is exhorting travel agencies to harness mobile technology to offer younger, technology-savvy travellers support throughout the travel cycle and create new points of sale.
According to the findings, ‘digital natives’ or people aged 35 and under, show a strong preference for accessing travel information via their mobile devices to view itineraries, search for travel-related information, view boarding passes and perform online check-ins, with 60 per cent viewing their smartphones as their “travelling companion” to whom they turn to for advice for the duration of their trip.
While leisure travellers rate the ability to receive travel alerts as the most critical aspect of notifications, there is a growing demand for travel offers and advice, such as promotional offers on hotels, dining offers, destination guides and airport information.
They also wanted to see a better design, offline access, a user-friendly format and the ability to customise what is viewed.
Yet half of all agencies surveyed are involved only up till the traveller’s point of departure. Though most offer multiple services including car rental, travel insurance and rail, communication is limited to traditional face-to-face contact, email or telephone.
This creates an opportunity for travel consultants to cash in on, stated the survey.
Travel agencies can provide discount vouchers, restaurant promotions as well as airport information, destination news, traffic and weather updates, thus adopting new points of sale via mobile platforms that are likely to be key sales conversion factors.
A move in this direction would take agencies closer to becoming full service, ensuring they are available for the traveller throughout all the phases of the travel cycle and not just when bookings are made.
The survey also found that despite being technology savvy, one in two travellers used offline travel agencies and two in three used OTAs. Digital natives were also more likely to engage travel consultants when planning complex trips.
