I spent a good portion of this week in meetings with various companies and individuals in the Singapore travel industry. There were some interesting chats and some great feedback on what we’re doing here at GottaGetaway. One of the most interesting conversations concerned how online travel is evolving. In short, the discussion went something like this:

The first phase of online travel was the arduous task of putting inventory online and making it possible for members of the general public to make (and pay for) a confirmed booking without the necessity of human intervention. This phase was a beast. Travel had historically been solely the realm of authorized agents, and being an agent often meant extensive training, licensing and in many countries, bonding. I’m not sure it’s possible for someone who’s grown up in the era of online travel to fully grasp what a big change it was for tickets to be sold online without a human being involved.  The process of finding, reserving and then writing a physical ticket that had to be delivered to the client was the way travel booking was done until only just recently. All of us who are in this business today owe everything to those early travel innovators who cracked this nut. But, it was only the beginning…

The second phase of online travel was the birth of the aggregators. Aggregators are companies that gather travel inventory from many different suppliers then expose that inventory for booking by agents or consumers. Aggregation is a complex process involving integration of multiple data streams. Those data streams were often inconsistent in both format and contents. Moreover, gathering the data was only part of the problem; transaction processing was often quite different from vendor to vendor. Today, metasearch sites (like Kayak) represent a popular retail variation on aggregation, while companies like Hotelbeds (a Tui company) provide the travel trade with wholesale access to literally tens of thousands of hotels. This second phase of travel translated into more choice and better transparency for consumers. Aggregation also made it possible for more suppliers to get their inventory (hotel rooms, air fares, etc.) into the online travel game.

While the first steps in online travel were critical to getting us to where we are today, they were focused on overcoming the hurdles that stood in the way of creating an online travel marketplace. The progenitors were (rightly) focused on making it work, and less concerned with how to make that marketplace a great place for consumers to do their shopping. By analogy, their focus was on making the car viable transportation, rather than on making it comfortable and fun to drive. To extend the analogy, we think the next wave of online travel innovation will see the industry turn its attention to making online travel comfortable and fun to drive.

The next wave will remove the structural limitations imposed on consumers by the nascent technologies, letting consumers interact more on their terms. Now that we’re past the basic struggle of proving it can be done, it’s time to refine it, make it more elegant, more practical — dare we say — even a little fun?

Making online travel better isn’t simply a matter of adjusting the window dressings. Behind the surface design and usability issues, there are underlying technology issues. To make things better, sites must not only be fast and easy to use, but also must provide the right tools at the right time and give consumers relevant information needed to help them manage complexity and make better decisions. Technology allows us to improve the mechanics of the process, design is needed to address the aesthetics.

The logic of this is easy to grasp if we take it out of the online context. Consider the physical world for a moment (yeah, it’s a stretch, I know!). I think it safe to assume that most people prefer to shop in stores that offer a pleasant environment, helpful sales people who can aid you in discovering products that fit your needs, and a checkout process that is not fraught with fuss and delays. While the un-air conditioned discount markets with pallets of cans in cutaway cardboard cases serve their purpose, you don’t go there for the experience — and you don’t go there when choice is important to you.

There’s a change coming. It’s logical. It’s a natural extension of the improvement in the technologies and it will serve better the changing expectations of today’s consumers. The market is large and growing, and that means there will be room for a number of players and a number of different approaches. Some people will still go to the un-air conditioned discount markets, at least some of the time. Speaking for myself, I know I look forward to the day I can shop in a better market.

aggregators travel tech usability user experience