The world got smaller as the technology we have started getting carried around in our pockets. We decided never to leave our smartphone that has become part of our lives, as if it were a new-born baby that needed suckling and nursing every five seconds. Forget ‘Nomophobia’, it’s worse than that! We have turned into parents that fret and worry every second that the smartphones we have in our pockets are perhaps going to die of a cot-death or stop breathing for some unknown reason. Why are we like that?
In that smartphone there is a multitude of information that we can’t afford to lose these days. That’s the reason it’s more than just a baby, it’s a life line. It contains, stores and holds the passwords, the links, the apps, the numbers of your life. It’s the small thing with infinite possibilities.
Smartphones and tourism industry
At one-time people travelled around the world carrying a bag-load of maps and guidebooks. These days, it’s your smartphone that has replaced all of that. It seems like that is so far gone in the past it’s like your grandpa telling you when he used to sit around the ‘wireless’ and listen to the news being broadcast. Yes, back then ‘wireless’ meant the radio. Today we don’t sit around the wireless and listen, we connect to it and surf. Smartphones have changed our lives in just a short space of time. Think back to when we had PDA devices on mobile phones and it was only in the 1990s. Apple only introduced the iPhone in 2007 and yet it seems like another age we didn’t have them. Now look! Sales for smartphones top 1.75 billion around the world. Who would go back to using a cellphone these days?
With performant smartphones we now travel not just with one guidebook chucked into the rucksack, but with a whole library-load of books that will get us where want to go to. The tourism industry has changed and it’s all because of the new technologies we are being offered and the way we get to travel today. Millennials are looking for more and more performant applications that will help them travel either for business or for pleasure.
App usage in the tourism industry
Travel apps have revolutionized the travel experience. The trip got easy when you can book it on an app. It got faster when you can get tips on where to go in the city. It got more comfortable when you get to book the hotel you wanted in the location you wanted and it got safer when you stopped worrying about getting lost because you didn’t know your way around.
Travel apps are one of the top downloaded apps in the world today.
- Business-people that are travelling more than 20 times a year download more than 4 apps every year that are travel related.
- People taking fewer than 2 trips a year download over 2 travel apps in the same twelve-month period.
- 20% of people that book trips via the internet actually do so through a mobile app rather than directly through a computer.
- 60% of smartphone users have a travel app on their phones right now.
- 45% of those smartphone users will plan a trip via those apps.
- Travel apps are the 7th most-downloaded apps in the world today.
- 85% of smartphone users also use their smartphones while they are abroad. That means that they are perfect for the tourism industry that will need to provide the services they are looking for in the future.
The best travel Apps
According to the Forbes’ List of Best Travel Apps 2015 the ones you either have or need to have are the followings:
- Instagram: A showcase of stunning photos of holiday destinations including tips. A great resource for trip planning as you see before you even get there.
- Localeur: The ‘local’ guidebook, written by the resident living in the city that you want to visit. Local experiences are always more authentic.
- Uber: Don’t know how to get around a city, then use Uber and transport options will be hassle free.
- Trover: A combination of Trip Advisor and Instagram. You get to upload photos and then post recommendations or comments about those locations.
- Quizlet: The app for language-learning, quizzes and flashcards to study while you are on the move.
Every day, there are new apps being developed in the travel and tourism industry. Why? Because there is a whole world out there waiting to be discovered!
