"To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries."-- Aldous Huxley
Given the significant rise in travel by the people of India, Russia and China, it might now be quite literally true that travel is the largest industry on Earth. Once a year, I like to share some trends I've noted as well as some predictions.
Let's begin with two assumptions. Half of the scientists who have ever lived are alive and working on projects at this very moment. It is also true that half of the freshmen entering American high schools will end up in job descriptions that do not currently exist. This means that we can never really know what the future holds.
Still, trend spotting is a great exercise for travel industry minds, because it enables us to think outside the box and to imagine new and better ways to serve our clients and guests. Here are just a few current trends and developments I've been watching with interest:
• Suppliers will combine technology tools and the user's desire for personalization to create new levels of direct VIP services. We are going to see more aggressive moves by suppliers to truly personalize the travel experience. Members of the Starbucks Generation, which actually encompasses three generational sets, want to put their own cream in their coffee. We have the beginnings of personalized programs like British Airways' "Know Me," which enables staff to greet VIP guests by name via uploaded Google images showing staff what the guest looks like before arriving in the terminal or aboard the aircraft. Through an application, staff can access a guest's past history with BA, what they prefer to eat and when, as well as information about where they are headed and for what purpose. Look for this kind of approach to sweep the hotel and airline sectors with cruise lines being very late adapters.
• Child-centered learning programs will revolutionize family hotel/resort stays. Parents are spending too little time with their kids and feel guilty about it. Computers and phones are their kids' best friends. To compensate, more and more parents will seek out destination hotels and resorts that teach specific skills to children. Sailing schools will become popular. One of the major chains will announce the opening of on-campus, one-week computer camps. Look for at least one world-class family resort to offer gaming labs for teens.
Even one of the world's top hotels, Dubai's Burj Al Arab, runs a turtle adoption program for children that includes aquarium space in the hotel. If guests stay long enough, their kids can watch the sick turtles nursed back to health and released into nearby waters. The turtles can be named after the child.
• Airlines will address customer complaints in real time. As travelers morph quickly into living, breathing Michelin reports, eager to share their evaluations of every aspect of their travels, airlines will try to keep up with the needs of guests who crave instant results.
In the next three years, look to real-time customer support to become a reality as airlines strengthen their passenger relationships via consumers' most prized possession, their smartphone or tablet.
KLM already has an app that lets flyers rate every aspect of their experience as it is happening, enabling ground teams as well as iPad-equipped flight attendants to address issues and concerns instantly. Other airlines are looking at instant messaging as a way to offer flyers real-time communications with the crew. Virgin America says it soon will have a comprehensive seat-to-seat and seat-to-crew messaging system in place.
• The ethical considerations of space travel will slow its growth. Richard Branson has predicted that by 2022, tens of thousands of adventurous travelers will fly into space -- or at least 62 miles into space -- on commercial flights. He has already sold seats to more than 500 Virgin Galactic passengers at $200,000 apiece. Travel professionals, however, may question the wisdom of recommending space flight, given the extremely high risk of rocket failure vs. the current odds of dying on a commercial airline (about 1 in 5 million). One economist has cautioned, based on available data, that the risk of rocket failure is about 1 in 20. I think we might see industry groups urging a slower approach before recommending this type of travel to clients.
• The next five years will see the culmination of Google's growing influence on travel planning. There was a nice bit of speculation about Google's intentions regarding travel. Did "The Google" really plan to take on an old, entrenched industry? The answer will be clear in the years to come.
Google's ITA division recently launched Flight Search, which has just enough power to cause everyone to sit up and take notice. Google clearly wants to dominate hotel and flight searches while maintaining close relationships with OTA partners. Google's goal is data collection, not successful searches. It has the biggest computers and is now on its way to having the most information about its users. A dominating travel presence will help meet that goal, and we will be talking about this in the months and years to come. The next big step might be the framework for the monetization of personal travel profiles.
• Travel growth will come from China. There are impressive statistics to back up the view we in the West have of ourselves as the drivers of tourism: It is the U.S., German and British markets that will divine the foreseeable future, don't you think?
Current projections, however, have the Chinese middle and upper classes playing the largest role in the changing face of worldwide tourism. Within the next seven years, the Chinese will account for 10% of the global travel market.
This is particularly impressive when you consider the fact that foreign travel was frowned on for so many years by a regime that characterized it as decadent. There are already examples of the impact of Chinese tourism in upscale destinations such as the Maldives, where about one-third of all visitors are from the mainland.
• Travel consultants will need to embrace voluntourism in the next decade. The transition from travel agent to travel consultant can lead to the most exalted of client relationships, that of the trusted adviser. But travel agencies and travel agents are just too much a part of the past, and there are too many negative connotations associated with the terminology.
The next generation of the best and brightest in our profession will morph into leisure-time consultants. This will greatly enhance the role of the travel professional, and it will surely embrace leisure planning that includes voluntourism and positive-impact worldwide vacations.
Much as restaurants want to inform consumers that they serve healthy food, those who plan leisure-time activities will want their customers to know they handle vacations that involve giving back to local communities. This will become a badge of honor in our evolving profession.
Contributing Editor Richard Bruce Turen owns Churchill & Turen Ltd., a luxury vacation firm based in Naples, Fla. He is also managing director of the Churchill Group, a sales training and marketing consultancy. He has been named to the list of the World's Top Travel Specialists by the editors of Conde Nast Traveler for the past 13 years. Contact him at rturen@travelweekly.com.