The report highlights key trends: 

 Sustainability as a new priority 

• Companies are integrating sustainable travel policies, favoring eco-friendly destinations like Amsterdam and Copenhagen.
• Sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) and environmental impact scores will influence corporate bookings.
• Rail and electric transport are increasingly replacing short-haul flights, as seen in France. 

Technology as an alternative to physical travel 

• AI, virtual reality, and blockchain are transforming travel management.
• Virtual meeting platforms like Google and Logitech enhance remote collaboration, reducing the need for business trips. 
• The adoption of electric aircraft and autonomous vehicles could cut travel time and costs. 

Evolution of work models 

• Companies are revising travel strategies to align with new work trends.
• Corporate retreats and team-building events are becoming more frequent, while training trips are concentrated in centers of excellence.
• The trend is shifting towards fewer but more targeted and extended business trips. 

The influence of geopolitical and demographic dynamics 

• Expansion into emerging markets in Asia and Africa will drive an increase in business travel.
• An aging population in developed countries may lead to fewer corporate trips.
• Companies may limit travel to high-risk areas, instead prioritizing the hiring of local talent. 

At Twissen, we observe business travel is rapidly evolving under the influence of sustainability and technological innovation. Companies must balance reducing their environmental impact while maintaining global connections. The future of the industry will depend on the ability to integrate sustainable and technological solutions to ensure efficiency and productivity.  

Giorgia Sartorato

L'articolo Business Travel: Trend Analysis and Future Forecasts proviene da Twissen.

Firstly, it will enhance the creation of an immersive experience for visitors, allowing them to explore and discover the destination virtually before booking a real trip. Additionally, hotels and tourist destinations can use the metaverse to promote their facilities and services, creating a sort of “virtual showroom” where potential customers can see and experience what they have to offer. 

Another great opportunity offered by the metaverse is the ability to purchase a land, or a portion of virtual land, recreate their own environment and mood. This allows hotels and tourist destinations to customize the experience for visitors and create a unique atmosphere that reflects their brand, identity, and level of hospitality. 

For example, a beach hotel could create a virtual land with a marine environment, while a mountain hotel could create a land with an alpine environment. In both cases, hotels would be able to create an immersive experience for visitors that would help them feel already at ease and imagine what it would be like to spend time in their facility. 

Furthermore, by purchasing land in the metaverse, hotels and tourist destinations can also create virtual activities and events to entertain visitors and increase their engagement with the destination. For example, a hotel could organize a virtual dinner for visitors of its land, allowing them to try the hotel’s restaurant dishes virtually. 

We at Twissen are monitoring how the metaverse may represent an enormous opportunity for hotels and tourist destinations to enhance their business and offer unique and immersive experiences to visitors. By purchasing land in the metaverse and recreating their own environment and mood, hotels and tourist destinations can increase their visibility and attract new customers.

Twissen

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This app is an artificial intelligence program that has been trained to write text autonomously. It has been designed to generate text in a natural and coherent way, similar to how a human writes. It is used to create automatic responses, narrative text and conversations for chatbots. It is advanced technology that helps to make conversations with computers more similar to those with people.
Artificial intelligence can improve the tourism industry in various ways, for example by enhancing the travelers’ experience with chatbots.  

Here are some examples: 

• 24/7 assistance: Chatbots can provide information and assistance to customers at any time, even outside of human operators’ working hours. 
• Bookings and information: Chatbots can help customers book flights, hotels, and activities, providing information on availability, prices, and special offers. 
• Personalized recommendations: Chatbots can use machine learning to provide personalized recommendations to customers based on their preferences and needs. 
• Language: Chatbots can communicate with customers in multiple languages, making the interaction smoother and more accessible to a global audience. 
• Cost reduction: Chatbots can help reduce customer service costs, as they can handle a large number of requests simultaneously and automate many tasks. 
• Data analysis: Chatbots can gather and analyze user data to help companies better understand their customers and provide an even more personalized and targeted service. 
• Seamless interaction: Chatbots can provide a seamless experience for users, allowing them to continue the conversation across different channels like SMS, Email, Social Media. 
• Customer satisfaction: The ability to offer quick and personalized assistance can increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. 

This is what we wrote in 2017 on this topic, imagining the era of BOTA, a neologism that we coined by combining Chatbot and O.T.A, and envisioning the use of this technology to create greater value in the distribution chain of the tourism industry. 

IT’S TIME FOR BOTA!

Technology and a good dose of creativity can create room for new solutions and, in particular, new brands

Artificial intelligence and robots are catching on in the Travel & Tourism industry, starting to change users’ behaviour, services and, above all, business models. The robot which serves meals in hotels is here. Its name is AURA, it is owned by M Social, and we can find it in Singapore. Nowadays we can also find robots in airports, in particular in Asian ones, and are able to provide several services, from the check-in to giving information. Robots are increasingly being developed in other sectors, too. Recently, eMarketer realised a survey in the USA and UK, discovering that more than 90% of respondents thinks that being able to chat with the hotel is very useful. Perhaps this is the reason why, in February, Mercure launched a BOT for Messenger, following Expedia, Kayak and Skyscanner, which has also signed an interesting deal with Skype. There are many new startups, such as SnapTravel, HelloHipmunk, Mezi, KimKim, Pana or BoltFare… and the list would be longer than this.
Many groups of users, especially the youngest ones, think that chats are a very immediate and efficient tool, and we can expect that their usage will be unrestrained. In fact, it is perceived as quick, discrete (if compared to voice assistants) and, in particular, it fits into the mobile trend, which definitely became the most used tool for online researches and will soon become the preferred one for booking. We are already observing new distribution business models based on chatbots, actual mobile-focused OTAs, namely chatbOTAs… that we are going to call BOTAs! In fact, in spite of the consolidation phase which saw the rise of integrated colossus in the USA, such as Expedia, Priceline and Aribnb and in China, such as Ctrip and Alibaba, technology and a good dose of creativity can create room for new solutions and, in particular, new brands.

Twissen

twissen.com

L'articolo How Artificial Intelligence is Improving Tourists’ Experience proviene da Twissen.

Among the various services offered are risk-based products, which allow customers to lock in the price of hotels and flights, together with insurances that guarantee travel reimbursement. Demand for these types of products is therefore growing steadily: around 60% of users of the Hopper app, a free app that allows you to predict price changes for flights and hotels over time, have purchased at least one of these services.

Soon travel companies will be able to offer financial services to their customers. Through new banking technologies, airlines, hotels and agencies will be able to adopt loyalty programmes to encourage customers to use their financial services, i.e. virtual products that companies can incorporate into their services without having to become a regulated entity themselves. For example, travelers can pay a certain amount to lock the price of a flight or hotel reservation, in case the price rises, the traveler pays the locked price, while if it goes down, the traveler pays the new, cheaper price.
The opportunity to enable flexible BNPL (‘buy now, pay later‘) installment payments is also crucial at this time. According to a research by Phocuswire.com, 68% of travelers said that BNPL would encourage them to spend more than usual on travel, as it would give them the ability to make higher value purchases or add more ancillary services. 

In addition, more and more paytech innovations have appeared in recent years that can be exploited to facilitate the use of such technology. One example is tokenization, which allows merchants to encrypt and securely store customer payment information in their systems for future use. In fact, according to a study conducted by Lodging Technology in 2022, 68% of hoteliers want to increase the security of their stored data, and 58% of them have a primary goal of improving the privacy of their customers and employees.

At Twissen, we believe that tourism service providers should increasingly equip themselves with tech tools to move in this scenario by encouraging customers to use financial services embedded in their offerings.These solutions will simplify, digitize and automate the payment of travel, providing customers with greater flexibility and security, which are essential elements for restarting, especially business travel.

Twissen

L'articolo Fintech & development opportunities for travel & tourism proviene da Twissen.

The programme is based on three cross-cutting pillars: Excellent Science, Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness, and Innovative Europe. The key strategic orientations can be summarised as: digitisation, protection of biodiversity, environmental and economic sustainability, creating a resilient, inclusive and democratic society. 

Within the Programme, the tourism sector can be covered by the Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society cluster, part of the second pillar, with a budget of €93 million for the “Cultural Heritage” action area for 2022 only. The objectives and priorities are the strengthening of democratic governance and citizen participation, the safeguarding and promotion of cultural heritage and the management of multifaceted transformations in the social, economic, technological and cultural fields. Concretely, research activities will focus on the development of new approaches, concepts and practices for an increasingly sustainable, accessible and inclusive cultural tourism. 
The calls of interest for the 2022 for Travel & Tourism will be opened in the second half of January. 

At Twissen, we observe a potential increase in the total budget of about 20 billion compared to the previous programme. This is a positive prospect for enterprises in the Travel & Tourism sector, which are dealing with the challenge of sustainability in a modern way. 

For further information on projects financed in the 2014-2020 budgetary period, see SmartCulTour and TExTOUR. 

Twissen

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The general objective of this Call is to boost tourism SMEs’ uptake of digitalisation and innovation through transnational cooperation and capacity building, while the specific objective is to develop and put in place transnational and cross-ecosystem support schemes to build capacity for digital transformation, innovation and smart tourism solutions by SMEs in the tourism ecosystem. 

Eligible proposals must be presented by consortia gathering from 5 to 10 partners of various nature and located in a minimum of 5 different eligible Countries, including at least one and no more than two public authorities and bodies and at least one business supporting organization. Each consortium/network will directly support (including financial support) a minimum of 60 tourism SMEs in total, from a minimum of three eligible Countries. 

A transnational consortium/network of public and private stakeholders will act as an intermediary organising specific activities for tourism SMEs in different Countries. The consortium will organise and provide direct support to companies in order to build their capacities in developing and implementing new, innovative services and operations with the help of digital technologies. Furthermore, it will also facilitate cross-border/transnational cooperation to foster peer to peer learning as well as to share knowledge and good practices in boosting the uptake of digitalisation, innovation and new technologies in tourism. 

EASME – Executive Agency for SMEs is delegated for the implementation of the call. It foresees to finance 8 to 11 projects which have to last 25-36 months. Every project can be granted with up to 75% co-financing of eligible costs, up to € 1.000.000 funding, and the total budget is € 8 million. 

Competitive proposals will be evaluated according to the relevance and the quality of the proposed activities, along with their impact and cost-effectiveness. 

At Twissen we observed that, in order to face challenges posed by the pandemic, digitalization skills are necessary. Proposals must address the needs of the SMEs, that are protagonists of this call as they represent the backbone of the travel and tourism industry. This action will surely contribute to a faster recovery of the sector. 

Francesco Redi

President and founder at Twissen. Manager in Local Development, Tourism Policies,  EU Funds. He cooperates with several European universities, public bodies, development agencies, DMOs and enterprises.

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