TALK TRAVEL THE FUTURE SAY EXPEDIA

A view into the future of tourism booking in 2019 and beyond is to ‘talk travel’ according to Expedia.

This is how we will be buying travel experiences by speaking rather than clicking on it was explained at a seminar held at Expedia offices in London.

TALK TRAVEL WITH SPEECH SEARCHES

Attendees at the event organised by the Tourism Society were also given exclusive access to a test facility run by the hotel and holiday online booking company at their offices at Angel in the city.

Christopher Michau ‘talk travel’ will be the way forward speaking at the Tourism Society seminar held at Expedia offices in London.

The scientific laboratory allow prospective holiday purchasers to run through a typical buying experience where testers like Christopher Matthews can analyse the way they interact with the website by seeing and detecting tiny muscle movements in the face from electrodes places around it.

Other sophisticated software used by them does not even need the use of the electrodes and can see changes of expression in the whole face to see if a customer is enjoying the purchase experience or indeed getting frustrated by some aspect of the site or process.

The cuurent way of testing volunteers at the Expedia lab newer ways will be trialed with voice searches added at some stage.

As well as the laboratory style of testing volunteers are also evaluated in their home or work environment with them using their own phones tablets or computers.

This level of identifying potential snags with their website also means that Expedia themselves can tweak their site constantly with changes being made if required several times in a day.

All this to help their customers buy their next holiday, flight or complete trip as seamlessly as possible.

Christopher Matthews in the Expedia lab in London.

However, the latest development in the voice activated search possibilities will have to be added into the testing as well. For Expedia’s Vice President of Platform Services, Christopher Michau pointed out to the meeting that by 2022 50% of homes will be using smart speaker systems to buy online and that will include holidays! This change is happening very quickly. At the moment its around 10% so it’s an area that they are reacting to now.

Richard Nicholls speaking at the Tourism Society seminar held at Expedia offices in London.

Other travel trends were highlighted by the Visit Britain Head of Research and Forecasting Richard Nicholls. He had a vast range of travel statistics to hand covering how Brexit could affect tourists coming to the UK from abroad and whether UK residents would be likely to travel abroad or stay at home for the near future.

TOURISM BOOST INTO THE UK FROM LONG HAUL

Most visitors coming to the UK are not really showing any reluctance with a Brexit or no Brexit deal with indicators showing that they will still keep coming to the UK and if the pound does weaken then it makes it even more likely to increase.

Some of those visitors can be very big spenders such as those from the Middle East, and the US travellers also seem to bring quite bulky wallets too.

Red Carnation Hotel chain boss Jonathan Raggett did point out that the coming year was going to be tough regarding his staffing with some foreign workers opting to leave the UK. British workers often did not seem to value a career in hospitality.

Johnathan Raggett speaking at the Tourism Society seminar held at Expedia offices in London.

However, as a company they are offering staff financial incentives to help pay for work permits as many from abroad do regard work in hotels and restaurants as good rewarding jobs.

As well as large hotels chains other more niche accommodation providers are now starting to become more mainstream.

Merilee Karr speaking at the Tourism Society seminar held at Expedia offices in London.

Organisation’s like Underthedoormat who offer access to homes for short term stays. CEO Merilee Karr has seen her online idea grow over recent years her organisation will greet guests at their rented home and show them around with a professional approach rather like the service one would get at a hotel as well as personal check out too.

Her home accommodation company which embraces both the business and leisure sectors has accounted for 26,000 room nights with the customer experience often the same as if it were a hotel she says.  The only drawback for some being that they are just not geared for one nighters!

Tourism trends and the way travellers book online is continuing to evolve very rapidly and those whom did attended left knowing that working in the travel industry you have change and learn from your customers or get left behind.

Alexa! “Finish writing travel feature”