The technological revolution regarding tourism hasn’t reached it’s top. Mobile phones open a new window in which the sector must bet on as soon as possible. The figures from the last brief of the Brain Trust Laboratory, elaborated by the consultant specialised in the tourism sector, Brain Trust CS, warn that in the year 2020, 80% of the travel ticket purchases will be done online. They also point out that seven out of ten travellers state that they use this device at some point of their journey, bearing in mind that the quotas of telephones with ‘smartphone’ technology, is currently only 40% but will fire up to 75% in about eleven years.
This research’s main aim is to offer a global view of the technological revolution of the mobile devices towards the tourism sector and introduce the great challenges and opportunities of the companies in this sector. In this new scenario, it shows the necessity of the tourist companies to adapt to this new way of business, even if this means an initial investment. Just by having a website and commercialising with it in a short period of time, will not be enough to compete. The sector has to start setting up the “mobile” strategy which will allow them not only to survive, but to be profitable and sustainable over the next few years. According to this brief, the companies need to renew their strategies, make their processes more efficient, redesign their marketing policies, optimize their client database and observe the market through the contextual competitive intelligence.
In this immediate future, the tourism industry will have to offer mobile phone travel apps for free, which means having to contemplate alternatives to generate income via other formulas. Also, they clarify that these must stand out amongst the rest of the mobile apps, of which only 5% are currently to do with travelling. In this sense, they provide the figure that, paradoxically, amongst the top ten most downloaded apps, only one is travel related. However, it is expected that the number of these apps related to tourism will reach 15% in the next ten years.
Angel Garcia Butragueño, Brain Trust Consulting Services’ director of Business Investigation and Development in the area of Tourism and Leisure, manifested that “The tourism sector has a great opportunity to adapt technologically to the user’s demand and to the endless opportunities that the mobile technology offers to this sector, such as the creation of efficient apps that would change the way in which the contracts are made in the tourism sector”.
This consultant emphasizes on the fact that the technology has currently become the greatest support for the tourism sector, in both business and personal trips. Also, they warn that the new consumers, technologically prepared and users of mobile devices, apps and social networks, have also introduced technology in the hiring of touristic services. In these aspects, the crisis has also taken its toll, that has come to modify patterns of behaviour in companies and travellers. “The first ones have drastically reduced the investment in travelling and also use virtual technology (like teleconferences) to avoid managers having to travel. On the other hand, the number of consumers that purchase their travel tickets online have increased”, he stated.
Related articles
- Thai tourism embraces social media (travelnews.britishairways.com)
- How to use mobile coupons in tourism (smallbizsurvival.com)
Malaga Blog - Costa del Sol, Spain 