7-11-2014 Back to the Future

So for the past twenty something years, I have been traveling across the country for business, visiting forty three out of fifty states. I have stood right next to hot, flowing lava; been in a hurricane in New Orleans; witnessed firsthand earthquakes in Seattle and Los Angeles; survived 115 degree heat in the jungle of Mexico, and 30 below zero in northern Wisconsin. I have even run from a tornado in tornado alley…all this “while on the job”!

However, business travel has taken a huge turn the past few years, due to the cost of travel skyrocketing, along with enhancements in technology that have made a good portion of business travel obsolete and not necessary.

Programs like GoToMeeting, GoToMyPC, and other desktop and file sharing programs have all been major contributors to this change in the way we do business. Folks can make presentations from the comfort of their office or home directly to others around the globe, all at “real-time” speed, and without the lag time delays that were so prevalent when these programs were first released to the business market.

Conversely, leisure travel has increased exponentially, as more and more people want those weekend getaways and extended vacations, whether it is to the islands, a Disney theme park, or just a trip to Vegas. In planning these trips, gone are the travel agents as we may remember them from years past, where an agent would sit down with us and plan the entire trip, all from a color brochure that they had in a rack on the wall in their reception area. The agent would take us through the entire week’s vacation, planning the resort, transfers, excursions, and air travel. Some agents would even personally deliver your airline and cruise tickets to your home, once they arrived via snail mail to the agent’s office. I don’t even remember the last time I used a paper ticket to exchange for a boarding pass on any airline, but this just goes to show you how times have changed. Now, airlines download the barcode to your phone, and all you have to do is show the barcode which the gate agent can scan when you board. Even TSA is getting into the fun, as many airports now have scanners at the first checkpoint on the security line before going through the body scanners and metal detectors.

To make leisure travel even more exciting, and less burdensome and much more pleasantly arranged, some companies have implemented new technology that makes our booking experience an enjoyable event…and helps to build the excitement even more for our vacation.

Thanks to Ron Berg, Executive Director of ACT/AUGIE, I am pleased to bring you a piece written by Daniel Burrus, CEO of Burrus Research. In this piece, Daniel talks about some new ways to plan a leisure trip, that will certainly change the way we plan a vacation. Take a look:

How Technology Will Impact the Future of Travel

In the next five to ten years, technology will give us many new ways to enjoy travel— from the planning phase to the actual trip. In fact, tomorrow’s travel will look nothing like it does today, and the travel adventures anyone can go on will be limited only by our imagination. Here’s a look at what you can expect:

• Semantic voice search technologies will revolutionize how people discover, discuss, and plan their travel. Semantic voice search is already working fairly well with Apple’s Siri and Google’s voice search tools, and they will be much better in the near future thanks to the advances of the Three Digital Accelerators of processing power, digital storage, and digital bandwidth. Within the next five years most of our searching will be with voice to what I have called an ultra-intelligent electronic agent (an audio and/or visual version of Siri and the others).

• Ultra-intelligent electronic agents will also be your travel buddy. Think of this electronic travel buddy as your virtual concierge, trouble shooter, and travel guide. If you don’t have your own ultra-intelligent electronic agent, you will be able to rent one as part of your travel package via the travel agent or company you’re booking with. These travel buddies will help you with everything from securing movie, show, or park tickets at your destination to making restaurant reservations to hailing taxis to helping you if you get lost. You’ll never again travel alone.

• Virtual reality technologies will allow you to experience (see, hear, and even smell) your chosen destination months before you arrive. Within the next five years you will be using virtual reality technology to have 3D experiences of your favorite destinations as if you were there. But this won’t reduce the need for travel; if anything, it’ll make people want to experience the real thing. It will be a form of what is called “show-rooming” in retail outlets today—a way to find what you want and then plan a trip there knowing exactly what you will want to see and do.

• Airports will become an enjoyable part of the travel experience thanks to the use of biometrics, such as fingerprint reading and face recognition, to keep people moving and reduce the long lines. For example, you can already use your fingerprints as a pass to get through international security when you arrive back in the U.S., so in the future there is no reason why you could not do the same for boarding a plane once you’re checked in. This will be an option that will save time and many will opt into this type of program.

• Social Travel with a social mobile media element will happen in a formal way within the next five years. We currently have web sites that are like community marketplaces for people to list, discover, and book unique accommodations around the world. Technological advances will make this sort of peer-to-peer booking more seamless and user-friendly.

• Space tourism will take off … literally. Currently, you can book a space flight for about $250,000 USD, but you only get a few minutes in Low Earth Orbit space before you come back down. To go up and stay for a while and enjoy it will take some time—most likely closer to the ten year mark. But if you want to go there for a few minutes to see the Earth and experience weightlessness (and have bragging rights), that will happen on a mass scale very soon.

• Augmented adventure will become popular thanks to the use of Google Glass-style wearable technology to detect virtual reality and data apps embedded in the landscape, adding a new layer to a hike in the hills, and making getting lost a thing of the past.

• Finally, we’ll see a future of man-made travel environments, from Qatar’s Desert Park to conceptual architects such as Jean-Marie Massaud suggesting a new generation of slow travel luxury airships and dBox’s zeroimpact floating islands. Disneyland was the first to do this on a large-scale decades ago. We will see even more impressive examples happen around the world using many new and powerful tools.

Travel will certainly transform over the next few years. What changes are you already seeing? What are you most looking forward to?

Please share with me some of your experiences, both pleasant and unpleasant, along with some of your travel pet peeves regarding both business and leisure travel, as I am working on an upcoming article that will address travel tips for both the business traveler and vacationer.

So all is quiet on the insurance convention front, as summer here in the Northeast is in full swing! Next we will be talking about some summer networking events from organizations such as the PIA, IIAA, and CIBGNY. So until we chat again next month, have a safe and happy summer… Ciao for now!