The future of travel and tourism is not tomorrow; it is today…
Service design can make a difference in the travel industry’s future, which has suffered loads of change in recent years.
Not so many industries also face such huge growth potential, but growing has a price, which becomes more visible to travellers daily. Climate change and the future scarcity of petrol or pandemic are threats nobody likes to consider.
Strategic thinking in travel is done for the upcoming season. Long-term strategies are rare to find and mainly related to growth planning. It’s not about how the product will change over the years based on their customer needs.
We have not discussed the possible challenges of pandemics, future coronavirus outbreaks and what they could mean for the travel industry. There could come a time when technical solutions won’t work anymore without rethinking the travel industry’s product.
What’s going on in the travel industry?
Technological innovation has taken place in travel too. Travel agencies have largely disappeared and been replaced by self-service online booking. The ones still working are mainly owned by tour operators, who face severe problems due to their organisational size as service generalists due to poor agility.
It is also important to acknowledge that with digitalization and direct access to booking processes, intermediaries like tour operators are losing importance because of their inadequate value attribution to their clients.
Consumers need
for life-centred design
The term user-centric design has a side effect. People realize it is not okay to put the persons in the centre of the design, especially in tourism. Tourism has a significant impact on the environment and social sustainability. That is something the whole industry tends to forget when money comes in.
Travellers are much more aware of it daily, asking themselves if they want to put their personal needs above the impact on life itself. That’s why more and more customers are asking for more meaningful and ethically right products, holding a balance between their personal needs and the local impact.
Sustainability
beyond certifications
Our climate is changing, and so is how we think about it. Global warming, pollution and sustainability concerns have experienced a cultural shift. It won’t be enough for companies to acknowledge environmental concerns.
Consumers are aware of the impact of travelling. Sustainability is an essential factor at the time of decision. Soon, travellers will be aware that sustainability is more than certifications; it is a way of living. It will fail if each part of a service or product doesn’t manifest that ambition.
The cultural shift
Tourism is one of the most developed sectors regarding service and authentic experience. The service quality has improved over the years to the demand of customers. The physical experience partly owned by the fact that a traveller changes his habits to be somewhere else contributes to their experience.
Tourism service providers are pretty sensitive about the needs of their customers and reactive if there is a need for change, but they are not proactive.
There has been a cultural shift; service providers and operators must transform from their reactive mindset to a more proactive one because future tourists will no longer be satisfied with today’s value propositions.
How are your employees?
Tough times can produce employee disengagement and frustration. There are topics like inclusivity to employee experience, retraction or change management. Employees tend to reject transformation because they are not involved in the process.
In times of permanent transformation and new ways of doing things, you must consider your employees’ emotional state and let them participate actively in reinvention.
Employees are not afraid of change; they fear loss.
Acknowledging this helps to improve their proactiveness to create resilient innovation.
Besides human needs, there are also organisational challenges.
Industry disruption
How to create new business models that make sense and add value to the system and customers?
New entrants or competitors
If your client becomes unfaithful.
Regulatory changes
If COVID & CO are threatening your business, what are the next steps beyond technical solutions?
Damage to company reputation
When suddenly you are the bad guy.
How to tackle these topics?
Respecting a human/life-centric approach in every sense is the key to building a stable relationship between you and your customers, partners, or employees.
It is also important to mention that changing the point of view on problems you may face offers new insights and, therefore, new approaches to solving them differently. Asking for external help is not a weakness; it is necessary as the individual point of view is often biased.
Service design methodology doing holistic research, co-creation, and design thinking help to understand the real problem. It reframes the challenge and looks for solutions in multidisciplinary workgroups to get meaningful results.
This is how you create solutions that are good for the world.
Human/life-centred design principles
With the Service Design methodology and strategy, we create services and products that are more efficient by making the optimum use of resources in a strictly human/life-centred approach.
Results
Service and products your customers will love because they need them.
Measurable indicators
#Revenue #Brand Reputation #Customer Retention.
Knowledge and a holistic understanding.
Fieldwork & Insights research
Unbiased knowledge is the base for each creation or transformation. It helps to craft better products and services and increase client and employee engagement and advocacy.
Results
Verify the problem statement and obtain unbiased knowledge and holistic insights.
Measurable indicators
#Brand Reputation #Revenue #Return on Invested Funds #Internal Rate of Return on a Project #Speed to Market
Step aside from your ego.
Outside-in thinking
Empowering empathy by providing a different viewpoint helps people understand their own position to make better decisions and be better equipped.
Results
Improved customer experience and retention.
Measurable indicators
#Customer Retention #Customer Satisfaction, #Customer Advocacy (NPS) or Effort (CES )
Create together strong and resilient solutions.
Co-creation
Co-creation helps to obtain consolidated results by tackling complex problems with diverse points of view, knowledge and multidisciplinary teams.
Results
Empathy, consolidated results and team building.
Measurable indicators
#Resilient Solutions over Time #Employee advocacy #Engagement Score #Workplace Reputation.
Let’s talk about how service design could help your travel business to get future-ready.
I’m glad you made it this far. That seems to be a good sign; perhaps I can be helpful to you.
I can help you with something if you want to know more.
Frank Hoeft – designSTRTGY
Phone +34 677 22 95 75 (WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal)