Travel in 2018
Where have the travel agencies gone? Almost everything is online these days. No one ever needs to leave their house anymore. You can buy whatever you want online, work online, date online, order food, etc. So it only makes sense to book your travel needs from the internet. Our current output of data generated daily is roughly 2.5 quintillion bytes a day.
Great New Ways to Buy
One of the newest ways to purchase travel online. This website claims is all about helping the customer save every penny when it comes to travel expenses. The traditional travel agency had to pay for rent space, salary of the workers and etc. Guess who was paying these bills? You guessed it, the customer was. This business claims to cut out all the middleman expenses which is estimated around 20% of your total.
* AL - Artificial Intelligence
Al has the capacity to mine through huge amounts of data instantly to give you suggestions in the most up to date travel, flights, destinations. It is going to be a force to reckon among sellers of travel.
Reviews
TripAdvisor has gotten some negative PR lately. It was said that some negative reviews were deleted off some business pages. Be careful when it comes to making a decision based on a review. I have to admit that I have found sites that will pay you to leave a positive review. The same can be said about negative reviews. I am sure that people write negative reviews to put down the competition or out of spite. Take them lightly, look at the majority and always make your own educated decision. After all, life is all about taking chances and gambles. It would not be as fun if everything were calculated priceless and there was no risk involved.
Personal Touch
The travel industry was originally inside a building with a friendly face. You had to drive to get to the office and wait for a representative. After laying out your expectations for traveling and budgets you would begin the long tedious task of sifting through travel destinations. In the century we live in now, by the time you would have driven to the agency, you could have found the most up to date itinerary and booked it. Not to mention how extremely fast the prices change, airplanes get booked and travel packages are created instantly. Companies such as Expedia and AirBnB are using chat bots to automate there customer service experience reducing the burden on customer service and reduces overhead. They have created a friendly automated system that adds that personal touch that was once there so that we don't get lost in the coldly unemotional technical part of the internet.
Virtual Reality Tourism
Virtual reality was created to give you a 360 degrees experience. You visually feel as if you have transported into another location. How would you like to have a free sample and preview a destination before even booking the vacation? VR tourism is a trend expecting to explode in the coming years. Hotels are even getting on board to sample their suites before selling them too.
2018 will be an exciting year to see how these companies progress and how sustainable they become!
* AL - Artificial Intelligence
Al has the capacity to mine through huge amounts of data instantly to give you suggestions in the most up to date travel, flights, destinations. It is going to be a force to reckon among sellers of travel.
Reviews
TripAdvisor has gotten some negative PR lately. It was said that some negative reviews were deleted off some business pages. Be careful when it comes to making a decision based on a review. I have to admit that I have found sites that will pay you to leave a positive review. The same can be said about negative reviews. I am sure that people write negative reviews to put down the competition or out of spite. Take them lightly, look at the majority and always make your own educated decision. After all, life is all about taking chances and gambles. It would not be as fun if everything were calculated priceless and there was no risk involved.
Personal Touch
The travel industry was originally inside a building with a friendly face. You had to drive to get to the office and wait for a representative. After laying out your expectations for traveling and budgets you would begin the long tedious task of sifting through travel destinations. In the century we live in now, by the time you would have driven to the agency, you could have found the most up to date itinerary and booked it. Not to mention how extremely fast the prices change, airplanes get booked and travel packages are created instantly. Companies such as Expedia and AirBnB are using chat bots to automate there customer service experience reducing the burden on customer service and reduces overhead. They have created a friendly automated system that adds that personal touch that was once there so that we don't get lost in the coldly unemotional technical part of the internet.
Virtual Reality Tourism
Virtual reality was created to give you a 360 degrees experience. You visually feel as if you have transported into another location. How would you like to have a free sample and preview a destination before even booking the vacation? VR tourism is a trend expecting to explode in the coming years. Hotels are even getting on board to sample their suites before selling them too.
UPDATE
**If you want to use your driver's license as a form of identification in the airport, you will need to make sure that you have the latest Real ID. It is now necessary to make sure that you have this ID. The following states have not yet complied with Real ID standards yet: Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, Illinois, Washington, and American Samoa. Real ID was organized after the 9/11 Commission to enforce that the restrictions become tougher. The goal is to have more security and feel safer when flying. **
2018 will be an exciting year to see how these companies progress and how sustainable they become!
