TOP 5 TRAVEL TECHNOLOGY TRENDS

Michael Trout - Nov 18, 2013
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Technological advancement has undeniably surpassed every human expectation and to a great extent it has made things simple and fast. Nowadays, everything has gone online and the travel industry is no exception to this. You can book your flight tickets, find a hotel or plan the whole trip within a click. This could not have been a possibility a couple of decades back. Tourism-Review.com in cooperation with London based Centaur Exhibitions, organiser of the highly specialised exhibition Travel Technology Europe (TTE 2014) introduce the top travel technology trends.

Travel Goes Social

What on the planet exists without social media influence today? There’s absolutely no substitute to social media in terms of acquiring accurate information about a particular place. For instance, if you search for night clubs in Bangkok through the Facebook Graph Search, you will get an organised list of the same, as per the local ratings. This way, you would be well-informed about the place before you throw your money uselessly. MapQuest is another website that has created a social platform for travelers from different corners of the world to share their experiences with everyone else. This indicates the credibility of a destination and its value as a vacation spot. Such an assessment wouldn’t have been plausible without social media.

There’s an App for Everything

Today there is a readymade app for everything; whether it is a local attractions guide or a detailed topography of the area. Make sure you download the useful apps on your device before you plan a vacation this holiday. Majority of hotels and airlines have their own app that is easy to access and convenient for making changes at the last minute, if required. Hot deals and discounts in different places can be browsed through the app Viator while iStone is another useful app that allows recording and translation of 12 different languages and has a stock of 300 phrases. New travel apps are being developed every day in order to improve the travelers experience and expediency.

In-flight Wi-Fi

In the past times, if you were in the air a lot, the foremost thing that must have freaked you out was turning off your phone or setting it to flight mode. This implies that for the whole duration of the journey, you are inaccessible to your contacts and you cannot even exchange important emails without network. All you could do is listen to music or play games. However, citing this as a potential passenger’s inconvenience while in the air, airlines have recently introduced the concept of WiFi inside the plane. Majority of airlines have installed this facility and its base is expanding even more. But unfortunately, many airlines have put up an additional charge to access WiFi. For instance, you need to buy a $17 WiFi pass equivalent to 4 hours on American Airlines. Moreover, this internet facility is available only on selected flights, not all.

Interactive Maps

Gone are the days, when people used to carry paper maps, constantly folding and unfolding it to eventually end up at the wrong place 5 out of 10 times. Today, with the navigation technology embedded in smartphone apps, any place in the world has become easier to access. With the advent of Google maps, every step of a traveler has been precisely monitored so that no one can go wrong with his/her directions. You can figure out the exact distance between two points and also be aware of how much fuel you may need for the ride.

Tech Free Zones

Technology has benefitted us big time, but on the other hand, it has made people engrossed too much into itself. The human interaction seems to be gone and the world has become a wired place. Even on a travel trip, we are busy chatting on Facebook or tweeting on Twitter. Given this scenario, few resorts and hotels around the world have opted for an innovative idea of a tech-free zone with an intention to give the travelers a pleasurable braincation time away from the electronic world. A book in hand with sun beating down the shore and a bare body is sometimes all you need to feel heavenly.

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