Every year, Jake Steinman, founder and CEO of the NAJ Group, as well as publisher and editor-in-chief of the INBOUND report, conducts a year-end “Listening Tour,” in which he surveys leaders of the U.S. tour and travel industry, visiting and/or talking with receptive tour operators, travel suppliers and DMOs in order to take the pulse of the U.S. tour and travel industry and to pick up intelligence on where the industry is going and what trends are influencing the year ahead. Here, INBOUND shares a quick digest of what he told us what is trending as 2019 gets under way.
- Experiential travel—interacting with locals, experiencing a destination from a local’s standpoint. Tour operating innovation—From Walks’ Walk-on-Walk-off” tour pass and Savor Seattle’s “Tasting Passports” to tour companies creating new experiences or reinventing class ones, there are so interesting companies reimagining the tour.
- Group Tours for Independent Travelers. More and more, normal-sized groups are being treated as individual travelers, as they are given options or freedom to do as they please once they reach a destination. These are already being featured even by domestic operators. The tour operator provides air, hotel, transportation and free WiFi. They group meets together for breakfast each morning and decides what they want to do.
- Tours and Activities have become the latest area of automated product offered by small and mid-sized tour operators as paper vouchers and printed tickets are used only by customers who want them.
- India is the new China, with China having joined Western Europe and Latin America as “mature” source markets, which are temporarily slowing down until political and exchange rate issues are worked through. But India, with more English-speaking people than any country but the United States, and a growing middle class is the new “now” market.
- For tour operators the value proposition is evolving from bundling everything with one price to removing the hassle out of the basic logistics of tours: transportation plus hotel only, with everything else optional. The challenge will be that this is very labor intensive and requires retraining of tour managers.
- Operators are moving into Artificial Intelligence (AI). For example, The Travel Corporation, which operates globally with nearly 40 brands (including Contiki Tours) deploys AI across it brands. Agencies such as Virtuoso use to better personalize their offerings and services. Travel advisors have found its animated illustration capabilities a useful and essential sales tool; animated illustration what AI is about from a travel advisor perspective.
- Challenge: Retraining Tour Managers for the “They don’t want to see, they want to do” mindset of the new series or escorted tour travelers. Tour directors need to be retrained using a concierge approach in order to selling optional programs.
- New target for Chinese tourism: 10-year visa holders. With visa rejection rates running between 20-30 percent for groups based in cities where connections to the US have recently opened, the focus is on digital marketing and retargeting to those who have already visited with 10-year visas. Meanwhile, it has been determined that the one reason for the rejections is that applicants are intimidated and act frightened during the interview leading embassy officials to suspect they have something to hide. Better preparation by operators is needed.
- Dynamic pricing. The days of unchanging seasonal pricing are numbered. The future is variable, when suppliers’ operators change their prices by days of the week, or even times of day, charging more when demand is high, and discounting for less popular times.
- Everyone is a culinary tourist— whether they like it or not. Culinary – food and drink –experiences are the most important elements of a trip for travelers. This is the year operators of all types will start stepping it up in the culinary department.
