Travel Subscriptions On The Rise
Travel Subscriptions On the Rise

Travel Subscriptions On The Rise

Coming off from one of PhocusWire latest webinar on travel trends and learning about how the change of consumer behaviours and shift in loyalty is driving the emergence of?travel subscription models prompted me to look further into this growing trend.

Togetherness whilst having a sense of uniqueness is pushing travellers to look differently at how they book holidays today. They are searching for meaningful, purposeful and inclusive holidays. They are exploring more, they want to be inspired, they looking for experiences that convey emotional value with sustainability reflected across the entire travel journey. That is some of the output resulting from searches led into this topic by Google Travel Sustainable Team.

According to Eurocontrol, The European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation, the airline traffic is consistently rising, week-on-week, with the United Kingdom, Spain and Germany being the busiest countries in flights operation. Similarly, occupancy rate for hotels in the United Kingdom, as an example, is forecasted to get to 56% this year, whilst this has typically remained above 80 percent pre pandemic according to Statista data. This is a healthy indication that the travel industry is heading back to good operational levels. Although the recovery differs by markets and [sub travel] segments.

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Subscriptions and memberships represent a way for travel companies to create lasting relationships with travellers.?Reading through a few articles to tie in with the overall insights shared from the Phocuswire panel, I’ve predominantly come across 5 subscriptions models in operation today (although they may be a lot of variations relying on the same principles):

  1. Free/Paid membership programme - whereby travellers get discounted rates for booking hotels, accommodations from a specific TA, OTA, marketplaces but can also enjoy other benefits outside of that travel network (e.g. retailers, grocers etc)
  2. Annual subscription model - similar to a paid membership but with the additional flexibility to modify, change the travelling plans as needed and typically operating in a close loop.
  3. Flat fee model - giving the flexibility to travellers to book a number of nights at a reduced flat fee per night to stay within any accommodations of a specific brand.
  4. BNPL (BuyNowPayLater) - not quite a subscription model, but deferred payment models are growing [travel recovery] trends that cannot be ignored. ?
  5. Travel subscriptions boxes - for a monthly subscription fee, customers get delivered elements of their favourite destinations (or places they have yet to discover) directly at their doorstep. This caters to those who love everything about traveling, from sampling traditional foods to shopping in local markets, from beach lovers and campers to culture vultures and foodies, the options are endless.

It is clear that travel membership models are evolving to embrace so many different aspects of travellers’ lives beyond the trip. For a great end-to-end experience with tangible benefits such as lower costs, I personally will be willing to subscribe to those models.?We may well see a Netflix of Travel or Travel Prime model erupting, with a cap fee to experience unlimited travel or is this an utopia? For now the travel boxes may well be a good teaser into the next trip...

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Sources

Shyam Singh

Inclusivity Focused Car, Bus and Rail Payments and Journey Orchestration Specialist PCI-DSS, Acquiring, Gateway, PSP Neo-Banking and SaaS pricing Distributed ledger for transit

2 年

This is a good topic and very interesting and informative one too..not all airports have access to budget airlines and not all destinations are in the same continent. I believe you will have like air travel under 4 hours, under 8hours and under 12 hours

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Richard Nash

Helping Tier 1 and 2 hospitality customers with their payment solutions

2 年

I like the idea of option 3 and 5, although I am guilty of going back to the same place a few times when I know it’s a winner (especially with the kids!).

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ígor Molchanov

Payments, Fintech | VP Acquiring Global Airlines at Elavon / U.S. Bank

2 年

Some models, such as an annual travel subscription model, for example, has not been explored enough yet. It is definitely the area to watch or event better - lead the change and be a positive disruptor in the industry.

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