It has been a year since the camera in the closet is waiting to capture new photos. The dust has settled on the luggage bags. The passport is waiting to get stamped again. With travel restrictions announced, wedding banquet halls booking and business conferences cancelled, 2020 has caused severe jolts to the travel and hospitality industry due to covid-19.
The Federation of Associations in Indian Tourism and Hospitality (FAITH), has estimated the industry’s losses for FY21 to ₹15 trillion because of the pandemic, which is a threefold increase from ₹5 trillion loss estimated in March.
Although vaccination drives are on, and the apprehensions of travelling in the pandemic are gradually easing amongst people, the industry is yet to pull its socks to revive and reach the growth momentum of pre-covid levels. The pandemic has altered consumer behaviour, which has given birth to new traveller expectations. The expectations will be based on –
- Safety: both perception and reality will matter
- Health: Government will introduce mandatory checks
- Hygiene game to be strong.
- Those brands will be considered winners who will not compromise on delivering quality.
- Value for money: Travel and hospitality businesses should not find this to be an opportunity to charge exorbitantly, thus the new mantra to be good value for good money.
The travel and hospitality industry to stay afloat in such grim times need to up their game by bringing innovations in their product and services.
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The Federation of Associations in Indian Tourism and Hospitality (FAITH), has estimated the industry’s losses for FY21 to ₹15 trillion because of the pandemic, which is a threefold increase from ₹5 trillion loss estimated in March.
Implementing Speech analytics in Travel and hospitality
The travel and hospitality industry is people intrinsic, thus poor customer service will cause blunders here. Few customer complaints handled poorly will shift the customer loyalty in no time. Thus, the implementation of speech analytics in aviation and hospitality will aid in determining the customer demands and expectations from customer care representatives and set benchmarks of best customer handling practices. The speech analytics tool records the conversation, analyses the words, phrases, and tones used by both customer and customer care to generate better insights. The tool reduces the average handle time, which increases productivity and customer satisfaction.
Redefining business travels and work from home
Where work-from-home model guarantees comfort within the home environment, but the interference of daily house chores at times interrupts the working. Therefore, hotels can redefine themselves to be ‘collaborative hotels’ for the remote working employees who come for business travels. Hotels can provide quiet and peaceful workplaces for remote teams to work solo. Such hotels will be located near worker’s homes.
The subscription model in Travel and Hospitality
The subscription model in hospitality is not new, but hotels and travel companies can design subscription models based on the number of monthly travels that a particular job role requires. For instance- a job role like sales professionals, medical representatives, travel writers, etc. requires extensive travelling. Hotels can offer a subscription-based model that will charge a one-time fee in which the employee can make a particular number of visits and stays monthly or quarterly. Hotels and travel companies in collaboration with the corporates can come up with an attractive stay and travel subscription model plans.
Data-driven analytics and recommending better
Travel systems generate a ton of data. Leveraging the travel data by predictive analytics helps businesses to create services based on consumer insights and expectations. A smart data strategy allows to understand the demographics of new travellers and their choice of price points that will help travel and hospitality business to design loyalty packages, budget accommodation, shared-ride facilities, offer gluten-free room menus to customers following a diet, promoting honeymoon packages to those recently engaged or budget flight options for college students. It strengthens the recommendation game, for instance, a budget traveller looking for cheap flights is likely to book economical hotel stays, with analytics businesses can understand behaviour and recommend relevant products and services, which will drive sales and increase revenue.
New Travel Packages
Since, international holidays and country trips have taken a backseat, the work from home model has made life mundane. Travel companies can utilise this monotony of life, to create new holiday packages based on experiences or hobbies which people have long forgotten like going to cycling hikes, fishing, sailing, walking tours, nature villages, road trips, near city travelling, etc.
What is there for the travel and hospitality startups?
The use of technology and people experiences will help the digital-first travel and hospitality chains or startups to remain resilient in such dark times. Startups operating in this sector need to infuse flexibility in every decision so that you can prepare for the challenges ahead to understand a customer well and bring new services and packages to increase revenue.
