The Connected Trip – An Unrealistic Dream or an Imminent Reality?

5 minute read

Scenario 1:
Let’s travel next month.
Sure, where are we going?
Damn.

Scenario 2:
Announcement: The flight is delayed
OUR HOTEL BOOKINGS!
Damn.

Scenario 3:
Did you know it was going to rain?
No, we didn’t research the weather while planning.
Damn.

Scenario 4:
Hey! Let’s post our pictures on social media immediately.
That’s going to take time. I want to filter them out before we post.
-6 days and no posts later-
Damn.

How about turning each of these “damn” moments into “yayy” moments for your customers? How about providing a unified travel platform that takes away all the stress from travel? Say hello to The Connected Trip or, what we like to call, the Super App!

What is the Connected Trip?

In a report shared by the Ministry of Tourism, India, in 2018, 1854.93 million Indians traveled to other states and union territories in India. Another 26.3 million traveled abroad. And gone are the days when travel was only about booking hotels and tickets. Travelers today want experiential holidays. This entails a lot more than what an average travel agency offers.

Every travel story starts with an inspiration and every step in travel poses a potential hindrance. From zeroing in on the right time to travel to re-booking a flight in case of cancellation, rearranging stay, renting local transportation, exploring new places in unchartered territory, being aware of the weather, and so on, planning a seamless experience is not really seamless in itself.

Thus was born the idea of the Connected Trip. It is a single platform that connects various pieces of the puzzle, taking care of every step of the journey while your customers rest assured and enjoy their tour to the fullest. The credit for this phenomenal idea goes to www.booking.com but Expedia, TripAdvisor, Airbnb, and Nezasa are not far behind. In fact, Nezasa has already started offering the service.

The cherry on the cake here is that the Connected Trip uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to provide personalized solutions when it comes to browsing accommodations at the best prices, setting reminders, and providing suggestions during the trip.

We don’t think it gets better than this.

How will this help you as a Travel Company?

In this world of utter chaos, orderliness sells. Many enthusiasts shy away from traveling because they find the planning & preparation way too taxing. If you could take all this stress out in one shot, you would revolutionize the way people think about travel. The direct implication of this would be more travelers and therefore, more revenue. It’s basic math, really.

What’s happening in the Online Travel World at the moment?

The ball’s already rolling. A few companies such as Nezasa are already offering the Connected Trip while other companies, such as Google, have just dipped their toes in it. A while back, Google started offering comparisons of flights from various sites, setting reminders after travel bookings, etc. It has merely scratched the surface of the Connected Trip and yet, customers are rejoicing at the convenience. Imagine what unified travel platform can do!

The Connected Trip requires advanced technologies, resources, and a lot of effort. It is extremely complex because one app is supposed to do what ten (or more) others do at the moment. To build a smooth travel experience and to remove the friction altogether, companies (airlines, hotels, ground transportation etc.) need to collaborate and work together. Large corporations own multiple brands providing related services already. The Connected Trip will bring all of them closer for the ultimate travel integration.

Can this be a reality?

While the theory sounds exceptionally great, we can’t ignore just how complicated the implementation actually is. That is why, the question of whether it is realistic at all arises.

We think it is.

We are making advancements in technology every day and humans have a way of finding solutions regardless of how hard the path may seem. It may take time and it may create a few problems for travel agencies and online platforms but it is all for the greater good.

As aforementioned, companies have already started working on it. To this end, TravelCarma offers an industry-first Travel iPaaS, which is an end-to-end solution for this exact need. It’s built on a micro-services based platform architecture that can connect disparate systems (both travel & non-travel) via APIs and helps companies build custom interfaces and workflows to provide end-users a seamless experience. The platform can pull data from your own cloud/on-premise systems, apply business rules and automate business workflows.

Eg. After a customer books a flight, our platform can pull data from Flightstats and push real-time flight alerts and reminders to the end-user through your app. In another scenario, it can consolidate booking confirmation emails from Gmail to put together an itinerary. It can even connect your rewards program system with your CRM and booking platform to offer a personalized experience to the customer across the booking process. The applications are endless.

Unlike generic iPaaS solutions out there, TravelCarma iPaaS comes with all the travel components and workflows built-in. It also includes APIs and SDKs to help developers build custom front-ends and workflows. So you can use certain components as is but also build your own components and integrate them with our platform. Furthermore, the platform is cloud-agnostic and can easily connect with your own cloud infrastructure, whether its AWS, Azure, Google Cloud or any other. You just need to subscribe to this amazing service and be a part of the travel revolution. Get in touch with us to see how it can help your business.

Conclusion

The word travel has massive burden associated with it at the moment. Freeing individuals of this burden will create a direct boost in the travel industry, thereby benefiting each of us. Companies that jump in on such developments early are the ones who will rule the industry. The others will follow suit when it becomes the norm. And we are positive that this will become the norm in years to come.

Thanks to the Connected Trip, we can expect travel to be just about that – travel!

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