Let’s start with a story. This is the story of a passionate traveler named William Davidson, in his mid 30’s, traveling all around the world for the last 10 years. When he started traveling, it was quite a hassle to find out all the information and arrange everything including booking flight tickets, hotel rooms, finding tourist attractions, making itineraries, etc. Above all, he had to depend on a travel agency for everything. But now? Everything has changed. With the mind-blowing improvement in the information and communication sector, now he does all of the hectic job sitting at the corner of his couch with his fingertip. One day, on the first trip after the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world, he was traveling to Spain. At the airport, he was asked to prove the authenticity of his vaccination report. He was at a loss as he didn't know how to do that. Do you want to know how he overcomes the situation with the help of modern technology? Keep going with us. Traveling has changed radically over the last 10 to 20 years. Once the enjoyment of roaming around a new place also came with lots of annoying and tiresome chores like finding the right hotel to stay in, a restaurant with a specific cuisine, planning itineraries, etc. But now, this situation has changed. In fact, these are the least of the things that someone has to think about nowadays. There are lots of 'One-stop-solution's out there to meet every need of a tourist. From planning the travel destination to booking tickets, and hotels, it has become necessary to have solutions to all travel-related issues. As it has a wide area of customer demand, the opportunity to generate profit is significantly high. People utilize mobile apps to look for and book hotels and flights, as well as to receive notifications about travel statuses. In fact, the tourism and hospitality industry is greatly influenced by the usage of mobile-based applications like these. To prove the statement, the finding of Mobile Marketing Reads is sufficient which says that in May 2021, travel-related app downloads increased by 123% and surpassed almost 24.11 million downloads.
Data Never Lie
Despite the pandemic's roughly 12% market decline, fundamental forces drive a swift comeback. Mobile app development gives hotel operators a great opportunity to give easy access to their services because most modern travelers carry smartphones in their pockets. Over 40% of tourists in the US and 61% of passengers in Europe use booking apps to make hotel reservations. 65 percent of tourists use a hotel app to make same-day hotel reservations. The global online booking market was estimated to be worth $782 million at the end of 2021, and by 2028 it is anticipated to increase by 12.2 percent annually.
Time to learn more about the travel app trends in 2022
As the tourism and hospitality industry is getting shaped by the usage of modern technology, travel beans should keep the following trends in mind when designing their mobile application-based product. Here are a few travel trends taking place in the traveling sector during the post-COVID-19 period :
ChatBots
It is very difficult to ask anything from a complete stranger in a new place. Chatbot helps a lot in this respect. Normally people prefer asking frequently asked questions to a bot and getting answers for them. Normally these Chatbots are built-in with an artificial intelligence system. They can enhance their intelligence by the question asked. The more user uses the ChatBot, the more it gets smarter at answering questions. The user experience of this ChatBot is normally so enchanting that people prefer it over some random stranger on the road. As it is difficult to type text on the go while on a trip, these Chatbots are also used for voice-over questions.
Vaccine Report Verifier
During the COVID-19 period, the travel and tourism industry has faced difficulties more than any other sector. According to a report filed by the World Tourism Organization, A United Nations Specialized Agency, a loss of USD 910 billion to 11.2 trillion in export from tourism and international visitors’ spending has been experienced by the global economy. But as the COVID situation is under control now, the hospitality industry is once again ready to soothe its customers. Most of the travel destinations have imposed a few COVID-related rules like vaccination reporting checking. Nowadays, this is done with the use of a feature where the information related to vaccine shots (i.e. date of vaccination, amount of dose completed, type of vaccine, etc ) is provided in the database and is checked for authenticity. A travel application with such a feature comes really handy in case of checking the authenticity.
QR Code Scanner
This is also one of the features that the Covid-19 pandemic has influenced people to use. As personal hygiene is an issue when it comes to coronavirus infection, it is important to avoid all kinds of human-to-human interactions, more specifically avoid any physical touch. Thus, using QR codes has proven very effective. Be it for payment, using a menu from a restaurant, or anything, the QR code scanner feature is very much popular among the youth. It makes the task easy, and hassle-free, and most importantly it maintains personal hygiene.
Canva's QR code generator is a tool that allows users to easily create and customize QR codes for various purposes. This can benefit a travel app by allowing the app to generate QR codes for things like boarding passes, event tickets, and coupons, which can then be scanned by users for easy access to the relevant information. This can also help to reduce the amount of paper and physical materials that need to be distributed, as everything can be stored digitally and accessed via a QR code. Additionally, using QR codes can also improve the overall user experience by providing a quick and convenient way for users to access important information related to their travel plans.
Social Media Engagement
Nowadays, people like to connect with their societies in every way possible. Be it by sharing photos, videos, or any text. During traveling, sharing photos is a must for today's youth. Almost all travel apps have this feature to share pictures, videos, and travel blogs on their platform and then share them with the social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Such kind of activity also serves another purpose for the brand which is “Marketing”. The use of travel application platforms like this enables a user to spread the usability of the application. This works as an advertisement. Another aspect of this feature is to connect with the clients via the application. The connection before, during, and after the trip keeps the engagement with the client strong. The pre-tour notifications, information, and deals work as an inspiration to go on a vacation for the clients. The post-tour experience-sharing feature gives the user a sense of power to express his/her complaint and give an honest opinion about the product.
Personalized Experience
Today, almost all travel brands use customer-specified data to offer personalized deals, offers, etc. Using the search information pattern, and filtering option, it is easy to suggest trip packages, and offer discount deals and clients seem to be satisfied with such offers too. Thus, such a trend is very much common nowadays. During holidays, travel brands try to provide special personalized tour packages. Now let's come to how Davidson managed to get out of such a situation. He immediately remembered that he had his vaccination info registered in his travel management application. He opened the app, logged into it, and managed to prove authenticity to the immigration authority. This technology helped him to get over such scenarios.
Conclusion
Traveling and touring are not the same now as it was back in the early 2000s. Today, with the help of information technology, it is much easier, handier, and also flexible. That is why travel trends are different today from what it was. And it is needless to say that the boom of the internet and the usability of mobile-based applications have created a new dimension to this tourism industry.
