LP Maurice, CEO and co-founder of coach travel booking platform Busbud, discusses how tech is leading to more consumer empowerment
One of the biggest trends in travel over the last decade has been the empowerment of consumers. Social media, price comparison sites, on demand services and new geolocation apps are just some of the factors that have given consumers more control over their travel experience.
Organisations recognise that a growing majority of customers interact via mobile rather than desktop. Most are aware of the need to adopt a new way of tracking these mobile customers, using single sign on solutions that exploit either social media or telephone number identities. Few, however, have made the essential mind set move from the desktop digital marketing model to accommodate the now dominant Generation Y that has a fundamentally different way of interacting.
Air travel still remains one of the most exciting, awe inspiring and fascinating modes of transport for human beings. But the role of the airline is far greater than being a ?mode of transport?, simply taking people across the oceans to far-flung places. Airlines, especially national carriers, are in fact symbols of their country of origin. They represent advancement, service, standards and culture. In a nutshell, they are physical manifestations of what a country wants to export to the rest of the world.
Around the UK there are thousands of people who will continue to follow the same tradition and do the ?norm? at Christmas - soap specials, bucks fizz and turkey. But what about those who want to stuff a suitcase instead of a turkey?
Booking a holiday online should be fun. However, it often becomes a chore when a site offers a complicated interface with disorganised drop down menus, multiple pages and the same questions asked to everyone.
More than 1.6 million UK passengers are eligible for compensation, meaning Brits are missing out on more than ?500m in compensation for delayed or cancelled flights, according to data from flightright, the consumer portal for air passenger compensation for delayed, cancelled or overbooked flights.
Having spent years chasing the hard-earned cash of Britains youth market, businesses are now waking up to the fact that consumers aged 50-plus are sitting on a pot of gold.