This year's World Travel Market, hosted at the ExCeL Conference and Exhibition Centre in London from November 4th - 7th, was an industry travel fest that encompassed over 4900 exhibitors, more than 8000 attendees and over 350 speakers. Exhibiting destinations from around the world, along with representatives from diverse travel sectors met, negotiated, bought and sold all things travel related.

The Latest Trends

Industry dynamics shaping discussions this year were summarized by Euromonitor (i). Overall, the global travel industry is expected to remain healthy, driven in large part by demand from emerging market consumers. Within the industry, competing models battle for attention, particularly among business travelers. Increasingly, suppliers gear their incentives directly to business travelers to strengthen customer loyalty and lower distribution costs. Meanwhile, global distribution systems push to aggregate content in order to provide customers with comprehensive booking sources for all travel products.

WTTC forecasts that the total contribution from Travel & Tourism to the world economy will be 2.9% in 2013 – World Travel & Tourism Council, October 2013

Hoteliers are innovating around their idle capacity with micro-stays targeting the 24-hour traveler. These fill voids in a hotel's bottom-line and expand revenue streams of idle conference spaces and suites. The initiatives follow business traveler mobility patterns supported by technology that allows temporary offices to become the norm.

The airline industry is seeing a modest increase in profits including from Low Cost Carriers (LCCs). In the Middle East, LCCs are responding to customers by expanding their offers and moving upscale. They are now delivering business class services, "Affordable Luxury", to complement their low-cost base offer. Whether or not this leads to contagion is yet to play out.

New travel indices are being trialed and tied to data tracking, profiling and selection. The newest measure supports airline selection and is aptly labeled the "Happiness Index" as it strives to deliver an alternative means of indexing a traveler's air transport experience based on comfort and suitability. By selecting other variables of satisfaction, this measure may lead to a benchmark based on preferred experience, not price.

Regional Perspectives

From a regional perspective, the European marketplace is recovering slowly, even in economically hard hit countries such as Greece. Tourism remains a significant component of Europe's diverse economy with Germany and the UK markets leading the way. Travelers are taking longer vacations in both countries as increased confidence settles in.

Greek tourism revenue is on target to reach 11 billion euros in 2013, the third highest receipts recorded. – Association of Greek Tourism Enterprises (SETE) 2013

New tourist demographics are being targeted by North American Online Travel Agents (OTAs). The latest identified segment, PANK – Professional Aunts, No Kids – represents a growing set of buyers who want to be attached to family oriented holidays. These travelers have no children, but are closely related to target families, and often make travel purchases and decisions. They represent an extension to the family segment, to which most suppliers have not yet begun to cater.

Across Africa operators are experiencing a demand shift from the US and European markets to BRICs and the Middle East, which has resulted in services adapting to BRIC visitor preferences. From a product perspective, multi-generational offerings are gaining traction among safari travelers. As a result, tour operators are expanding children and family-friendly offers that include malaria-free safaris and child-activity based itineraries. Larger challenges of air travel and visa barriers across the region continue to be addressed through initiatives including the East African Community's regional visa program.

Demand from emerging market customers is also affecting operators in BRIC countries. Examples include Chinese operators expanding online offers and marketing efforts to growth segments such as cruise travel. Chinese demand is projected to create the world's second largest cruise market by 2017. International cruise and Chinese travel operators are positioning themselves to capture this growth. However, challenges persist across China related to linking road, rail and airport transport that enable passengers to move seamlessly through the entire travel experience.

"The market potential for cruising in Asia is huge as the total potential number of cruise passengers could reach 3.7 million by 2017, and double to over 7 million by 2020." – Pier Luigi Foschi, Chairman and CEO, Carnival Asia

Another BRIC target segment that travel companies are marketing to through social media is young Indian professionals. LCCs provide affordable air options and these consumers are responding. With smartphone and internet technology well adopted by this segment, hotels and the Ministry of Tourism are joining OTAs in promoting travel sites and products via the web. As a result, Indian travelers' online and mobile bookings are growing for both domestic and regional travel destinations.

New Technologies

Changes in buying behavior, scrutiny of expenses, and a significant use of mobile and Internet technologies are forcing travel providers to adapt to new consumer patterns. With younger travelers, peer-to-peer travel services aided by online commerce and social media tools are growing rapidly. Peer-to-peer travel is a byproduct of the sharing economy and the austerity practices in today's economic conditions. Travel providers are marketing new business models in accommodations, car rentals, tours and activities. Several examples include Airbnb, Zipcar, and Vayable, covering both independent providers and major player acquisitions across these segments.

In targeting business and consumer travel segments, providers have increased their application of mobile technology. Mobile travel bookings have gained a respectable market foothold globally, now representing double-digit figures of online sales at major hotels and agencies. Meantime, OTAs continue to grow in importance with dominant players, Expedia and Priceline, beginning to see competition from new entrants. Other technology capabilities, such as the analytics of aggregate bookings and mobile customer surveys, provide agencies and operators greater insights to what travelers are thinking and doing.

In 2012 online travel sales reached US$524 billion, or 25% of global travel and tourism value sales. – Euromonitor, 2013

The result of improved insights, faster bookings and greater convenience through online and mobile technologies has grown the number and depth of personalized service offerings. It has also raised travelers' expectation for faster service response at any time, whether that assistance comes at the pre-travel, travel or post-travel stage. Service offers such as virtual concierge applications and digital assistants are building the newest wave of travel service, and players such as Facebook, TripAdvisor, Google and others are investing heavily to capture the attention of savvy early adopters.

Social media, bloggers and mobile applications made their benefits known in a series of WTM sessions. From harnessing bloggers to promote destinations, to applying the best methods for mobile marketing, to in-depth evaluation of the traveler's pre-booking process, social network and destination selection, the latest methods in online marketing were discussed by experts and in the aisles at WTM. One element consistently discussed was the use of video as a source of communicating messages. With the ability to now deliver video messages with ease, destinations are taking advantage of this expanding attention-grabbing medium.

World Travel Market 2013 represented a range of industry topics related to destinations, service suppliers and technology providers. Next year keep your finger on the industry's pulse and be sure to check out London in November!

  • 1(i) WTM Global Trends Report, World Travel Market and Euromonitor International, November, 2013.

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