How can the travel industry meet travellers’ differing needs?

There appears to be a split between travellers who have strong concerns about changing systems to make travel more efficient, and those who don’t.

How can the travel industry please them both?

Our studyindicated that there are two main answers.

The first is to manage the introduction of any new system effectively. This will mean getting the language right: ‘easy check-in’ or ‘rapid check-in’ is likely to raise less fear than ‘automatic check-in’.

More fundamentally, though, it will also mean changing passengers’ perceptions of what security is. It has the potential to make passengers feel that security staff are advisers, helping them get from one end to the other quickly and efficiently, rather than security guards who work in the interests of the airport and not the traveller.

The second is to offer travellers different options. There could, for example, be different check-in queues for experienced or known travellers and those who want the reassurance of going through a more traditional check-in process. (This approach has been trialled in Orlando airport, where engineers designed a Fast Pass system based on the wait management systems used in Disney theme-parks).

A one-size-fits all approach will not suffice. In particular, when designing their air service , providers will need to bear in mind regional and cultural differences, for example, differences in attitudes to privacy and security.

Would you be comfortable storing your personal information in the cloud computing in order to streamline the travel process?