From TV to music to banking, all industries are evolving and transforming to meet the needs of the customer. Let’s take the latter as an example.
From TV to music to banking, all industries are evolving and transforming to meet the needs of the customer. Let’s take the latter as an example.
Traditionally, a bank provided products like savings and mortgages and had very limited understanding of its customers. This has been changing of late. Through digital transformation banks are reaching customers with apps and bringing together once siloed data to recommend the right services at the right time for each customer. Do you want to see all your banking products from any provider in the bank’s own app? No problem, that’s beginning to happen. Whether incumbents will move quickly enough to remain relevant in the fintech era remains to be seen. But, change is underway.
Of course, there are many examples of industries that haven’t responded to customer needs quickly enough. Blockbuster was famously slow to transition to online media delivery, as cable TV providers offered limited options combined with poor service levels. Initially, services like Lovefilm filled the gap. More recently, outside disruptors like Amazon and Apple have delivered the always available media experiences and wide range of choice customers want.
It’s essential the travel industry learns from such examples, simplifies how the value chain operates and refocuses on what really matters to travelers. Being able todeliver end-to-end travel services has long been talked about but the impact of the pandemic means it is now finally beginning to happen.
Despite the fact that we continue to navigate the impact of COVID-19, the travel industry is actually accelerating the pace at which it is digitally transforming. Driven by the need to do things differently as aresponse to COVID-19, the acceleration of standards like NDC and OneOrder, and a convergence of technologies including public cloud, digital identity and open platforms, it’s becoming possible to deliver this end-to-end vision. Let’s take each briefly in turn:
Digital identity -with permanent digital identities like Amadeus’ own Traveler ID solution, it’s possible to recognize the traveler at each stage of their trip like never before. This is an exciting new foundation that allows each travel provider to deliver its part of an end-to-end service based on individual traveler needs.
Open platforms - our ownopen platform approachcreates a true marketplace meaning airlines can connect to other travel providers (rail, ride hailing, hotels, airports, digital-first companies). This makes the airline’s own processes available to partners so end-to-end services can be packaged, sold and serviced at scale for the first time. This helps airlines to move from being order-centric providers to end-to-end retailers.
Public cloud - supports the hyper-scale flow of data between different travel providers. For example, it’s much easier to connect airlines to airports so they can collaborate on shared biometric identity infrastructure when it can be pre-integrated in the cloud. Recently,Amadeus partnered with Microsoft to harness cloud technology and explore new products and solutions to create smoother travel experiences in the future.
NDC - helps airlines to retail more sophisticated offers, packaging products from other providers that make-up an end-to-end travel service.NDC is one critical step towards enhanced travel retailing. Adoption of the standard is scaling rapidly and we expect all Amadeus travel sellers to be NDC-ready this year.
OneOrder -withOneOrder , standards are taking shape that deliver an Amazon-style shopping basket to which travelers can add not just airline products, but any third-party services.
Traditional industries can fight back
In many industries, we’ve seen companies that operate in niches get ahead and excel in delivering what their customers need by partnering with other companies within or beyond their own industry. From the grocery industry to the fashion industry, forming alliances have certainly proven their value.
Consider the automotive industry, where car brands have collaborated around new industry standards for information sharing in groups like MOBI, so cars each have their own digital identities. This lays the foundation for intelligent data sharing to find electric charging points and enable an autonomous driving future that isn’t administered by Silicon Valley. Most importantly, it’s a major step toward delivering the advanced mobility services customers expect.
What would this look like for travel?
An end-to-end service is a bookable travel product that considers the traveler’s entire trip experience, typically from door to destination and back home again. Rather than searching for and booking each component separately (taxi, flight, rail, hotel) the traveler is offered a single service that can be booked all at once. More importantly though, an end-to-end service is distinguished by the ability of each provider to identify the individual traveler and then to deliver the service in a joined-up way that reduces friction.
It is not a series of individual bookings the traveler must navigate on the ground but rather a coordinated effort from travel providers that work together. We have already seen this principle within the airline industry. Alliances have sought to harmonize levels of service across partner airlines, with each airline able to identify the individual passenger’s service history, preferences, and the product attributes they’ve purchased. No matter which airline they purchased them from. The next frontier is about applying technology to extend this philosophy across the entire trip.
What does all this mean for the traveler?
For travelers, this approach could usher in a golden era of travel as technology facilitates thehighly personalized tripthat only a privileged few experience today, typically enabled by personal assistants and agents spending time to connect the dots.
For example, booking with a unified digital identity means the ride hailing driver can be waiting for the passenger at the airport based on improved sharing of the traveler’s itinerary, with alerts cascaded through the chain if a delay to the flight occurs. If rail travel could be part of the journey, options will be visible when the original search occurs, with the airline able to combine, sell and account for the rail element in a single transaction.
Travelers could be segmented based on their individual needs. For example, travelers that select a premium service could be offered limousine services, with separate luggage transport, airport lounge access, and fast track biometric services.
The coming together of all these factors, at a time when the need for creative thinking is at an all-time high across the industry, provides all the enablers we need to usher in the next generation of travel services. Much of the hard work has been done or is well underway. The critical next step will be to apply these enablers as part of innovative new services that benefit the traveler. It’s going to be an exciting few years to be in the travel industry as we help deliver this fundamental change to power great journeys andrebuild travel.
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