On the Horizon?

Everyone in the travel space is focused on the guest experience. For airlines, the experience normally begins at the airport in one city and ends in an airport in another city. Hotels take over that guest’s experience when they arrive at the property and their service ends upon checkout and departure from the hotel. Car rental companies are typically on both ends of either the airline’s service or the hotel stay.

In all three cases however there is no carryover from one service to another. While this might not be a big deal when a trip is uneventful and there are no delays or hiccups, it is a big deal when something goes wrong. Here is where the guest would benefit if there was a concerted effort on the part of the travel providers.

Airlines, hotels and car rental providers are not alone in this conspiracy. There are plenty of other service providers in the chain that could add to a guest’s experience with minimal effort. Let’s talk use case:

Traveler is flying on a business trip from city A to city B. His flight however is delayed and he arrives quite late at his destination, well after midnight. Not able to communicate with the hotel in-flight, he now has to make his way through a mostly deserted airport, look for a taxi on duty and hopefully make it to his hotel where he may or may not still have a room. Perhaps the hotel changed him to a no-show and sold his room. Or more likely he still has a room but because its so late, there are no services like restaurant outlets or room service that are available. Or perhaps he rented a car but has to wait an exorbitant amount of time for someone to help him because there are several people from his flight that are now standing at the car rental counter but there is only one attendant.

This scenario is not that outlandish and probably happens all the time. But it doesn’t have to be that way. What if data was shared amongst these providers? What if the airline alerted the hotel of the flight delay? What if they went so far as to tell them the traveler’s name on the delayed flight and the hotel shuttle was dispatched to the airport to be there when the flight landed? Or, what if the car rental provider upon issuing the car, notified the hotel that the guest was en-route? With location based services, the map and directions to the hotel could already be displayed on the car GPS or the traveler’s own mobile device.

All of these services are available today; travel providers are simply not handing off the traveler from one provider to another. And why is that? Well, what’s in it for them? Quite often these organizations are suspicious of one another on a good day and while they may have cooperative marketing agreements with one another-that’s on the pre-sale side. There are no synergies happening on the service side.

But servicing the guest is where we all get to differentiate ourselves. Sharing data could spawn entirely new revenue streams for providers. Yes, ancillary services are cool and merchandizing at the point of sale would be neat but what really separates the men from the boys are the travel providers who can offer services when it really matters. When a flight is cancelled or a guest is walked or there are no more cars left at the car rental counter, then your ability to partner with other travel providers can make the difference in that traveler or guest’s trip or stay. And the ROI on that is immeasurable.