Travel industry has seen significant growth in different branches from last few years. Experts in travel industry have recognized different service sectors and positioned their business accordingly in the market. Package Tours, cab Rental, Customized Group Tours, Train and Bus Booking are few major sectors which are being operated by the different business.
As all the above mentioned sectors are different by its operation no single business has dominance on all of them. Business problems, targeted customer, operation nature and business laws are not similar. Added to this, single business cannot dominate all the regions of world. Even if they do so they have to operate differently in different regions. Due to this huge diversity need for technology has risen. Experts in technology coined this sector of market as “Travel Technology”.
By definition, travel industry must concentrate on the core business problems like booking availability, tour pricing, connected trains and flights, traveler safety etc. However, in practice that is not just enough. Any traveler will check hotels and restaurants facilities before opting to travel and this has made travel industry to tie up with the hotels and restaurants to provide end-to-end solution. Travel industry banks on the technology to know the available hotels and restaurants in a region and vacant rooms at any point of time. Hence Travel Technology is defined as an application of information technology in travel, tourism and hospitality.
On the other hand, sector like cab rental has a completely different business problems depending upon their market they serve. Cab rental business serves a common people in a city which is generally termed as city taxi. Also few cab rental business provide cab service to IT/BPO companies which are being used as transport facility for employees. Both of these business models have different operation modes. Technology can help to organize, schedule and monitor the cabs.
Even when train booking are straight forward for a common people, there are agents who can get it done for commission. These agents have found technology hand for their business operations. After all, busses are also on demand. The bus network operators have taken the aid of technology to centralize the booking information of their buses and generate booking leads through travel agents.
Few businesses had value and uniqueness by conducting customized tours for a particular group of people. There are customized tours for women only, youngsters and families. These businesses target a different sector of the market where educating their customer is a part of business operations. Such business needs customized technology solutions to solve their business needs.
Being explained all the above, I can conclude this blog with following summary which is a key take away –
- Travel technology is about automating everything around the people transport, be it a small or large distance
- Educating the travelers is sometimes a part of the business, for which technology comes handy
- Organizing, scheduling and monitoring are key ways to increase the profitability for which technology finds its importance.
- Technology helps business to find their targeted customers and provide them high quality services.