9 Tech Trends To Meet the COVID Travel Challenge

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Few sectors were hit as hard by COVID-19 as travel stocks. As the pandemic spread, countries closed their borders and implemented lockdowns, causing every kind of travel to grind to a halt and sending airline stocks, hotel stocks, and cruise stocks plummeting. 

 

But if there’s one silver lining, it’s that the crisis opened the eyes of travel companies to the many tech tools that can help them not just to survive, but to thrive and grow in a post-covid world. 

 

Here are 9 technologies that are rushing to the rescue for the travel industry. 

  1. Advanced cleaning and hygiene

Cleanliness now tops the list of traveler concerns, with Accenture analysts noting that “Customers may expect airlines, hotels, and cruises to implement hospital-like hygienic practices for every change of flight, room, and cabin.

 

To meet these expectations, travel companies are investing in cutting edge hygiene tools. Airports are embracing UV-C light disinfection bots, which can destroy germs and viral particles, while planes, trains, and indoor attractions are upgrading ventilation systems and deploying connected Internet of Things (IoT) devices to monitor air quality and particle concentration.

2. Self-service information

Knowledge is power, and the more power consumers are granted, the more confident they feel about travel. Travel companies are mapping the spread of infection so customers can choose which destinations and modes of transport they prefer. Hotels share information about their hygiene practices, travel boards publicize local regulations, and local tourism organizations update travelers about crowd levels in different areas. 

 

All this information is shared through self-service portals, giving people control over their personal surroundings. For example, in summer 2021 the UK launched Beach Check UK, a mobile app with real time information about how busy Britain’s most popular beaches are, so travelers could spread out into less densely-packed areas.

3. Contactless everything

Contactless experiences aren’t all that new, but COVID-19 pushed travel companies to embrace them as never before. Scannable QR codes, near-field connections, and proprietary mobile apps support contactless check-in for trains, airlines, hotels, theme parks, museums, concerts, and more. 

 

Air passengers can order meals, pay for duty free, and even start their in-flight movie through a mobile app. Facial recognition enables bot-led airport security, and restaurants are offering QR codes for menus. Some digital kiosks are even replacing touch screens with voice-led interactions. 

4. Digital employees

Expanding the digital workforce helps improve customer experience and reduce face to face contact at the same time. Hotels, attractions, train hubs, and more are offering chatbots and digital kiosks where travelers can ask questions, book extras, check on their reservation, pay baggage fees, and more. 

 

By giving bots the job of answering FAQs and completing routine tasks, travel companies can free up skilled human employees for more challenging roles. As travel journeys become more complex and travel conditions fluctuate more rapidly, it’s increasingly important to ensure that trained employees are available for these tasks. 

5. Streamlined travel bookings

At the moment, journeys and travel adventures are disconnected from each other. A single vacation can include a flight or train journey, cab journeys, car rental, restaurant reservations, hotel bookings, tickets for entertainment, and more, but there’s little coordination between providers. 

 

New platforms securely share information, stitching together every element into a single streamlined journey planning process while opening up end to end transparency. This way, travel companies can deliver better customer experience, and consumers themselves can manage their own travel more smoothly. 

6. Immersive experiences

Travel companies are using advanced technology to create rich, immersive augmented reality (AR) and extended reality (XR) experiences that can supplement and enhance travel adventures, and/or stimulate the desire for travel to new places or among hesitant demographics. 

 

For example, an AR installation at the Swiss Museum of Transport lets visitors “climb” a simulation of the Matterhorn, and Paris’ Museum of Natural History invites visitors to meet digital versions of extinct animals. To drive tourism, the Faroe Islands’ tourism board created a virtual tourist experience that would spark interest in visiting the islands.

7. Digital passports

Today’s travelers need to constantly share information, from visas and passports to COVID-19 test results and proof of vaccinations. Digital passports offer an easy way for travelers to present all their documents and data in a single action, helping prevent bottlenecks and delays at entrances and border crossings. 

 

Secure data platforms streamline data sharing between border control authorities, transportation companies, and travel destinations, reducing the number of times that travelers need to produce their credentials. The EU offers a digital covid certificate, for example, and 11 countries in the central Asian CAREC community proposed the Silk Road Air Pass and Vaccine Passport for the same purpose

8. Personalized travel offerings

With the help of integrated big data and advanced analytics based on machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI), travel operators can deepen their understanding of customer preferences and stay ahead of rapid fluctuations in customer expectations to offer more relevant travel products. 

 

At the same time, faster and more powerful analytics insights allow travel providers to deliver more personalized experiences. These can include personalized suggestions for accommodation, attractions, or modes of transportation; personalized welcomes to guests as they arrive in a hotel; and personalized marketing messaging through a range of channels. 

9. Real time crowd tracking 

GPS wristbands and GPS-enabled mobile apps allow cruise ships, airports, theme parks, and more to track crowd flow around the space. As well as helping them enforce social distancing and direct customers to less popular areas of the space, live tracking enables better tracing of contacts in the event of an outbreak of COVID-19 or any infectious disease.

Technology may be travel stocks’ knight in shining armor

Airline stocks and other travel stocks suffered during the pandemic, but travel tech is supporting their revival. Scott Kirby, CEO of United Airlines, admits “we always had supreme confidence in the ultimate recovery. And our view was that technology was going to be the road to restructure the airline and create a better customer experience.

 

As more travel-related companies find more innovative ways to apply cutting-edge technologies, it gives investors hope that travel stock prices will quickly bounce back. For people who feel that now is an auspicious time to invest in the travel sector, but don’t want to search hotel stocks, cruise stocks, or other travel stocks for the (possibly) winning bet, a travel stocks ETF like CRUZ from Defiance offers a way to spread their investment across a number of promising travel companies. 

 

Fund holdings and sector allocations are subject to change at any time and should not be considered recommendations to buy or sell any security.

 

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Investing involves risk. Principal loss is possible. As an ETF, the fund may trade at a premium or discount to NAV. Shares of any ETF are bought and sold at market price (not NAV) and are not individually redeemed from the Fund. Brokerage commissions will reduce returns. The Fund is not actively managed and would not sell a security due to current or projected under performance unless that security is removed from the Index or is required upon a reconstitution of the Index. 

 

A portfolio concentrated in a single industry or country, may be subject to a higher degree of risk. Specifically, the Index (and as a result, the Fund) is expected to be concentrated in passenger airline, hotel and resort, and cruise industries (“Travel Companies”). Travel Company revenues are heavily influenced by the condition of the U.S. and foreign economies and may be adversely affected by a downturn in economic conditions that can result in decreased demand for leisure and business travel. Travel Companies may be significantly affected by uncertainty in travel, including guest safety, security and privacy, changes in labor relations and insurance costs, issues affecting equipment reliability and longevity, changes in fuel prices, and shortages of experienced personnel.

 

Beginning in the first quarter of 2020, financial markets in the United States and around the world experienced extreme volatility and severe losses due to the global pandemic caused by COVID19, a novel coronavirus. The pandemic has resulted in a wide range of social and economic disruptions, including closed borders and reduced or prohibited domestic or international travel. Some sectors of the economy and individual issuers, including Travel Companies, have experienced particularly large losses. Such disruptions may continue for an extended period of time or reoccur in the future to a similar or greater extent.

 

The Fund is considered to be non-diversified, so it may invest more of its assets in the securities of a single issuer or a smaller number of issuers. To the extent the Fund is invested in companies of a single country or region, local political and economic conditions and changes in regulatory, tax, or economic policy could significantly affect the market in that country and in surrounding or related countries and have a negative impact on the Fund’s performance.  Investments in foreign securities involve certain risks including risk of loss due to foreign currency fluctuations or to political or economic instability, and these risks are magnified in emerging markets. Small and mid-cap companies are subject to greater and more unpredictable price changes than securities of large-cap companies. 

 

The BlueStar Global Hotels, Airlines, and Cruises Index (the “Index”) is a rules-based index that consists of globally-listed stocks of companies that derive at least 50% of their revenues from the passenger airline, hotel and resort, or cruise industries (“Travel Companies”) as determined by MV Index Solutions. The Index is a registered trademark of MV Index Solutions and is protected through various intellectual property rights and unfair competition and misappropriation laws and has been licensed for use for certain purposes by Defiance ETFs LLC. Products based on the Index are not sponsored, endorsed, sold or promoted by MV Index Solutions, no representation is made regarding the advisability of trading in such product(s). It is not possible to invest directly in an index.

 

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