Tag: Hospitality Industry

Traditionally, typical travel-related companies, such as airlines, cruise lines, buses, or trains, focused only on taking people from point A to B.

Currently, there is a greater emphasis on the traveler’s experience. Safety and fuel efficiency are top priorities at the airline level. But, the in-flight experience for passengers looks more focused.

Seats are getting better. Airlines are also working to improve the servicescape. These are the factors that influence how you feel, breathe, sleep, and digest.

Airlines are emphasizing the importance of the passenger experience with meaningful changes. They are looking for an onboard lighting solution to help passengers cope with jet lag. Travelers are unable to stand often, and food is difficult to digest. Airlines are now considering thoughtful meal options to help you feel better while traveling and avoid getting overstuffed.

Are you curious about these changes? Passengers arriving for a trip or in transit between two aircraft can use the new Changi Airport terminal in Singapore. This enhancement also attempts to appeal to the local community. As a result, they’ve created a one-stop shopping, entertainment, and event destination for all travelers. Airports, for instance, are no longer only concerned with safety and efficiency. They want to make a lasting impression on visitors.

Transportation is an important component of the travel experience. It’s what gets us to our destination. The airline industry has many different service options, each offering various levels of hospitality to their customers, as follows:
* The full-service airline
These types of airlines, such as Delta or United, typically offer a variety of routes and destinations. Different seating classes are offered at different price points, including economy, premium economy, business class, and first class. These seating classes may have different seat sizes or leg room space, boarding priority, and in-flight food and beverage options.
* The low-cost airline
These types of airlines, such as Spirit Airlines, offer discounted prices and are barer boned compared to the traditional full-service airlines. There is no first-class seating, routes may be more limited, and in-flight food and beverage options may also be limited.
* The luxury airline
These airlines focus on the high-end luxury customer. They have first class facilities that are above and beyond, including cabins that have fully flat beds, personalized services, and a full meal menu with metal cutlery.
The airline Etihad takes luxury to a whole new level with their product called ‘The Residence’. Your 12-hour flight becomes even more luxurious in your own apartment on the plane, complete with a small living room, a bedroom, and even a shower.
* Charter flights
With charter flights you negotiate the price for the entire plane. Package tour operators such as Thomas Cook and TUI will charter a plane for their guests.
Technology has also supported the development of the chartered airplane industry. Apps such as Fly Victor, NetJets, Blade, or Wheels Up allow you to book your private plane or helicopter as simply as you book an Uber.
* Private jets
Some people have their own private jets, which is realistically not within reach for everybody. If you need or want a private jet for a particular trip, a charter flight may be your better option.

What makes the Uber’s. Birds, Turo’s, and Air BnB’s of the world stand out in their innate ability to offer unparalleled experiences for consumers. People have discovered ways to monetize off everything: plots of land for one-of-a-kind glamping experiences, relatively unused real estate, and even personal cars that can be rented to travelers. Whatever the case, the sharing economy has become an effective avenue to give consumers an off-the-beaten-path or one-of-a-kind experience, directly from consumers for consumers. This has changed the game for the travel, tourism, and hospitality industries.
Due to the localization of the experience on sharing economy platforms–individuals now have the upper hand when it comes to offering something unique, anywhere and anytime. You can set your own parameters to be matched with the exact amenities you are looking for; a hot tub, 10 bedrooms, nearby a grocery store, ski-in ski-out access. Renters can tap into unused potentials–such as capacity–to help others, and in doing so help themselves through the extraction of money from said space or thing.
You can’t book a one-of-a-kind place in most traditional hotels–they all look the same. Hotels are built to be standardized and are relatively singular in offerings. The way traditional hotels are structured makes it incredibly challenging for them to offer a truly genuine type of lodging experience. Due to this major economic shift, hotels are forced to rethink their strategies in terms of offerings and customization. Some hotels are moving towards allowing customers to book a specific room in a given hotel, though that room will likely be very similar to another room in the same property.
With all that being said, safety and security are often overlooked when it comes to the sharing economy– something that hotels offer that the sharing economy can’t, yet. While there are rating systems that give you a sense of security on whom the buyer is and what others have experienced when interacting with that buyer’s good, home, or service, it is hard to assess overall safety when actually utilizing whatever said customer has rented. How do you know who’s sleeping in the apartment next door? How do you know the area is safe in general? These are answers you can’t really find via these sharing platforms. While the hospitality industry needs to play catch up on unique offerings, the sharing economy needs to rev up their security and safety metrics.

What made all of this development happen was—and Amazon and Google were part of it, but other companies are also part of it—is the move towards the cloud. Cloud-based data and transactions enable things today that you couldn’t do when the cloud didn’t exist.
Back then, you had to store data in many locations. Now everyone can store data in the cloud. As a result, companies like Google and others can use artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other sorts of capabilities to mine the data and really get to a granular level of understanding of the entire wheel of travel.
That’s what makes it happen. It’s the cloud, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. You can expect to see several new jobs emerging from that in the future, not only in terms of data mining or engineering but also jobs at the property level.
Marriott launched the internal capability of mining its loyal customer’s social media to understand what is happening in their lives so that when they get to a property, Marriott can personalize the experience.
Think about someone posting a picture and saying, we’ve just had an anniversary. We celebrated our son’s 10-year anniversary, and we’re taking a vacation down to Florida. We stayed at Marriott.
Marriott knows at the property level that your kid had celebrated its 10-year anniversary. They can tailor the amenities they will leave in the room, or they can tailor the welcoming that they give you. Say, “Hey, welcome. By the way, we are glad you’re coming here for your 10-year anniversary.” That’s the level of personalization you can expect at the service delivery level, but also during the entire planning phase in the coming years.