Emerging technologies have created unprecedented opportunities for travel industry providers to offer seamless, context-relevant and personalized experiences, however reliance on legacy systems and siloed data has led to fragmented personalization efforts and a customer expectation gap.

However, a new survey commissioned by Mindtree titled, "Expectations vs. Reality: How to Better Serve the Connected Traveler," analyzed responses from over 2,000 U.S consumers and found that despite the advancements in digital experiences, many travel brands lack a holistic view of the customer and struggle to accurately personalize their offerings.

"Whether traveling for business or for pleasure, travelers have very high expectations from the brands that they depend on to make their experience memorable," said Nalin Vij, SVP & Global Head - Travel, Transportation & Hospitality. "The technology around personalization is available, but our survey found that most travelers are disappointed in how effectively their travel provider offers a custom-fit ecosystem. This is a challenge travel brands need to address, as many are still burdened with their investments in legacy systems."

The survey found that the most common reasons why travelers don't use offers that they receive are that they don't arrive at the right time, expire before they can be used, don't offer enough savings or don't apply to their areas of interest. Most respondents (88 percent) indicate that they are more loyal to a brand that offers relevant deals. Almost half (47 percent) of respondents said they would be open to paying a premium of at least 17 percent for more contextual and relevant offers. Yet only 22 percent of respondents say travel providers always recognize them as a past customer.

The survey also revealed that leisure activities are an integral part of travel for 92 percent of respondents who do so for business. This opens up further opportunities for providers to introduce relevant leisure offers to encourage a richer experience as business travel presents increased opportunity for leisure activities.

Mindtree recommends travel providers take the following steps to deliver more personalized experiences:

• Integrate data silos for a more accurate view of customers from multiple digital touch points.
• Build rich customer personas, powered by a strong customer 360 foundation, enabling customer recognition at every touchpoint.
• Create tailored customer offers by creating content, offers and recommendations using context-weighted personalization algorithms.
• Employ omnichannel strategies across channels including voice, mobile and web to target and deliver personalized information and services.

"Travel providers are poised to harness the most advanced digital technology in the age of personalization by delivering seamless, context-relevant and connected customer experiences. Our leadership in digital, combined with our extraordinarily deep expertise in the travel industry domain, has given Mindtree a range of personalization capabilities that is bridging the expectation gap that most travelers in the market today are experiencing," said Vij.

Methodology

The study, "Expectations vs. Reality: How to Better Serve the Connected Traveler," was commissioned by Mindtree and conducted by independent market research firm Vanson Bourne in early 2018. It surveyed U.S. adult consumers who travel globally (using air transport, train, rental cars and/or hotel/vacation rentals) for business and/or leisure at least once a year, on average. An even spread of responses were collected across gender, age and geographical location.

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