INNOVATION REPORT 2020 ➢ FORECASTS FOR 2020s


The start of a new decade is as good a time as any to take stock of some of the longer-term trends we have seen in the travel technology sector over the past 10 years. As new forms of automation


software become prevalent, you might expect staff numbers to decline and, as a result, IT send per employee to rise as tech replaces humans. Certainly, our data reveals notable spikes in IT spend per employee in


the Water Passenger Transport and Travel Agent sectors in 2017 and 2016 respectively. As noted earlier, external factors


related to Brexit explain the leap in Water Passenger Transport, but Travel Agents have seen staff


numbers decline while maintaining higher IT spend per employee. Throughout the last decade, Travel


Agents have consistently outspent all other travel sub-sectors (Chart 1, page 31) and spend more than double per employee on IT than the national average (£12,574 v £5,702 in 2019). The question for this sector, as we


enter an era that will see machine OHDUQLQJ DQG DUWLFLDO LQWHOOLJHQFH increasingly power robotic computing, is does it need to maintain such high IT outlay? The answer might lie in the 10-year


IT category spend data (Chart 2, page 31), which plots Software’s inexorable rise from travel’s second-smallest IT


sector to its second-biggest. Indeed, Software might have claimed the top spot were it not for a jump in 2017 in Computer Services spend which re-established a gap with Software that had narrowed in 2015 and 2016. This over-reliance on Computer


Services (for all UK industries this category is second behind IT staff)


and relative low investment in IT and Telecom Staff illustrates travel’s reliance on third-party providers. If, in the coming decade, Travel


£3,000 £15,000 TOTAL IT SPEND PER EMPLOYEE IN TRAVEL


£12,000


£9,000


£6,000


£0 Water 2010 2011 2012 2013 Agents 2014


Agents start to bring their tech requirements in-house and invest in their own IT staff, we might see the sector move towards overall travel and UK industry norms. However, the buoyant travel tech


supplier industry – not just in the UK but throughout Europe – indicates a tendency for buying in IT solutions and investing in the services and training to support them. For Tour Operators, the picture is


less clear than Travel Agents, although the long-term trend is rising IT spend per employee, as it is for the UK travel sector as a whole. The question for this sector in the


2020s is how will Tour Operators respond as they are squeezed by


2015 Operators 2016 2017 All Travel 2018 2019


suppliers going direct and Travel Agents themselves cutting them


increasingly out of the equation? For the last 10 years, travel has


seen steady if unspectacular growth in Telecom Services spend, despite the continuing importance of the FRQWDFW FHQWUH WR PDQ\ UPV But could this change as agents


and operators strive to establish more-personalised customer interfaces through telephony, powered by more-intelligent data-led customer relationship software? In the wider UK economy, spend on


Telecom Services looks set to be left RXQGHULQJ DORQJ ZLWK Hardware, at the bottom of IT priorities, but maybe this is another trend travel will buck.


30 — FEBRUARY 2020 — TRAVOLUTION.CO.UK


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44