Individualization of Travel – ITB Berlin Convention

I was honored when asked to moderate the The Individualization of Travel panel at the ITB Berlin Convention. Dr. Roland Conrady, Dean of Tourism and Travel at the University of Applied Sciences Worms served as Scientific Director of the ITB Berlin Convention and was instrumental in selecting the topic and assembling the panel.

photo credit: atlasphere

Challenge for the travel industry: Identify the perfect travel experience to sell this unique individual

Representatives from a global airline, social travel community website, digital agency, study tour operator, and travel technology start-up comprised then panel.

Presiding over ITB Convention Marketing and Distribution Day was Yeoh Siew Hoon, Producer of Web in Travel. Siew Hoon immediately engaged the audience in fluent German.

The ITB Berlin Convention features excellent simultaneous translation, benefiting not only the audience, but the dynamics of the panel itself. I could pose a question in English and the panelists were free to respond in German. Initially, there was no headset placed for me on stage, so I am purely assuming that Uwe Frers provided an eloquent and insightful response in German to my first question… (A headset was delivered to the stage very quickly.)

For individuals wearing headsets, the conversation seamlessly transitioned to sustain the conversation in their native language. I understand my German voice had a delightful female tone and pleasant intonation. My guess is that it was a considerable improvement over my English voice.

What follows is the text of my introduction to the session, including the introduction of the panelists and their backgrounds:

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Travel is an intensely personal activity, it provides experiences that can change lives forever. Travel is also an incredibly social activity that enables understanding of new cultures and solidifies relationships between people.

Individualizing travel fundamentally represents providing:

• the right product
• in the right destination
• through right channel
• at right time
• to the right person

However, the myriad of travel options is indeed staggering:

• thousands of destinations
• each with hundreds of flight itineraries
• dozens of hotel options
• and countless local activities

Add to this, the phases of the seven-step travel process that make timing and relevance even more challenging:

• Inspiration: What can inspire consumers to consider a destination, fly a particular airline or stay in a hotel?
• Research: Who can locate, organize and evaluate all the available information to make a well informed decision?
• Planning: The battle for the traveler’s itinerary is underway. Knowing who is where, when, is advertising gold
• Validation: Travelers, suspicious of advertising claims, are checking options with friends or finding experts online
• Booking: Supplier travel sites now compete with online travel agencies and traditional travel agents for loyalty
• The Travel Experience: Mobile technologies will enable the timely delivery of highly personalized special offers in destination
• Sharing: Social networks enable the sharing of experiences, good or bad, among a much broader group of people

If this didn’t make travel decision making more complex enough, every traveler exhibits multiple persona trip-centric priorities that change depending on the itinerary. For example, when I book a family vacation, the shopping process and trip experience are very different than when I take a weekend away with my wife.

Finally, as if this process was difficult enough, individuals make decisions in dramatically different ways:

• Some individuals decide spontaneously, while others are more thoughtfully deliberate
• For many, decisions are based on logic, others prefer to follow their emotions

The challenge for every travel organization has changed from the traditional approach of positioning a product relative to the competition and crafting a message for broadcast to a mass market, to establishing relationships with customers (especially frequent travelers) that are now conversations.

Social media now enables intimate connections between brands and individual consumers with an unprecedented degree of interactivity.

As a result, there is no such thing as a relationship with an average consumer demographic. What matters now is the aggregate of all relationships with all consumers.

For decisions impacting consumers, companies can no longer fall back on the excuse of it’s “just business.” Now, it’s personal.

To help us understand and deal with all this complexity, we are very fortunate to have a panel that can speak to the importance of personalizing the travel experience:

Marcus Casey Director of E-commerce and Mobile for Lufthansa
Marcus oversees the global online presence of Lufthansa encompassing online sales, product development and its operations. He is responsible for the Lufthansa.com platforms in over 80 countries, including their mobile portal and Twitter channel.

Uwe Frers Founder, TripsByTrips
Uwe has been involved in Internet businesses for 12 years. He is the founder and CEO of not one, but two online travel companies: the first, Escapio connects sophisticated individual travelers with distinctive, unique hotels. The second, TripsByTips is a social travel guide with both user generated and expert content.

Thomas Helbing Member of the Board of Directors, Ray Sono
Thomas helped create RaySono, an owner-managed agency for digital communication and interaction. It is one of the top 15 e-Business agencies in Germany, and is responsible for portals of blue chip clients such as lufthansa.com, the hotel website of the mövenpick group, and ltur.com.

Peter-Mario Kubsch Managing Director, Studiosus Reisen
Studiosus market leader in the field of study travel. Studiosis offers over 1,000 itineraries to over 100 countries worldwide. He is also chairman of The Studiosus Foundation an organization committed to improving the living conditions in developing countries, the protection of nature and the preservation of cultural heritage.

Jordan Stolper Co-Founder & CEO, gliider
gliider is a travel research tool that lets users gather travel info from any site on the web and then get then get deals specific to the trip. Jordan began his career as a travel journalist, contributing to publications like The New York Times, National Geographic Adventure, Men’s Journal, and The Economist.

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We then spent an hour discussing the benefits and challenges relating to individualizing the travel experience, as well as the impact on product, distribution, promotion and profitability. At the center of the discussion was how travel marketers can increase customer engagement and transition customer relationship management into an interactive conversation.

I certainly learned a lot and particularly appreciated hearing responses that reflected a European perspective. Special thanks are due for all the panelists – they all made my job very easy.