Demographics

• Changing demographics mean the proportion of older travellers will increase over the next decade.

Growth

• Growth in Chinese outbound tourism is expected to remain strong in years to come.
• Slow and uncertain economic growth will mean increased pressure on travel budgets.

Innovations

• Peers, search engines and experts will continue to be the main sources of information about travel.
• Innovations such as cellulose-based biofuels and hydrogen could help air travel relatively more than rail highway modes.
• R&D related to improving the fuel efficiency, operating costs and production of commercial aircraft will continue to benefit from the growing demand for global air travel.
• Security, border control and smart visas (ACIS) will ease difficulties in international travel while ensuring high levels of security and traveller privacy.
• There will be more data on all aspects of the travel experience.
• Hotels could provide guests with augmented reality apps.
• A range of technological tools will help travellers manage their health.

Cost

• Air travel will become increasingly expensive as carriers face higher energy costs and taxes on carbon emissions.
• Business travel will be perceived as more of an investment than a cost.

Travel experience

• Recommendation services will become an even more embedded part of the travel experience.
• Many travellers and travel industry providers will want to keep a record of payment 'off-grid'.
• Travellers will be able to browse the 'digital breadcrumbs' of payments as a layer of metadata attached to maps, photos, videos and social networking sites.
• Systems that do not put the user in control will eventually be rejected,
• Opt-in applications on travellers' mobile devices could allow expenditure data to be shared in return for loyalty points.
• Making home away from home technology convenient and easy to use will become a set piece of service.
• Technology will be available that allows passengers to walk through an airport, board a plane and enter another country without ever having to physically Tasks that are currently often slow to perform on the mobile internet will become dramatically faster and easier to accomplish.
• A more responsive approach to health and wellbeing from the travel industry will mean there is greater emphasis on technologies that help to make travel a less stressful experience.
• In-market activities, dining and accommodations will also be ruled by digital experiences.
• Consumers will soon always plan their travel door-to-door.
• Self-driving cars will offer reliable, short travel times.
• Vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications could prevent many common accidents by providing advanced warning of a possible collision.

Growth

• China will likely overtake the US as the world's largest domestic travel market.
• For the travel provider, digital breadcrumbs are likely to become an important CRM and customer-profiling tool. In the same way that supermarkets use loyalty cards to learn about the needs and wants of different customer groups.
• Some of the world's largest infrastructure projects will come together to make seamless rail travel between the United Kingdom and China.
• New challenges to growth will emerge as regulators explore emissions trading, ticket taxes, fuel taxes.
• More than 50% of the growth in global traffic will come from Asia Pacific and 49% of all passenger traffic globally will be within Asia Pacific or between the region and the rest of the world.
• Attitudes towards social media and more sophisticated data-driven systems will modernise when a generational shift among senior bosses takes place in the travel industry.

Disruptors

• Autonomous cars could disrupt any city-based travel models.
• Global positioning system (GPS) could markedly reduce the cost of dynamic tolling.
• A new generation of airlines will succeed in cutting costs.
• Intelligent personal transportation could remove the "middle man”.
• The extent to which cities expand will be determined by the extent to which travel times are reduced.
• Travellers will be able to browse the 'digital breadcrumbs' of payments as a layer of metadata attached to maps, photos, videos and social networking sites.
• Technology will enhance travel by layering information about history and culture over physical locations.
• North America and Europe will be challenged by Asia as the premier education travel destinations.
• China will become a key market for cruise companies.

Learn more
To find the sources and more resources on Shaping Tomorrow about the future of intelligence some of which were used in this Trend Alert. View Travel report.

Also, click here to find out how Shaping Tomorrow can help your organization rapidly assess and respond to these and other key issues affecting your business.