Has the pandemic brought you some new ways to act while planning and actually going on a trip? The report I chose called The Future of Tourism brings out new appearing trends for the travel industry. The report focuses especially on the accommodation related trends and it shows how the pandemic has evolved the industry. (LAB8 2021.)
The reason I decided to chose this report is that it’s super interesting to learn about the new opportunities the future brings. Also as a becoming travel industry professional it is important to stay on track with the new innovations.
The report is strongly related to the Study Unit themes, because it focuses on the customer journey and experience and it shows how the companies should mold their customer paths and strategies in the middle of the upcoming trends. Customer journey stands for the whole of the pieces that build the customer’s experience with the company (Sorman 2022).
Key messages regarding the future of tourism
The trends the report pointed out were named Proximity Escape, Scientific Stay, Eclectic Overnight, Digital Companions and Hyper-Localized Tourism. The leading megatrends behind the trends mentioned are technology, safety, unique experiences and traveling near/domestic tourism, which all have been and will be enhanced for the time after the pandemic. (LAB8 2021.) All of these key points must be considered, when a company is evolving its customer journey.
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Unique experiences
The report brings out the growing demand for new unforeseen experiences. As the technology evolves continuously, the customers get a chance to experience something that was not possible before. People are not only seeking for mind-blowing experiences, but also education. (LAB8 2021.) Since the world nowadays is so advanced and global, people have already seen a lot. It comes harder and harder for businesses to come up with new experiences for customers.
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Safety
The need for safety will especially now stay in our requirements when for example looking for places to travel (LAB8 2021). In the future we will highlight this part now that we are more aware on how to act health and hygiene wise.
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Technology
Digital platforms come in handy for example when searching for the up-to-date information regarding for example health information (LAB8 2021). As I was writing about the difficulties to come up with new experiences, the evolving technology might bring us chances, that haven’t even crossed our minds yet. The report brought out scientific stays, which I believe will become famous among tourism (LAB8 2021).
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Domestic tourism
During the last couple of years the trend of traveling near home has grown for obvious reasons . The panelists were discussing about the possible decreasing in international traveling, because of the issue with sustainability (LAB8 2021.) In my opinion it is not going to be a long-term leading trend that replaces international traveling, since I think that people will always have the urge to go and experience different cultures via international traveling. We just have to come up with some new innovations with the technology of today on how the traveling abroad can be done considering sustainable traveling.
The conclusions
From this report I learned that with considering all of these megatrends and trends while evolving customer journey, you will likely keep on track with the customer needs in the future. At the review part of the report were the points that each of the trends got regarding the relevancy in Finland’s tourism. The leading trends were Hyper-Localized Tourism and Digital Companion, which can be very clearly seen in Finland (LAB8 2021). The report gave out ideas on how for example marketing should be focused on the trends surrounding us.
It was really interesting to read about the unique accommodations, such as staying the night in a museum or a huge potato. The report opened up my imagination, since it helped to realize, that anything is possible in the future of tourism. The pictures of the accommodations were also very fascinating. I really suggest you to go and check out the trend report!
References
LAB8. 2021. The Future of Tourism. Trend report 4/2021. Haaga-Helia. Referred 3.2.2022.
Sorman, A. 2022. The best way to map the customer journey: take a walk in their shoes. Momentive. Referred 3.2.2022.