Cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence (AI), biometrics, chatbots, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR)... Technology is advancing at lightning speed globally, and being strategically integrated into businesses to drive competitive edge, and innovative customer experiences. And Africa isn’t far behind – in fact, in some sectors, the continent is leading the pack.
“In many ways South Africa, and Africa, has the advantage of leapfrogging the rest of the world in the technology space. We saw this over the past decade with fixed-line versus mobile telephone adoption, where Africa often pioneers mobile technology applications and functionality. In the payments space in particular, we see countries like Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria out-performing first-world players because of the idiosyncrasies and requirements of our specific markets that make it essential for us to innovate,” says Otto de Vries, CEO of the Association of Southern African Travel Agents (Asata).
This is evident in the way mobile phones have become ‘travel cores’ for both tourists and the hospitality sector. Local innovators such as TravelHub Africa and Q2B are creating integrated systems that allow travellers to “make a booking, travel with your mobile phone as a companion, and make use of your THub Wallet to purchase any product from our associated corporate companies,” says Neil Bekker, CEO of TravelHub. The systems also create a co-operative environment for the hospitality sector, bringing suppliers and businesses into direct contact with the traveller.
Online journey bookings and itinerary management – where the customer is centric to all contact points of the service offering – are a global trend, where we are seeing some of the big market players in travel and tourism adding services to their online offerings, and partnering with other stakeholders to grow their footprint in the consumer economy. A spokesperson from Booking.com told Tourism Update that “as part of our constant innovation and exploration of how we can best support and enrich our customers' travel experiences, we currently link out to various integrations with our sister companies and other travel partners, including options to book flights, rental cars and to make restaurant bookings” – this in the wake of the announcement at ITB Berlin that Booking.com is looking at adding flights to its offering.
Some other major technology trends that we are seeing developing globally, are things like driverless automobiles, which could impact travel and tourism through automated sightseeing tours, safaris, and travel to and from airports.
AI is simplifying and speeding up traveller interactions with travel service providers, with machine learning, chatbots/travelbots and robots reducing the time and resources required from human interfaces.
AR and VR are allowing travellers to pre-experience destinations, which drastically aids the marketing of a destination through ‘virtual experience’, and gives travellers the peace of mind of knowing exactly what they are booking. And of course wearable devices offer customers a more personalised experience while travelling – with things like smart watches, Bluetooth jewellery, and even tracking devices for children set to enhance the experience and safety factors of a journey (the latter of which is one of the biggest concerns when travelling to Africa and South Africa).
“Data is also very important for 21st century travel companies,” says De Vries. “In fact, we are increasingly finding ourselves in the business of data collection and mining for meaningful insights so that we can assist our customers in achieving their business goals. The term ‘Big Data’ has been around for some time. Our role as TMCs is undoubtedly to marry our travel expertise with the Big Data at our disposal to find those key insights that can make a difference to our customers.”
And of course blockchain is high in news circles, as travel and tourism stakeholders are faced with the reality that currency is steadily going digital, and how they approach this evolution from a business and customer perspective.
A lot of the above technologies are still a fair bit away from being realised in South Africa and Africa, so what are the challenges that the continent is facing in integrating technology into its travel and tourism sectors? De Vries outlines some of these:
- Cost of adoption, as a lot of technology is billed in euros and dollars, making it expensive for South African companies to purchase.
- One-size-fits-all technology solutions do not always take into account South African idiosyncrasies and requirements.
- Pace of technological innovation. Travel is ripe for disruption, so much so that disruption has actually become the norm. We see it in the shared economy services of Airbnb and Uber, for example. Established travel companies need to ensure they constantly innovate so that they remain relevant against such competition.
“It must be said that the development of travel technology does not come cheaply, but that it is essential for travel suppliers to invest in if they wish to remain relevant in the 21st century. The costs for development and implementation may be onerous initially, but the time and cost savings in the long-run make it extremely worthwhile”, says De Vries.
