July 8 2017: Outgoing World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) President & CEO David Scowsill has shared what he sees are the trends shaping the future of Travel & Tourism, with TravelNews Daily. We bring you some key take aways that will impact the Indian travel and tourism departments and agencies
Our world in 2017 is uncertain, vulnerable, and unpredictable. Despite this, Travel & Tourism (T&T) growth has remained at around 4% a year. Disruption has been part of the sector’s DNA for the past 20 years, and the sector has emerged stronger and more resilient for it.
Low cost carriers, TripAdvisor, online hotel aggregators, the sharing economy - these new business models and approaches have changed the landscape of T&T
Will robots replace tourism workers?
Artificial Intelligence, machine learning and robotics will certainly impact jobs in the sector over time. Many jobs will become redundant, but others will be created. Service delivery in T&T relies on the people contact, it is the people that ultimately define the experience whether you are travelling for business or leisure.
Will Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality replace the need to travel?
The speed of movement in this area will be phenomenal, but it will enhance the industry rather than compete with it. At the moment T&T is just playing with the technology, but the opportunities - be it children learning in a classroom, training tourism workers to spot potential terrorists, or a terminally ill person visiting the world from their bed - are huge
Will online communications wipe out business travel
This debate has been raging for twenty years. Now we are seeing skype, whatsapp, wechat, Twitter, Facebook and video conferencing communications merging smoothly over time on communication devices, for both business meetings and leisure experiences with friends. But while these platforms facilitate connectivity, people will still want to travel to see the world. Business travel will increase as the human contact required for deal making will never disappear.
Do I, however, foresee the end of tourism websites? Yes. I believe we will see the end of websites as apps become all consuming on mobile devices. In fact, mobile connectivity will continue to dominate, and people will learn to switch off to guard their leisure time from the ‘always available’ mentality demanded by corporations.
Courtesy TravelNews Daily. Full remarks here