New era of travel
I read an article Insights for the new world to travel made by Amadeus. The article is about the changes of travel industry because of Covid-19. I highly recommend to read this article if you are working in the travel industry. It gave me ideas that I can use in my own job and also at school.
Because of Covid-19 travel industry has changed forever. Now we have a new era of travel and it isn’t only a bad thing. Travel industry have new opportunities and changes are happening faster. The change was going to happen anyways, but this way it happened differently. Pandemic made it clear that society and digital transformation are changing. Technology continues to evolve so the whole industry must evolve with it.
Because of Covid-19 travellers may need more help than ever and they are counting on travel agencies. Workforce in travel business have a key role to help travellers getting through all stages of their journey (Amadeus, Insights for the new world to travel, The Travel Consultant of tomorrow).
Workforce in travel industry
Like I said things are changing. It’s hard to have “right” workers. The skillset workforce need to have are not the same than five years ago. Robotics and Artificial intelligence (AI) are freeing workers to focus on new tasks. I have seen this in my own job too. I work in Spa Hotel in Finland. During the last two years I have noticed that you need to be more talentend than before. Workforce in the travel industry need to know coding, be able to read data and make better decisions based on that data. Even though I’m “just” a spa worker, nowadays I need to know digital marketing. It’s fun to improve your skills but it’s also very rapid change that is happening.
I gained access to my workplace’s social media few weeks ago. The article says it’s really important to know your instant messaging platforms (Facebook, Instagarm, Tiktok etc…). I totally agree with that. I’m not updating the social media of my workplace alone. The older worker is the main editor but me and two other co-workers are helping her.
Luckily the internet is full of training courses and some of them are free. For example this course Google digital marketing is a top-notch. The same course is mentioned in the article. I did that course last week and I truly believe it improved my knowledge in that area. Some of the things were familiar to me but still I learned a lot.
There is an intro video of that course below.
Go ahead and check it out!
Instagrammable and human touch
The article says that the biggest factors in this industry for success are employees and providing a human touch. I couldn’t agree more because this is the most interesting topic in this article. I have been working in this industry about six years. It had opened my eyes. To get the best customer service as possible is absolutely important. If I get bad customer service somewhere it’s very likely that I won’t use their services again.
Empathy is always important thing to remember. For some people it’s hard to put yourself in other’s shoes. If you are working in travel industry you need to be great with people.
Some people choose their travel destination based on how “Instagrammable” it is. That sounds funny but actually I do the same thing sometimes. Instagrammable doesn’t mean everything needs to be perfect. The travel destination needs to be a little bit more interesting than other similiar places. The destination needs to jump to the people’s eyes. Travel agencies, hotels and everyone in this industry need to be active on social media. You need to use it right way.
Key messages
These are main points of this topic:
- Know your instant messaging platforms and be active.
- You are just a human. Remember: EMPATHY. Workforce is a key to the success.
- Artificial Intelligence isn’t trying to steal our jobs. It’s freeing us to other tasks, like being closer to the customers. This was the most important point I learned.
- We must evolve with technology.
- Improve your skills and makes sure they matches your profession.
- Remember to interact with customers: right technology and real time communication.
- Commit to a lifetime learning.
References
Amadeus, Insight For the new world to travel, The Travel Consultant of tomorrow. Referred 28.1.2022