How Travel Retail Enhances Customer Experience

Travel retail businesses must upgrade their existing systems and approaches towards more simplified and personalised models to enhance customer experiences

FREMONT, CA: Passengers face several challenges at different stages of their journey, from shopping, booking, and payment through pre, during, and post-travel touchpoints. The inherent limitations of existing business processes and technologies are the root cause of a few problems. As a result, once the transition to a retail model is complete, the traveller experience must be improved, and also understand how this would drive increased revenue across the travel ecosystem.

Passenger experience can be improved through various media, particularly in this technological era. Some of the enhancements that will be observed in the future are a limited choice of standard air-centric products and services to broad but relevant air and non-air products and services to select from bulky offerings personalised to travellers. From a complicated and time-consuming process of comparing travel options across multiple channels to an easy and streamlined system to shop and create a customised travel itinerary. Finally, service distribution will shift from a product-centric to a customer-centric model. A vast choice of more targeted products and services will enhance the customer experience, strengthen conversation rates, and elevate travel providers' revenue.

Some of the enhancements to the booking procedure include a one-stop-shop booking process that meets the entire customer's needs instead of a multiple-booking process, which is more complicated. This traditional structure is also time-consuming, so it will be replaced by an efficient and transparent experience, saving time. A simple and customer-friendly booking process will increase customer assistance and add value. Moreover, travellers also need a greater choice in the payment method for travel, products, and services. This will enhance the limited payment options to a wide range of customer-friendly choices, and the ticketing process with a reference number will be converted into a ticketless procedure with no reference number.

Responsiveness to Change is Crucial to Long-Term Success.

The above-stated examples highlight that there is a myriad of opportunities for the travel industry to advance beyond the principles and processes that brought it to its current level of evolution. The sector is poised to enter a vibrant new phase in its development, providing more opportunities for future growth and progression. Technological advancements have spurred more innovative and progressive thinking in the travel industry. Simultaneously, consumer expectations have evolved around all facets of modern life, including travel. Today, people have become accustomed to self-serve, technology-driven, and personalised shopping experiences.

Consumers have a perception that the travel industry, especially airlines, has struggled to deliver. Consumer demands are surpassing the industry's capacity to evolve, and many existing systems and procedures have reached or beyond their boundaries. Therefore, travel providers are required to focus on simplifying, scalable, end-to-end solutions that deliver highly personalised travel experiences.