Technology helps us sift through large amounts of data and present it in a way that makes sense, and the internet makes the results available. But travellers want an experience, not a volume of choice.
NB: This is a viewpoint by Willem Niemeijer, founder of Khiri Group.
In travel, the mushrooming of these data-heavy platforms implies that tour operators or travel agents are on the verge of being replaced. But on current evidence, that doomsday scenario isn’t going to happen. Here’s why.
Allowing the consumer to be in touch with the service provider is the ultimate goal. Adding value is the basis of any successful business. But with online travel platforms, offering a lower price is usually the only add-on that they can come up with.
We’ve seen this with hotel-booking platforms. According to the platforms, the only differentiating factors between hotels are price, star-rating and a bevy of facilities. This may be true for the time-poor business traveler on a specific budget, but not for the leisure traveler.
For leisure travelers it’s all about the experience. A choice of 1,396 hotels in Bangkok doesn’t help the experience-seeker.
It makes little sense to take the online platform model and try to force it on to travel experiences that combine hotels, guided tours and recommended ‘do-it-yourself’ discoveries. It doesn’t work because local, authentic encounters and personalized attention are still the measure of a good holiday on the ground.
Travel platforms have knocked on the doors of our destination management company, with offers to replace our tour operators and travel agent clients with a platform which gives us the opportunity to connect to travelers direct.
But these online platforms are making an essential mistake.
They are not adding enough value for the customer. They merely offer a ton of products for them to choose from. And unlike the hotel-booking platforms, it’s very hard if not impossible for the holidaymaker to see if they even get a price advantage.
Conversion rates are a solid way to test the success of online travel platforms. Dig a bit deeper and you have the answer why nearly all platforms are knocking on everyone’s door saying, “Please upload your products. We’ll take just a little commission.”
They are using technology to let dumb volume replace relevance and efficiency.
In other words, if you have 10,000 products and a very small percentage of them attract one or two bookings a day, is that being successful or inefficient? And who bears the cost of this inefficiency?
Delivering the perfect travel product to the informed customer needs a radical rethink. It’s imperative for tour operators and travel agents to stay on top of local developments in their destinations.
Some already do so by shifting their product management to trusted suppliers, leaving them to focus on customer needs.
But delivering on a promise isn’t good enough. It’s about exceeding expectations.
That is complicated, as most travel products are used once by clients, followed a year later by a variation on the original product. But successful tour operators and their network of suppliers can and do deliver on this - they have a deep understanding of their clients which is built on trust, experience, and in-depth local knowledge of the local possibilities available.
The challenge is for these technology platforms to improve on the quality and efficiency the destination management company network already delivers.
NB: This is a viewpoint by Willem Niemeijer, founder of Khiri Group.
NB2:Image by Shutterstock