80% of Chinese found an app that overlays visual information about the physical world very or extremely appealing, it appears that Chinese customers are more predisposed to experiencing augmented reality than the global average.
This data point was contained in a presentation by Bart Tompkins, managing director for Amadeus at the Travel Distribution Summit in Shanghai last week.
Travel, he said, is about depth, not breadth and Asian tourists, in particular, are more receptive to differentiated travel experiences, citing a survey Amadeus had done under the theme of "From chaos to collaboration".
Automatic transit was another feature travellers indicated a preference for. A future with smarter and more efficient identification and where systems will exist to make it easier for example technology chops implanted in clothing or even the human body to register us for check-in.
Sixty two percent of Chinese travellers are twice as willing as travellers in the US to provide more personal information in exchange for seamless travel experiences, he said.
Time constraints were also cited as a major impediment to taking more trips - 70% of Chinese, twice as much as Americans, cite time as a limiting factor to travel.
Another trend of the future is intelligent recommendations where travellers will increasingly be influenced by their peers. The travel agent of the future, he said, will have a role as expert curator or editor of recommendations and reviews as objective external specialists.
The emergence of the business tourist - business travellers will increasingly expect a home away from home while travelling, and wants tools that will allow them to mix business with pleasure. "Hotels have to make it easier for business people to become tourists," he said. |
