The majority of travellers, nowadays, are interested in useful platforms providing safe and instant updates concerning their travels. Also, the increased demand for contactless transactions is pushing an increasing number of governments and enterprises to develop contactless procedures, digital public health codes as well as secure customer data storage.
Given these trends, tourism enterprises will need to reshape travel app models if they want to succeed in offering effective customer service and travel management following the pandemic, market research publisher GlobalData studies have highlighted.
Preference for contactless services is strong among consumers worldwide as apps commonly used, including bank cards for contactless transactions, enable purchases to be carried out with safety. This development is also impacting how tourism enterprises manage their clientele bases, especially when shaping booking services. GlobalData studies concerning enterprise operations have shown that mobile device payments and internet-based travel planning were among the five most important topics referenced by tourism enterprises in 2020.
Destination Management Organisations (DMOs) are making efforts to establish more responsible post-pandemic behaviour in the tourism sector. This suggests that travel apps are headed in the right direction, promising to benefit customers, enterprises and destinations. The development of comprehensive services fully covering the needs of a travel experience, from beginning to end, promises to inspire travel confidence, result in safer travel and better overall management, which would prove beneficial for all sides involved.
Mrs. Johanna Bonhill-Smith, a travel and tourism analyst at GlobalData, noted that the arrival of various digital passports will prompt the need, as well as opportunity for development, of travel apps with all data concerning a specific journey, as a comprehensive service covering everything, from simplification of travel-related procedures to local transactions. Furthermore, Mrs. Bonhill-Smith stressed that anything capable of enhancing a customer’s travel experience and boosting travel confidence must now be prioritised.
Contactless transaction systems appear to be the crucial tool in this effort. Fifty-five percent of respondents who took part in a related study conducted by GlobalData declared a preference for payment of products and services through the use of contactless cards or via their mobile phones, only, not cash. In the same survey, 60 percent of respondents noted they aim to “begin or continue” performing their banking transactions online in the post-pandemic era. Besides health and public health matters, this preference, possibly also linked to the simplification of banking transactions, is creating further opportunities for the introduction of comprehensive travel apps.
In addition, Mrs. Bonhill-Smith pointed out that travel apps in the post-pandemic era also promise major benefits for destinations. An all-encompassing app could promote destination experiences and, at the same time, offer travel management concerning tourist attractions and areas of interest. Airports, too, may benefit as travellers could be guided to use different parts of airports during heightened traffic flow, and, as a result, maintain social distancing rules.
