Customer experience is prioritized by hotels, airlines, car rental agencies, and the travel sector as one of the most useful competitive differentiators. Companies that succeed in this area have a higher chance of retaining clients and gaining a solid reputation. In this article, you’ll discover nine of the most effective ways tourism professionals can improve the customer experience.

1. Smart Rooms

The use of speech recognition technology to build “smart rooms” is one of the expanding trends in customer experience within the hotel sector of the travel industry. In essence, devices make the experience more convenient by enabling guests to control numerous room components using specific voice commands.

One of the most well-known examples is Alexa for Hospitality, an Amazon service already used by Marriott. Smart speakers are included in hotel rooms, and guests can communicate with the speakers to ask questions, get information and turn on or off other devices in the room.

2. Chatbots & Artificial Intelligence

Thanks to recent developments in artificial intelligence, computer systems or machines can now do jobs that need direct human involvement. This can significantly benefit businesses of all kinds within the travel industry, as it allows for much greater automation.

Chatbots, which hotels, travel agents, and airlines can use to provide 24/7 customer service or fully automated booking processes. In terms of customer experience, the main benefit is fast response times, which means customers will receive quick answers, even in the middle of the night.

3. Personalization Marketing

The basic principle of personalization marketing is providing users with more targeted promotional content. This is typically achieved through data collection and automated digital algorithms and allows content to be distributed to specific users with specific interests and browsing habits or who match particular demographics.

As a result, promotional content is more relevant to individuals, which can be particularly important within the travel industry. For example, this may mean users who browsed a hotel’s website will see ads for that hotel on social media. However, it allows businesses to target their content to more specific demographics. Cab companies, for example, could target those located in a particular airport or city.

4. Virtual Reality

In recent years, virtual reality technology has grown considerably, and virtual reality headsets are now a mainstream consumer product. This provides those in the tourism industry with a great opportunity, as virtual reality has the power to virtually transform a user’s environment, effectively placing them in a different environment.

There are practically many applications for this. Some internet travel agencies use technology to let users check out hotel rooms before making a reservation. Other travel agencies, in contrast, have created virtual experiences that allow clients experience what it’s like to be at a popular tourist destination. Other examples could include 360-degree movies that preview a hotel, cruise ship, or tourist destination, interactive virtual maps, and virtual reality hotel tours.

5. Augmented reality

Augmented reality is similar to VR, although it is more accessible to the average customer, requiring only a smartphone and a relevant app. Rather than completely replacing a user’s environment, augmented reality is more about enhancing real-world environments through overlays.

Providing additional information is the primary way to enhance the customer experience for those in the travel industry. Users of a vacation app may, for instance, use their phones to point at a landmark to learn more about it or at a restaurant to check reviews and cleanliness ratings.

6. The Internet of Things

Internet connectivity in everyday devices, commonly referred to as the “Internet of Things,” has been a significant disruptor within the travel and tourism industry. Companies looking to deliver customer experience can use these capabilities to add convenience, maximize comfort and even anticipate the need for repairs.

The IoT can also support location-based services. Devices can be set up in hotels to recognize and react to current conditions, automatically controlling the temperature and lighting. All industries can view real-time information about the operational status of devices, enabling speedy repairs.

7. Robots

Robotics is being used more frequently, which is a key technology trend that is impacting all industries and has the potential to enhance the customer experience dramatically. They can take on various responsibilities, from security robots to robots delivering services in hotels within the tourism sector.

You can find one of the most notable instances of robotic customer service in Japan. The Henn-na Hotel is fully staffed with automated personnel, from check-in robots to mechanical luggage carriers. There is no longer a need to handle baggage thanks to some businesses’ robotic travel cases. Robots can be employed for everything from bomb disposal to weapon detection in airports and airplanes, enhancing security.

8. User-generated content

Finally, user-generated content refers to any content produced by users or customers rather than by the company. In the travel industry, one of the most prominent examples is images uploaded to social media websites by users, which can be highly influential as they often represent customers’ opinions.

The challenge for people in the tourist sector is to discover ways to let clients produce user-generated material that enhances their experience and acts as positive word-of-mouth advertising. Many tourist attractions, for example, do this through branded photo booths, which allow customers to capture moments from their visit and easily upload them to social media, along with a logo or other subtle branding.

Prioritizing the customer experience is essential for those in the travel industry, and companies that excel in this area can often gain a significant competitive advantage over their competitors. The eight ways in this article can help travel businesses deliver a better experience and reap later rewards.

9. Co-piloting concept

With co-piloting, private pilots offer empty seats on a specialized platform.

 Users of the site can reserve one of the seats in the co-pilotage and share the cost of the flight with the pilot, which considerably reduces the bill.

 Co-piloting: how it works

 Co-piloting allows private pilots to share the cost of a leisure flight with passengers recruited on the Internet. It is the pilot who initiates the flight.

 In practice, all that is required is to connect to a specialized platform such as Coavmi, Cofly, Off We Fly, Wingly, Wingshare, etc. They connect pilots with passengers. They put pilots in contact with customers to share free seats on scheduled flights. 

 This practice allows passengers to travel in original conditions (possibly on a business jet) and to land at airfields scattered throughout the world to reach a country house, for example.

 As far as fares are concerned, prices are generally quoted if the jet is full. They may therefore increase if not all the seats are filled. Even under optimal conditions, the differences with the fares offered by regular carriers are rarely less than -15/20%.