PUBLISHED DATE: 2025-08-25 01:44:28

TAKE OFF WITH DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

TRAVEL & HOSPITALITY

When Time Stood Still

In 2020, the world’s streets emptied. Planes were grounded. Famous landmarks looked like scenes from every end-of-the-world movie. Almost overnight, international mobility decreased by a staggering 65%.

Fast forward two years, a global vaccination program, and 50 million hours of Netflix later… and travel, finally, is making a comeback.

The global travel market is poised to grow by $451 billion from 2022 to 2026.

A Window of Opportunity

While travel packed its bags and went on a nice long break, we stayed in and learned to live in a different way—primarily, using our digital devices to stay connected. Whether it’s been working and learning from home, ordering food, or simply keeping in touch with friends and family, digital became our lifeline.

In the good old days, travel plans were the domain of travel agents. They’d book flights, hotels, cruises, and everything in between. They found the best deals and were there for us if something went wrong. And for a time, people were happy with that.

But now, we prefer to cut out the middleman, booking every aspect of our trips directly and experiencing a more personal selection process. While this can be more convenient than numerous trips to a travel agent, it also brings new challenges.

“For a few years there, the conventional wisdom held that delivering a superior CX consisted of surprising and delighting your customers. It turns out that what they really want is for dealing with you to require less effort.” (Forbes)

Surprise and delight your customers? Yes. Confuse them with a poor online experience? Absolutely not.

The Power of Personalization

80% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase from a brand that provides personalized experiences (Epsilon, The Power of Me: The Impact of Personalization on Marketing Performance, 2018).

It’s not surprising when you look at some of the best-loved global brands such as Netflix, Spotify, and Amazon—companies known for their customized content and recommendations.

Travel brochures are a thing of the past. Instead, we now turn to social media to inspire wanderlust. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube… have you even been on holiday if you haven’t posted about it online?

Instagram, for example, currently has more than one billion active monthly users and—at the time of writing—over 614 million images tagged as #travel.

A survey by WeSwap in 2019 of 2,000 18-34 year olds found that 31% declared that posting holiday snaps online was as important as being on the holiday itself.

What Does the Future Hold?

Clearly, the future of travel is unpredictable.

Just a few short years ago, the internet proclaimed the death of the QR code. You needed a special app for it to work and the whole process just took too long. But then, the technology improved. With the ability to scan them using only a camera, QR codes made a comeback—accelerating dependence on touchless technology and allowing businesses to keep both staff and customers safe.

It has been a gamechanger for the travel and hospitality industry.

Change is the Only Constant

The travel industry is still in a state of flux. Travel rules are subject to change at short notice, which means for a lot of people, travel still feels challenging. And in the dash to digital, many online customer experiences are less than perfect.

If you’ve been wondering whether it’s time to look under the hood of your tech stack, the answer is yes. Now is the time to evolve—to lay solid foundations that will help you always meet your customer’s expectations, whatever the future holds.

Publicis Sapient and Sitecore enable you to drive change in your industry. Publicis Sapient’s consultative approach nurtures innovation, while Sitecore puts these ideas into action through content optimization and real-time customer experiences.

Start with the Right Technology

Publicis Sapient uses its decades of experience to help you get ahead of consumer demands and industry disruption. Be the master of change with Sitecore and Publicis Sapient.

Sitecore is the leading provider of end-to-end digital experience software. Unifying data, content, commerce, and experiences, our SaaS-enabled, composable platform empowers brands to deliver unforgettable interactions across every touchpoint. Our solution provides the tools brands need to build stronger connections with customers. Experience more at sitecore.com.