NEWS CONFERENCE REPORT
Broadway Travel Group Conference: Consortium’s 10th annual conference was themed around the ‘power of partnerships and people’. Amie Keeley reports from Dubrovnik
Google’s Eoin Cahill
and Benedicte Conway (right)
‘Travel has yet to emulate skills of Netflix or Amazon’
Nobody in the travel sector is delivering personalised content and products for consumers like Netflix and Amazon, Broadway conference attendees were told.
Google travel account manager Benedicte Conway said there was “a massive opportunity” for the industry to mirror innovators in other sectors to meet changing consumer demands. She told delegates that 80%
of what is watched on Netflix comes from recommendations the streaming service suggests to users, which is based on a user’s behaviour online and films and programmes they have watched previously. Conway said: “Netflix has come in with machine learning and an algorithm that gives recommendations based on what you like. Usually it’s pretty accurate. Amazon does the same thing. “Because people see it in one industry, consumers expect it in another, so that creates a massive
“Essentially, what people are looking for is a 24/7 travel agent online that anticipates their needs and likes”
opportunity for us in travel to jump on that and start showing more-tailored, personalised content to our consumers. “At the moment, there’s no one
like Netflix in the travel industry – there’s no one really owning that. “This is a massive problem
for us because people are more attracted to businesses that offer some understanding of their needs and likes.” Conway and Google travel account manager Eoin Cahill said consumers were more “curious, demanding and impatient” than ever before but wanted a “finite” list of recommendations for their holiday and to be “looked after”. They said research showed
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travelweekly.co.uk 25 October 2018
60% of travellers today would rather see fewer options than have to trawl through endless options online. Cahill said: “Before the internet
and before TripAdvisor, we used to book through a travel agent. “We’d give them our budget,
we’d give them our dates, how many people and the places we didn’t want to go, and they came back with some options. “Then the internet became more accessible and people started researching for themselves. “Our desires are the same – we
still want to go on holiday and enjoy ourselves – but the way we consume that changed. “Customers want to be looked
after and given a finite number of choices that meet our needs the way a travel agent used to. “Essentially, what people are
looking for is a 24/7 travel agent online that anticipates all of their needs and likes. “Consumers are leaning in to businesses that offer this to them.”
Amar Latif, Traveleyes
Blind holidays specialist seeks agent partners
The founder of an operator that runs tours for blind people is keen to work with agents. Amar Latif set up Traveleyes in 2004 and takes groups of blind and sighted customers around the world on adventure-packed tours, ranging from skiing, sailing and rock climbing to sun breaks and discovery holidays. Sighted customers are offered
discounted prices in exchange for partnering with a blind traveller and being tasked with describing the surroundings. Latif, who lost his sight when
he was a teenager, said he previously worked with Co-op Travel and trained its agents. “We would be very willing
to work with agents. I think it’s not the blind people they would need to find, as we’re well-engaged with all the charities, it’s the sighted travellers – solo travellers who don’t want to go on a singles holiday but want to be part of something. Our trips help them see the world differently.”
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