Travel Megatrends 2018: Travel Brands As Experience Platforms
Skift Take
If we received a penny for every time a travel industry executive talked about how consumers are looking for “experiences,” we’d be billionaires by now. But in all seriousness, there’s a definitive strategy behind travel brands’ desires to play an even bigger role in travelers’ experiences.
Skift Megatrends 2018
In January 2018 released our annual travel industry trends forecast, Skift Megatrends 2018. You can read about each of the trends on Skift, or download a copy of our magazine here.This Megatrend is brought to you in partnership with Hilton Garden Inn.
It used to be that airlines simply got you from point A to point B. Hotels offered you a place to rest your weary head at night. Tour companies herded tourists onto buses and drove them around to see the sights. Cruises gave you a sea-level view of the world. Online travel agencies allowed consumers to begin booking their own flights and hotel accommodations.
But all of that is, bit by bit, changing today. While it’s still very true that, fundamentally, hotel companies run hotels and airline companies run airlines, it’s also become increasingly clear that more travel brands want to expand beyond what they’re known for doing in travel and into new segments of travelers’ experiences.
This erosion of traditional silos in travel is transforming travel brands into true experience platforms, or channels through which we, the travelers, can have our vacation and business trip experiences shaped and guided not by a multitude of companies, but by just a handful — and soon, maybe only one.
The online travel
