Where is travel headed?
The Holy Grail of travel – for both business and leisure – is creating a smoother, more streamlined process. With time being a commodity which everyone has in finite quantities, technology is the key to faster, effortless travel. However at the same time, technology is also playing a smaller role in meeting travellers’ increasing desire to embrace more sustainable travel. In fact a recent zero waste Qantas flight only used paperless processes, harnessing technology to issue digital boarding passes and electronic bag tags.
Airlines are getting greener
On 8 May this year, Qantas pioneered the first ever zero waste commercial flight to produce no landfill waste. The flight, QF739 from Sydney to Adelaide, replaced plastics with meal containers made from sugar cane and cutlery made from crop starch. All other items used were able to be disposed of via composting, being reused or recycled. While some items were removed altogether, including individually packaged servings of milk and Vegemite.
Qantas has set the ambitious goal of cutting 100 million single-use plastics by end-2020 and eliminating 75 per cent of the airline’s waste by end-2021. “In the process of carrying over 50 million people every year, Qantas and Jetstar currently produce an amount of waste equivalent to 80 fully-laden Boeing 747 jumbo jets,” said Qantas Domestic CEO Andrew David. “This flight was about testing our products, refining the waste process and getting feedback from our customers.”
To help reach its 2020 target, Qantas and Jetstar will also replace 45 million plastic cups, 30 million cutlery sets, 21 million coffee cups and 4 million headrest covers with sustainable alternatives.
Airports are getting smarter
Biometric technology is increasingly working its way into travel and airport systems, with the promise of more secure and more streamlined processes. Already many of us use biometric technology as a security measure on our mobile phones, in the form of fingerprint recognition. So biometrics are already part of everyday life and many countries use facial recognition to speed up immigration for travellers with e-passports. The next natural step is to use biometric identification for check-in, boarding and immigration – to shorten queues and to keep people moving through airport procedures by replacing manual systems.
This year London’s Heathrow airport installed a new £50m system to trial an entirely biometrically enabled travel journey – from bag drop to security and self-boarding. Experts claim that biometric boarding alone is three times faster than current methods, enabling an A380 to be boarded in just 18 minutes.
Artificial intelligence is getting cleverer
The natural partner of biometrics is artificial intelligence, which is being embedded in travel technology and harnessed by travel providers around the world. From providing travellers with personalised travel tips, to a robotic concierge which can communicate with guests. Already Hilton Hotels have created a robot called ‘Connie’ which can provide tourist information to customers who interact with it.
With customers increasingly expecting fast response times to their requests, the use of direct messaging and chatbots are providing key information to travellers 24 hours a day. Already improved analytics is creating ‘big data’ for suppliers to use to target travellers with destination and accommodation suggestions which align with their preferences. While in the very near future pre-trip research is expected to be revolutionised by ‘virtual travel agents’ which can design an end-to-end itinerary based on past travel experiences and also use virtual reality to enable travellers to ‘explore’ a destination before they arrive. Then when travellers do arrive in an area, a digital tour guide can provide them with a personalised tour at anytime of the day – or night.