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Travel technology has been a leading driver behind globalization as it empowers the global travel, tourism and hospitality business to efficiently reach their customers and share an experience extraordinaire. However, over the years a gradual shift has been noticed in the travel choices of the consumers and how technology influences their choices while travelling. Thus, to keep up with the evolution, technology providers now need to come up with more efficient solutions that live up to the expectations of the consumers and make them enjoy a better travel experience. Let's consider some of the leading trends that are expected to dominate the travel market in 2013-14: Emphasis on Digital Marketing: The introduction of search engine marketing has changed the entire traditional marketing concept. Today, travel companies are giving more emphasis on digitally reaching their clients and managing the brand online. However, the marketers are expecting growth in digital marketing to double up by the end of 2013-14. Consumer-centric Innovation: To serve the consumers as they want is the key to the success for any business. Today, the travel providers need to look beyond the customized itineraries and come up with more travel options that serve the global nomads, who are independent-minded and ready to get out travelers who see the world, on their own terms. Here also, technology is of great use; the social media platforms and mobile applications will be of great use to help the consumers decide on their travel preferences. Data-centric Search: Earlier it was the tour operators who used to offer limited itineraries to the globetrotters and customers had to choose from one of the itineraries; but now it's the web that offers the solution in bulk. Researches show that over 80% of the voyagers search for hotels, transportations and destinations over the internet and 65% of them book travel online. In 2013-14, hospitality groups, tour operators and transportation providers will focus more on improving their data delivery systems so that customers can get real-time information with few clicks of their computer mouse. Reachability of Technology: Over the last 3 decades, tourism industry has witnessed a gradual change in the destination preferences of the voyagers. Travel enthusiast now more prefer to explore off-the-beaten destinations where human reach is limited. However, in this tech-savvy world, everyone wants their equipments to work properly. Thus, travel technology solution providers will have to make their technology available in the remotest parts of the world. Travelers now expect GPS navigation and internet connectivity to work smoothly even when they are in a tracking excavation to Machu Picchu or on the way to conquer Everest. Mobile Friendly Websites: It is speculated that by the end of 2014, Facebook will have approximately 1.14 billion monthly active mobile users. That means there is an exponential growth in the number of mobile internet users, who search and book travel using their mobile devices. Thus, travel providers will need to emphasize on making their websites mobile friendly that can easily target the mobile users and turn every looker to a potential booker. Controlling customer relationships, developing marketing campaigns based on real knowledge, capturing feedback and intelligence from every transaction and effectively targeting the consumers based on demographics, lifestyle, customer history and other key indicators are vital to succeed in travel business today. In the coming time, it is expected that hospitality groups, OTAs, destination marketing groups and transportation providers would more depend on travel technology solutions than anything else to achieve their business target and to respond to their customer's expectations efficiently.
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