travel tech insights

In a recent entry, we recounted 2016 by looking at some of the biggest trends and storylines of the last year in order to get a glimpse of where the travel industry may be headed in the next 12 months. While many of these narratives are compelling in that they paint a portrait of a complex global industry poised for continued growth, they fail in some sense to show just how impactful 2016 was in terms of hard figures. To put it bluntly, numbers matter and numbers don’t lie, especially in today’s travel landscape where travel companies must work harder than ever before to remain competitive and viable.

Whether you’re discussing the total number of dollars spent globally on inbound travel or the percentage of millennial travelers entering the market for the first time, 2016 presents some fascinating statistics that travel companies and tour operators should pay close attention to as they ramp up for the coming year. Because so much of the travel industry relies on actionable data, these year-end figures and projections perhaps reveal more of the story of 2016 than the trends and stories themselves.

Ask anyone within the travel industry about how impactful 2016 was and you’ll likely get a spirited answer about the number of trends, technology innovations, and shifts in customer demographics. To be sure, 2016 was a landmark year for the global travel industry in which travel agencies, tour operators, suppliers, and others across the value chain experienced significant changes in the way they operated internally and externally. The continued rise of mobile apps and functionality, further development of integrated travel ERP systems, and evolution of emerging markets made 2016 one of the most influential 12 month spans in recent memory.

But with all this development and maturation, where does the travel industry go in 2017? How do travel agencies, tour operators, and others within the travel landscape build on the progress and successes made during 2016? What are the challenges, opportunities, and trends these major players are likely to encounter during the next months? These are the questions being asked by everyone from CEOs of hotel groups to small, independent travel agencies as the industry prepares for what looks to be another busy year.

As 2016 comes to a close, it’s important for travel agencies, travel management, tour operators, and mother major players in today’s travel industry to stop and reflect on the past 12 months in order to get a better understanding of what the coming year might have in store. With everything from technology to shifting demographics to new and emerging markets, 2016 was an influential year for the travel industry driven in large part by travel companies reimagining how they function on a daily basis - and that’s not to mention a host of global, political, and environmental events, each of which presented challenges and opportunities for travel companies worldwide.

It’s no secret that millennials are a driving force in today’s travel industry. Whether we’re talking about adventure of budget travelers, the buying power and influence millennial travelers have is increasing each and every year, particularly as more and more travel markets emerge and mature, especially in Asia and Central Europe. What’s more, millennials are now set to emerge as a critical customer pool in yet another burgeoning travel and tourism market: Corporate travel.

According to a recent released earlier this year titled The Portrait of Business Travelers by travel industry group MMGY Global, millennials are poised to become the largest segment of the corporate travel sphere in 2017 and beyond. The report indicated the average business traveler booked about 6.8 trips per year, while millennials completed roughly 7.4 bookings per year in 2016 - a figure that is only expected to increase in the next 12 months.

For many customers, the look, feel, and vibe of a company’s branding can be just as influential in  whether they work with said company as the products and services themselves. As such, it’s important for these companies - especially companies within the travel industry, many of which use brand management and image as a chief selling point - to ensure their brand is uniform and cohesive across a number of different platforms, including offers, vouchers, receipts, and other forms of documentation.

But the problem for many travel agencies and travel management companies is that many booking engines and other ERP systems lack the capacity for those within the company to manage their document templates. These templates often times have to be adjusted, modified, or managed by external developers, which is costly, time-consuming, and inefficient, especially when it comes to creating specifically tailored documents for a number of different applications.