Amadeus tips new travellers emerging as it launches Extreme Search tool which allows 'a different way of shopping'.

At the media briefing in Bangkok last week, John Chapman, vice president, Airlines Group, Amadeus Asia Pacific spoke of the imminent launch of a new search tool. Under the project name of Extreme Search, the new tool has been in development for more than a year.

Chapman said that Extreme Search would give airlines a tool to embrace on their website to give a different kind of shopping option to online consumers. "Rather than just asking what flights are available, it will open it up by activity and budget."

The development of Extreme Search was first talked about last November. At that time, Gillian Gibson, vice president for the Amadeus multinational customer group, told Travolution UK which reported the news: "We think this is a paradigm shift in search and shopping online."

This week (November 19), Amadeus rolled out the new tool on the back of new research which tips the rise of the "Amateur-Expert Traveller" - someone "who is more knowledgeable, more adventurous and more likely to live in an emerging economy than ever before - and whose rise coincides with innovations in the trip experience and the growth of niche travel in the post-recessionary environment".

Based on primary research with 2,719 travel professionals and 30 thought-leaders and senior executives from companies such as Kayak, Forrester and Qatar Airways, the report highlights three significant developments:

• The Amateur-Expert Traveller: the average consumer has been empowered by the internet, and the dynamic of the relationship between travel companies and their customers is changing. 73% of industry professionals welcome the greater knowledge brought by user-generated content, which drives up customer expectations, and creates new opportunities for travel agents to share their expertise with increasingly adventurous travellers.
• The responsive journey: 62% of those surveyed think that the journey experience is ripe for technological innovation. The maturing of the mobile internet will give rise to massive innovation around the trip itself.
• All niches great and small: travel companies' revenue streams are becoming more evenly spread over a wider range of products. The traditional 80/20 sales distribution curve no longer applies to 38% of respondents, for whom 80% of their revenues was contributed by 60% or more of their products. Similarly, niche travel offers present opportunities for travel companies. Those surveyed identified adventure travel (83%), religious travel (55%), and weddings (45%) as key growth areas for specialist holidays.

According to Ian Wheeler, Vice President, Marketing and Distribution, Amadeus: "The growing expertise of travellers has had a profound impact on the travel industry as the average consumer, empowered by the internet, is increasingly well-informed. But greater expectations are being embraced by the travel industry, and it's spurring on a new wave of innovation in the wake of the recession."

Innovation in new technologies across the whole travel experience will be a critical source of new services and revenue streams for travel companies. In the survey, one third of respondents think that virtual reality will soon have the biggest impact on the travel experience by matching holidaymakers with destinations much more accurately.

But virtual reality is just one of many different technologies that will shape travel experiences in the future, believes Amadeus who describes its new Extreme Search solution as "a search engine that transforms travel websites into a ‘traveller playground' where consumers can explore and select their trip based on their desired holiday experience, rather than simply searching for flights along specific routes on exact dates".

Driven by Amadeus' ‘Extreme Search' concept, travellers can ask: ‘Where can I go and what can I do, for the money I want to spend?' and instantly find clear alternatives, on the same initial search page.

According to Wheeler; "You do not always enter a store looking for a blue shirt or a striped tie. In the same way, you do not always know if you want to go to Mexico, Miami or the Bahamas but you do know you want to go to the beach.

‘Thanks to Extreme Search, a traveller could narrow their search to ‘beach holidays, anytime between November and January at 25 degrees Celsius' and relevant destinations from across the globe would be displayed. Extreme Search is one of the many new technological concepts which will intuitively help travellers find what they want quickly, and guide them towards new experiences based on their interests."

Yeoh Siew Hoon, one of Asia's most respected travel editors and commentators, writes a regular column on news, trends and issues in the hospitality industry for 4Hoteliers.com.

Siew Hoon, who has covered the tourism industry in Asia/Pacific for the past 20 years, runs SHY Ventures Pte Ltd. Her other writings can be found at www.thetransitcafe.com

Get your weekly cuppa of news, gossip, humour and opinion at the cafe for travel insiders.

4Hoteliers was the "Official Daily News" of WIT09 - www.webintravel.com