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The number of people traveling around the world is expected to reach an all-time high in 2024, as global leisure and business travel volumes finally surpass pre-pandemic levels. Overall, more than a billion people will make an international trip in 2024, with just as many traveling within their country. And while some trips are for business, others for leisure or personal reasons and others a mix of both or all three, each trip requires an extensive and careful planning process. From the industry standpoint, that process opens the door to a host of opportunities for companies to differentiate and win consumers, from the moment someone is inspired to travel through post-trip follow-up services after their trip is over.
The problem is, from the traveler’s point of view, today’s travel-planning process is too often timeconsuming and frustrating.
Consider: While every traveler has unique needs, preparing for a trip typically involves using multiple websites and apps. They need to book the travel itself, accommodation, car hire, excursions and more. And at each step, they face a myriad of options, which can be helpful, but can also lead quickly to overload and dissatisfaction. As recent global Accenture research found, 74% of consumers have walked away from an intended purchase because the complexity and an overabundance of options were overwhelming. Nearly the same number (71%) say that they see either no improvement or an increase in the time and effort required to make a purchase decision.
What if there were an easier way? That’s the question that compelled our most recent research. We surveyed 8,079 travelers and 313 C-suite industry executives and complemented those surveys with a crowdsourcing exercise involving 200 travelers from across four countries, and an AI-based cluster analysis of their views. We looked closely at the whole traveler experience—from inspiration to post trip—to identify travelers’ chief sources of friction and frustration, and what they want to see most in the way of improvements.
One particularly surprising finding from the traveler survey? Travelers’ views are remarkably consistent regardless of age or income. And 60% of travel industry CXOs see potential for gen AI in product application development and management. The implication? Effective solutions may not be as difficult to tailor as they may seem.
In this report, we’ll explore the current travel landscape, and then delve into the potential to transform it for travelers and industry players alike. We’ll focus on how advanced technologies, particularly generative AI (gen AI), can remove the friction that travelers currently experience. And we will demonstrate the ways in which advanced AI tools can offer travelers a smarter, far more personalized and fully integrated way to identify and explore options and design, build and book the perfect trip.
The stakes are high: According to Skift, gen AI presents a $28 billion opportunity for the travel industry.
The number of people traveling around the world is expected to reach an all-time high in 2024, as global leisure and business travel volumes finally surpass pre-pandemic levels. Overall, more than a billion people will make an international trip in 2024, with just as many traveling within their country. And while some trips are for business, others for leisure or personal reasons and others a mix of both or all three, each trip requires an extensive and careful planning process. From the industry standpoint, that process opens the door to a host of opportunities for companies to differentiate and win consumers, from the moment someone is inspired to travel through post-trip follow-up services after their trip is over.
The problem is, from the traveler’s point of view, today’s travel-planning process is too often timeconsuming and frustrating.
Consider: While every traveler has unique needs, preparing for a trip typically involves using multiple websites and apps. They need to book the travel itself, accommodation, car hire, excursions and more. And at each step, they face a myriad of options, which can be helpful, but can also lead quickly to overload and dissatisfaction. As recent global Accenture research found, 74% of consumers have walked away from an intended purchase because the complexity and an overabundance of options were overwhelming. Nearly the same number (71%) say that they see either no improvement or an increase in the time and effort required to make a purchase decision.
What if there were an easier way? That’s the question that compelled our most recent research. We surveyed 8,079 travelers and 313 C-suite industry executives and complemented those surveys with a crowdsourcing exercise involving 200 travelers from across four countries, and an AI-based cluster analysis of their views. We looked closely at the whole traveler experience—from inspiration to post trip—to identify travelers’ chief sources of friction and frustration, and what they want to see most in the way of improvements.
One particularly surprising finding from the traveler survey? Travelers’ views are remarkably consistent regardless of age or income. And 60% of travel industry CXOs see potential for gen AI in product application development and management. The implication? Effective solutions may not be as difficult to tailor as they may seem.
In this report, we’ll explore the current travel landscape, and then delve into the potential to transform it for travelers and industry players alike. We’ll focus on how advanced technologies, particularly generative AI (gen AI), can remove the friction that travelers currently experience. And we will demonstrate the ways in which advanced AI tools can offer travelers a smarter, far more personalized and fully integrated way to identify and explore options and design, build and book the perfect trip.
The stakes are high: According to Skift, gen AI presents a $28 billion opportunity for the travel industry.
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