Travel Innovation and Technology Trends: 2013 and Beyond

Summary

If trends were determined simply by volume of buzz in trade magazines, the big moves in travel innovation and technology for 2013 would be "go mobile," "use Big Data with cloud computing," and "embrace social media." But tech trends in the travel industry are much more complex – they involve cutting-edge content aggregation, distribution, user engagement, intelligent agents, mobile payments and more. Some new technologies are designed to improve the user experience, others to contribute to business performance and service delivery. But all innovations must work within the context of a rapidly evolving technology environment in which consumers are changing the way they interact with devices and suppliers can deliver new capability faster and cheaper than ever before.

Thanks to its legacy foundation and conservative attitude about the future,
with a few exceptions, travel lags other industries in embracing new trends in technology that promise to sustain existing business and open the door for new opportunities.