Blog homeAt the Travolution conference this week in London many of the delegates were asked what their opinions are on forthcoming challenges facing the travel industry. Here is a 15 minute video with plenty of talking heads from well known brands:
What do we learn from that? Well the larger players are busy worrying about their recent mergers and acquisitions - and the rising dominance of online travel agencies. It was much easier a few years back when, if you were a large tour company, consumer travel was purchased on the high street - you had 15,000 weak companies that you were negotiating with who were selling your products - rather than 10 powerful ones as now. (With the power to negotiate better rates for their customers, larger commission etc)
In the video some delegates doff a cap towards environmental issues - but I am not clear if this was for public relations purposes (i.e. this is an easy one to say when a camera is thrust into your face at a conference) - or whether it really is core to their companies beliefs. Certainly SilverJet (transatlantic flights with comfy beds) seems to be on the right track with carbon neutral flights - and this does look core to their central company vision.
If asked, I would have said that technical skills shortage will be the largest problem in the coming 12 months - in particular for smaller tour operators. (I wasn’t asked as I went to the TTI conference on the same day!)
Basic web design in 2007 is not too technically different from word processing (when dealing with small websites). You can pick up Dreamweaver - and manage an existing website (adding tours, adjusting prices etc). I know many small business owners who do just that. Additionally, many reservation business processes in small tour companies are still partially based on paper systems - or Microsoft Access for example. I know this - as it is these companies who are moving onto TourCMS
The challenge is that the game is changing. Websites soon won’t just be text and images - they are going to be dynamic and responsive to individual customer needs. Technically, this work will need to be done by web developers - not business owners using Dreamweaver. Rates for these developers are rising - and even the “offshore” option isn’t that attractive - as you need to define upfront what you want (which is a skill in itself). Reservation systems will have to move from partially paper based to fully computer based - even if its only to manage online reservations in a more effective way. This will take time and experience to get right.
It is not all doom and gloom though - small tour operators can be much more agile than their larger competitors - and can stay profitable in a niche that a larger operator wouldn’t enter. Also, there are companies out there (like us!) who aim to remove the technology barries by removing the need for new development skills.
Do you have your own thoughts on this? Please post a comment below
Thanks to Travolution / HolidayNet.com for the video
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