Nowadays
travel technology is omnipresent in the global travel industry: this includes
the back office, electronically-supported personalised sales and
location-sensitive mobile travel services.
At
ITB Berlin 2012 this rapid development has led to an unprecedented rush of
exhibitors: over 230 travel technology companies from 15 countries are expected
from 7 to 11 March in Berlin. The event features back office technology (Hall
6.1), hotel software and reservation machines (Hall 8.1 and 10.1) as well as
social media, travel portal and mobile travel solutions (eTravel World, Hall
7.1.c)...
The
traditional travel technology display areas have been fully booked since
December 2011. For this reason, some exhibitors from this sector are in Hall 25
for the first time. Here visitors can find online travel agencies as well as
providers of event and airline software. With a joint stand for the Thai
Software Industry Promotion Agency (SIPA) as well as new technology providers
from Greece, India, Romania and the United Kingdom, ITB Berlin once again
highlights its major international importance in this segment.
"We
are particularly pleased that we have been able to inspire many new innovative
companies and the regular, high performing participants as well as previous
exhibitors to come to ITB Berlin", says David Ruetz, Director of ITB
Berlin. This can be attributed not just to the general travel technology boom
but also to the wide range of attractions at the world's leading travel trade
show: "In the last few years we have continually increased the number of
forums and discussion platforms at ITB Berlin. This year the papers will be
interpreted on the stage of the eTravel World. As part of the ITB Berlin
Convention we examine industry trends, which are more than ever driven by
further developments in the field of travel technology".
Travel
Technology Trends 2012
The
travel technology trends for 2012 continue to include the development of mobile
travel applications (apps), which have grown rapidly over the last two years
and are continuing to expand. The 2012 issue of the "Mobile Travel App
Guide", which is published by m.volution with the support of ITB Berlin,
has more than 100 pages.
In
the field of analysis new evaluation tools are now available for review
portals: the discipline is referred to as Social Review Management. At ITB
Berlin, solutions for hotel review portals and suitability of the
user-generated content available there for promoting sales are highlights of
the programme.
Through
the use of innovative search technology companies are also endeavouring to make
it easier for customers to access an ever increasing amount of data. Two search
technologies which could, in the future, help to consolidate accurate and
genuinely relevant information and filter out cheap offers are semantic or free
text searches (natural language search, automatic evaluation of search queries
based on language expressions) and gesture based searches (whereby facial
expressions and gestures are interpreted in order to incorporate the searcher’s
emotions in a presentation of the findings).
Internet
driven product innovations with a promising potential include social trip
planning, also in combination with group buying portals: Travellers with the
same destination who meet on social networks or travel discount portals can
combine their purchase power online in order to obtain particularly favourable
conditions when booking city tours, journeys to attend specific events or
cultural trips .
Last
but not least, there remains the issue of how the enormous costs of IT and
networking can be optimised in the long-term. In an industry that has been
dominated by proprietary solutions for so long, open sourcing or cloud
computing are newly emerging concepts in innovative infrastructure,
architecture and software development, and no-one need renounce any part of
what are in any case narrow profit margins.
Visitors
can find out more about this topic from the exhibitors, either at the ITB
Berlin Convention or the eTravel World.
Travel
Technology in the convention programme
Travel
technology topics are represented several times in the programme of the ITB
Berlin Convention: PhoCusWright@ITB (7 March, Hall 7.3, Europa Hall) is the
forum for travel technology experts and CXOs, who will be discussing market
developments under the slogan "Travel Unleashed: Any. Every.
Always." Visitors can find out interesting information about
the state and development of social media at the Marketing and Distribution Day
(9 March, Hall 7.1b, London Hall). The programme on the stage at eTravel World
(Hall 7.1c) also provides insight into trends such as Social-Mobile-Local
(SoMoLo), couponing, mobile payment and review management. An all-day travel
app marathon (10 March, eTravel World Hall 7.1c) informs visitors about the
most exciting smartphone applications when on the move.
Published by Ozgur Tore
Πηγή : ftnnews.com
Επιμέλεια : Mykonos Ticker
NewsRoom