‘What, When, Where, Who and How’ have been the strategic cornerstones of customer-centric organisations and for companies in the travel industry, answering these questions has never been more important.
The traveller landscape has always been complex but as new technologies emerge, travellers are faced with greater choice â€" and, at the same time, greater complexity. There are now such a variety of solutions and services available that travellers risk information overload.
However, if technology is used correctly, it can help travellers navigate the maze of choice and select the right travel experience.
Last year, Amadeus and Frost & Sullivan published Thinking like a Retailer, developing a ‘merchandising strategy framework’ that allowed airlines to build a merchandising strategy based around six critical elements â€" customer journey, merchandising technique, sales channel, travel services, price, and personalisation; in other words, the ‘What’, ‘When’ and ‘Where’.
Earlier this year, Future Foundation authored a report detailing ‘Who’ travel providers will need to serve and market to in the next fifteen years: Future Traveller Tribes 2030: Understanding tomorrow’s traveller.
Future Foundation’s research identified six Traveller Tribes that will shape global travel in 2030: Simplicity Searchers; Reward Hunters; Social Capital Seekers; Cultural Purists; Ethical Travellers; and Obligation Meeters. Rather than segment customers in a static way by age, gender or cabin class, the Traveller Tribes are identified by their purchasing behaviours and motivations.
As airlines and other travel providers enter the age of data abundance, this nuanced psychographic approach to segmentation offers new opportunities for brands seeking to understand and remain relevant in today’s rapidly changing consumer landscape.
With the ‘What’, ‘When’, ‘Where’ and ‘Who’ specified, this third report seeks to address the all important ‘How’, providing a spotlight on air travel to propose an evolved framework that can be used to better develop traveller segmentation strategies.
Importantly, we seek to bring the traveller tribes and the travel experience together to define how to sell travel services more effectively and meet the unique needs of the six tribes.
The framework in this paper aims to bring clarity to the complicated traveller experience, giving airlines the foundation upon which to offer products and services to delight customers. This will accelerate airlines’ shift from pure flight providers to the more lucrative travel experience provider market. For airlines, this translates into higher customer satisfaction, revenues, and profits.
As travellers enjoy ever-increasing access to information, especially via social network sharing, their purchasing behaviours are changing rapidly, arguably faster than ever before. As a result, established segmentation techniques are no longer enough to ensure airlines and other travel providers are anticipating, responding to and meeting traveller needs.
In fact, travellers’ needs â€" and the options available to them â€" are becoming ever more polarised. Whilst some travellers want extremely high levels of personalisation, others will consider personalisation a hindrance to their experience.
Some travellers may want to be served with a tailored bundle of services at the booking stage of their journey, whereas others might want to take a ‘do-it-yourself’ approach, booking services à la carte as and when they are inspired to throughout their journey. Some travellers will want constant contact and luxury services, while others will want to be left alone with services allowing them to be closer to nature.
In a world where information is available at everyone’s fingertips, new advice and guidance through both online and offline personalisation techniques can finally enable airlines to understand and better serve traveller needs. Ultimately, this will deliver a more rewarding global travel ecosystem for both travellers and suppliers.
Read the full article here.
