Amadeus Study Predicts Travel Future

In a study commissioned by Amadeus, a leading transaction processor and technology partner for the global travel industry, the company outlines how evolving social values and trends, as well as transformative technologies, will combine in the next decade and beyond to develop a new era of collaborative travel. The research was developed by The Futures Company, a leading global futures and foresight consultancy.

The “From chaos to collaboration: how transformative technologies will herald a new era in travel” report demands that partnerships be increased throughout the travel industry. In turn, this will remove the uncertainty, stress and chaos that is usually related to traveling now. It will also provide a much deeper, richer and more personal travel experience for travellers. The report also gives details of a clear qualitative shift in which service-users become partners instead of customers and where transactions and contexts have the value of importance.

Based on key industry experts’ input, extensive research and quantitative traveller research in the UK, US, Brazil, Spain, United Arab Emirates, Russia and China; the study explored six key areas where future innovation and technology can be deployed. Its main findings included:

• The next generation of travel experiences, like gamification mechanisms, smart mobile devices and augmented reality.
• Automatic transit with long range fingerprinting, biometrics, near field communications (NFC) and chips.
• Transactions acting like a digital memory of activity and expenditure for individuals, groups and operators; using contactless technologies, digital breadcrumbs and intelligent passenger records to personalise and bundle products that will create more profitable relationships and deliver more value.
• Changing demographics and the well-being agenda will have more emphasis on removing travel stress with intelligent tickets and luggage tags that will be more reassuring, while travellers will be able to monitor their health and well-being via mobile-Health apps.

Amadeus executive vice president of global operations Eberhard Haag says that there is a huge opportunity over the next decade to redefine how the travel industry packages and delivers services to meet the changing needs of travellers. The key is a greater two-way partnership between travellers and operators, more intelligent information exchange and a willingness to challenge the status quo. They are dedicated to stimulating the debate over how the world is changing, how the industry can evolve to secure growth and profitability, and what travellers will expect more of.

The Futures Company director and co-author Andrew Curry says that they didn’t want to make the assumption that technology alone will determine the future of travel. An intelligent or realistic prediction can’t be made without considering infrastructure, systems, business models, and social values and trends. They hope the study will challenge, stimulate and provoke thinking about what future travel will be like.