Marketing Review — Summer 2008 - (Page 38) • Personalized public transportation that integrates our cars into a coordinated transport network, automatically picking the fastest routes and bypassing traffic jams; • Designer foods and crops genetically engineered to resist disease and pests and be highly nutritious; • Intelligent goods and appliances such as telephones with built-in directories and food packaging that tells your stove how to cook the contents; • Worldwide inexpensive and safe water from advanced filtering, desalination, and perhaps even extraction from the air; • Super senses that use implants to give us better hearing, long-distance vision, or the ability to see in the dark. IMPLICATIONS FOR HOSPITALITY AND TRAVEL: Air travel will benefit more, and more immediately and directly, from new technologies than any other segment of hospitality and travel. New safety systems over the next decade are likely to include improved heads-up displays, en-route collision-avoidance equipment, and automated airport routing, both in the air and on the ground. Better sensors will tighten airport security by recognizing explosives that slip past today’s detectors. However, this equipment will not be installed until another Lockerbie-style bombing or a major hijacking renews up public demand for greater safety. These innovations will not be cheap. In-airplane safety systems will be mandated at the company’s cost, while external equipment such as new satellites for the GPS system will be paid for by user fees. New materials that sense their own condition are beginning to appear, particularly from nanotechnology research. They will be incorporated into critical aircraft components such as engine mounts by 2020. Soon after, skin alloys will alert mechanics to fatigue and incipient cracks. By 2018, the first supersonic business jets will take to the air, with 20-passenger models likely to appear around 2025. By 2030, efficient supersonic travel will replace first-class sections on long routes over water. Cruise lines face changes, too. Online travel agencies will account for only 9 percent of cruise sales in 2009, according to PhoCusWright. That will not long be true. Over the next decade, the most important technological development for cruise lines will be the continued growth of online booking. Early suggestions that cruise travel was too complex and expensive to book without human contact are fast proving to have been wrong. Carnival, Princess, Disney, and others have set up convenient and successful online booking systems for Net-savvy cruisers. Operators with less efficient sites, or none at all, will find themselves at a growing competitive disadvantage. Five years from now, the tradition of booking through a travel agent will have vanished, save in the extreme high end of the market—and there is room to wonder how long agents can survive to serve the luxury market after losing the rest. Cruise lines hoping to do well in an increasingly Net-savvy marketplace will have to pay scrupulous attention to their reputation. Tales of poor service and disappointed travelers go a long way in online forums, chat rooms, and blogs, and they can take forever to disappear. An impeccable brand is the only assurance the online shopper has that his cruise investment will be money well spent. 38 35 35) The United States is ceding its scientific and technical leadership to other countries. “The scientific and technical building blocks of our economic leadership are eroding at a time when many other nations are gathering strength,” the National Academy of Sciences warns. 55 TRENDS FOR TRAVEL & HOSPITALITY • SUMMER 2008 200365378-010/JAVIER PIERINI/GETTY IMAGES The Internet has changed the cruise market in another way that dismays some operators. Bright European buyers are starting to check prices online and then buy from American agents, often at considerable savings. In one example, a trip through the Western Caribbean on the Costa Mediterranea cost £514 for a Class 1 inside cabin, or about $1,010, when booked through an agent in the U.K. Buying from an American Web site, the price was $569, or about £289. Thus far, some cruise lines are attempting to protect their profits by refusing to accept bookings except through agents in the customer’s home country. That tactic is unlikely to work for very long. For hotels, the biggest techno-trend is well recognized already. As database systems grow more sophisticated, operators are able to capture ever more detailed information about hotel patrons, from their choice of rooms to their dining preferences and local itinerary. This enables hotel staff to give returning patrons a highly personalized experience and all but guarantees return visits. This technology is quickly raising the level of play in the battle for customer loyalty. Cruise lines, resorts, and other destinations are quickly copying these methods. On the negative side, long distance calling through the hotel telephone system once was a significant profit center. Cell phones have seriously eroded this business. The last of it can be expected to vanish now that the major cell providers all are offering unlimited calls for just $100 per month. Probably the biggest development for most sectors will be the growing use of RFID (radio-frequency identification) chips to track supplies, automate ordering, and make delivery more efficient, and therefore cheaper. One nascent restaurant chain in California features orderentry computers at each table. Customers use the terminal to read the menu, view each menu item, and place their order. They see human staff only when handing over their credit cards—before ordering—and when the food is delivered. Computerized ordering will not soon penetrate high-end restaurants or fast-food chains, but it will be welcome at midrange family restaurants, where savings are sorely needed. Also expect to see innovation at self-bussing restaurants, where patrons will deliver their plates and tableware directly to the maw of the automated washers. Some of the most interesting new technologies for restaurants and food services will operate far behind the scenes. In laboratories around the world, scientists are building artificial “tongues” and “noses” more sensitive than human organs. Models now in development can distinguish among closely related wines, various cheeses and breads, and coffees. In the near future, food producers will use them to guarantee product quality. This innovation will provide restaurants with better, more consistent materials and give diners more predictable, and probably more satisfying, meals.
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