Digitalization, the challenge ahead for the travel & hospitality sector

Travel and hospitality is a huge market, its revenue represent billions of dollars or euro. From major passenger airlines to travel agencies, restaurants, museums, theaters and cultural venues and of course multinational hotels groups, this sector is a major player in the global economy. For example, it represents the third contributor for the European GDP and its third employer.
 
Digitalization has a key role to play in its development. With more than 1.2 billion tourists in 2016 according to the World Tourism Organization, UNWTO, the needs for digital tools are a significant issue. And the growth of this market is not over yet.
 
But, in order to maintain and even generate more value, this sector needs now to use global tools that will help it to reach a large part of the human population and satisfy ever diversifying needs.

Digitalization, a powerful cost killer

Digitalization is an efficient way to reach millions of people. A simple, well conceived and crafted website can speak to millions of people, give them meaningful information. In order to achieve this goal, a global company – a hotel group for example – needs to choose and operate a carefully chosen Content Management system.
 
This CMS for example needs to be able to function on clusters of servers, be natively multilingual and have advanced multimedia files management features to avoid discrepancies in the marketing campaigns.
 
For a hotel group, a well-designed online platform means a better communication, an efficient global reservation system, thus lower operating cost through a better planning management and a better occupancy rate.

Customer experience, the key to optimize the average revenue per customer.

But an efficient online communication and reservation platform is only half of the issue for such a company. As tourism goes global, travelling people come now from a larger range of countries and cultures. Their customs as well as their needs differ. Does the hotel have an employee speaking the native language? What are their expectations in terms of in-room amenities and complimentary services?
(Nights spent by non-residents in EU-28 tourist accommodation establishments, 2005-2015 - Source: Eurostat)
 
The same questions apply for restaurant groups: in Europe only, german and french guests have different practices about dinner time. In order to provide a successful customer experience, an online platform needs now to get and process a huge amount of personal data and give the best possible answer to each customer.
 
A productive online CMS needs to be completed with a personalization solution that will perform these tasks and enrich the website and apps with personalized data for each customer. The combination of these digital tools creates a decisive and profitable platform for major companies in this highly competitive sector.
 

Are you ready for the challenges and opportunities ahead ?

In a January 2017 white paper, the World Economic Forum estimates that, between 2016 and 2025, the digital transformation of the travel and hospitality industry may
 

• - Create up to $305 billion of value through increased profitability
• - Migrate $100 billion of value from traditional players to new competitors
• - Generate benefits valued at $700 billion for customers and wider society through a reduced environmental footprint, improved safety and security, and cost and time savings for consumers
• - Result in a net displacement of current jobs in the industry, which is expected to be partially offset by the creation of next-generation skilled jobs inside and outside the travel ecosystem.

 
Is your company digitally ready to face the challenges and get the best part of it? Contact the Jahia team to know how we will help you build and operate the most efficient digital platform that will create the best customer experience for your guests and generate the revenue your competitors will lose.