Arival co-founder and CEO, Douglas Quinby talked TikTok, the weather
and the future of tech during a key speech at the 2023 Arival 360
Conference in Orlando.
More than 1,000 representatives from 400 companies across the tours,
activities, attractions and experiences sectors attended the conference
where other hot topics included artificial intelligence and its
implications for the experiences industry, digital distribution,
pricing, passion travel, partnerships, and how inclusion and diversity
will continue to drive fundamental shifts in the way people experience
travel and the response they expect.
Here's Quinby’s take on the future of travel:
The affluent traveller – “We have to understand our
audiences. They are now more diverse than ever. The affluent traveller
– those with incomes of $150k and up – account for a fifth of all
travellers yet are responsible for nearly half of experiences spend.
So, ask yourself, do you know who these travellers are, do you have
products and revenue and pricing that will serve them… and you?”
TikTok as a booking channel – “Last year, we
predicted that TikTok may surpass Insta and Facebook as an experiences
inspiration and booking channel for 18-34-year-olds. It has exceeded
our expectations and this year it has surpassed those channels. It’s
now only second to Google for this age group.”
The future of weather – your businesses and personal
lives have been impacted. The things that are happening… it’s only
going to get more extreme. It’s a big issue and we must ask ourselves,
how will this impact travel, where will people go, how can we adapt our
tours, how will this impact cancellations?
The future of tech – “Even in 2023, according to our
research, as many as half of all tour and activities operators are
still not using modern software that connects them to the global
ecosystem. Imagine if airlines didn’t use a central reservations system
– we wouldn’t even be sitting here today. It’s clear where growth is
going to come from – OTAs – they’ve experienced more than 250% growth
between 2019-2025. So, the experiences industry really needs to adopt
the right technology to reach the right people.”
Future of experiences – “Older travellers plan and
book experiences after they’ve done everything else, often when they’re
in destination. However, younger travellers are quite different;
they’re thinking about experiences early, and they’re becoming more
important to the trips. Nearly half of Gen Z and Gen Y travellers say
experiences are influencing where they go. The shift is gone from
‘let’s go here and we could do a bunch of things while we’re there’… to
‘I want to do this, so let’s go somewhere we can do that’.”