“For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” – Robert Louis Stevenson.
This quote is an anthem, a traveller’s anthem, by which every traveller lives by, breathes in and lives in ‘this’ skin. A traveller’s mind is a maze. A maze which keeps changing untiringly, keeping track of all the necessary and often unnecessary details, he might or might not need during his trotting, vacation, hike or journey. But nonetheless, it has to be there!
So, you see the ruckus here? If there’s already so much on his mind, keeping him busy to make his itinerary and further make it work, a little personalisation from service providers would actually take a lot off from his plate. Isn’t it? Yes, of course it will. His plate is overly full. His mind is occupied, partially with the dreams of visiting a new, unknown land and partially with attention-to-detail about too many little things.
The travel and tourism industry is flourishing like never before. An increasing number of people are starting to feel the ‘callings of unknown lands’. This feeling has caught a lot of attention recently, especially if we talk about the e-commerce industry. They are starting to think ‘for a travel enthusiast’ – ‘like a travel enthusiast’.
If you casually search on the most prominent web browsers about flight tickets, your search suggestions would be flooded with websites promising the cheapest fares and many more offers. They gage you on your preferences, your search history and your past trips and itineraries. They are ready to walk an extra mile to offer you the most lucrative deals for a hassle-free journey. Now if their suggestions, itinerary, stay recommendations, flights pricing, etc. matches your criteria and budget, there’s no way anybody would miss it or end up not availing that offer.
It can be safely said that e-commerce has made a huge arrival, and is covering all domains and industry, including travel and tourism. Another noticeable milestone is – the emergence of humongous number of start-ups cantered around travel and tourism. This trend has been prevalent in western countries for quite some time now. People are quitting their jobs to travel full-time, becoming freelancers and travelling, etc. This trend is now catching up here as well. With numerous start-ups and ideas doing the rounds in the Indian market, this industry can surely be taken to the next level.
If you make your customers happy, they will make you happier. The same goes with a traveller. If you give them the best offer, an offer they cannot refuse, they will not refuse it. Today’s age is the age of internet. It is the generation of social media and awareness. People come in well researched. They do their homework. Hence, it becomes pertinent for everybody who wants to sell them customised and tailored itinerary, to be as perfect as one wants it to be.
However, the above mentioned trend is not the only factor, as people always prefer some added incentives. They need a lot of spoon-feeding, luring and rebuttals. Every e-commerce site is aware of this. They lure in web traffic with the help of tools such as e-cashbacks, e-rewards, jet-miles, added deals and what not. There are offers and deals which can be availed on the first booking and sign-up. These little things and rebates are making a whole lot of difference in preferences that a traveller would have while making a booking or deciding where to stay and which site to keep away from.
In nutshell, I think it would be wise to say that the travel industry is intensifying in its proactive approach to feed a host of customized options. Its expansion has the ability to provide a subtle yet significant throttle to the Indian economy and take e-commerce and its personalisation to the next level.
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