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How has personalisation changed the travel experience? Futurist James Woudhuysen explains

Daniel Batchelor

Global Head of Corporate Communications, Amadeus IT Group

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Part 3 of this series looks at personalisation opening up new opportunities and offers insights about The Travel Gold Rush 2020 report, which we released in 2010. The report predicted that airlines could benefit from a greater focus on passenger preferences and needs, especially by offering more ancillary services. It also said that providers need to think about travel as an end to end process much like a passenger would. Interestingly, and quite accurately, the report said that the growth of mobile technologies and the spread of electronic data exchange, would provide airlines with the opportunity to match passenger preferences much more closely and tap into these sources of value.

 

Professor Woudhuysen says that the report was correct in that there’s been tremendous growth in niche travel. The report predicted that traditional cabin classes would be replaced by ‘virtual classes’ as individual traveller preferences create a personalised experience.

When it comes to demographic changes, the report said that health advances will mean more travellers with more free time, like the older generations, will alter Western travel. Professor Woudhuysen sees these older generations driving travel spend as their quality of life in later years improves, thus allowing them to seek out new experiences.

Finally, the Professor thinks that advanced software and machine learning will help providers create more personalised travel guides that are tailored to the specific needs of their customers.

Check out the full video for insights from Professor Woudhuysen and stay tuned for part 4 and 5 in this series.

Editor’s note:  We asked futurist James Woudhuysen to review and comment on some of our past research and give his take on future trends in a five part video series produced in celebration of our 30th anniversary.