IBM Travel Transportation

The travel industry is still reeling from the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis. News regularly surfaces about financial restructuring plans, government support packages, bankruptcies, and layoffs in every sector. Many airlines, hotels, cruise operators, travel agencies, and rental car companies are in the throes of crisis management. But even as critical decisions continue to consume corporate boards in the travel industry, industry leaders need to get to recovery planning. A 2020 IBM Institute for Business Value Market Research Insights Survey of 5,054 U.S. adults predict a slow return of travelers: 62 percent of respondents say they won’t travel in the...

The transportation industry has a long history of resisting all but the most essential innovations. In the face of security threats, logistics inefficiencies, and general uncertainty and volatility, transportation companies have moved at a snail’s pace—if at all—to digitize processes, incorporate emerging technologies, such as cloud and the Internet of Things (IoT), or increase connectivity and automation. This historical reticence aside, transportation companies are realizing the status quo is no longer sustainable. The profound implications of security and transparency in the digital age are requiring even the most reluctant organizations to adopt new technology. Both transportation service buyers and end...

In the wake of COVID-19, restaurants, hotels, and airlines have to focus on meeting today’s most pressing need: making customers and employees feel safe and cared for throughout an entire hospitality experience. In a recent survey customers and employees viewed “businesses having clear plans for ensuring sanitary and COVID-safe environments” as the top priority in order for them to resume in-person visits or a return to the workplace. The availability of COVID-19 vaccines has added another variable to this trust equation. Beyond the question of testing, have workers and customers been vaccinated, and how can this be verified to reinforce...

Digitization has redefined the global transportation sector like few others. In what was until recently one of the last bastions of analog processes and entrenched inefficiency, transportation across road, rail, sea and air is experiencing profound redefinition and invention. In personal transportation in particular, prominent startups have shattered traditional industry value chains by introducing new digital platforms that simultaneously break down entry barriers and redefine how markets operate. These successes are motivating innovation elsewhere. In service areas as disparate as sea, rail and air, business leaders are recognizing how susceptible traditional business models are to external disruption, and many are...

In 1964, the Sabre airline reservation system was released, and it quickly became the largest private, real-time data processing system in the world. Then, in the late 1990s, the internet transformed the travel industry again. Passengers are more connected than ever, but the systems that once propelled the travel industry forward now often hold it back. Inflexible, cumbersome travel processes can be difficult to use compared to other industries. In 2017, mobile will account for 40 percent of US digital travel sales. A growing number of people are using smartphones to plan their trips. Digital travel sales in the US...

Cruise lines have a difficult course to chart. Increasingly, potential guests would like to arrange their trips digitally, and yet travel agents continue to own a substantial share of cruise ship bookings. To connect with guests more efficiently and personally without undercutting travel agents, cruise lines need to evolve and optimize their distribution channels. This executive report considers the challenges and presents steps for navigating this transformation. The entire travel industry is at a distribution inflection point. Cruise companies in particular have an enormous opportunity to enhance their distribution channels by learning from airlines and hotels about balancing digital consumer...

People feel deeply emotional about travel. While banking, shopping and similar experiences are important and personal, discussions about miles, suite upgrades and boarding privileges tend to strike a deeper cord. Over the past 20 years, the global travel industry has been at the vanguard of digital innovation. And it is also leading the way in terms of ecosystem evolution. But the industry’s technological leadership has become a two-edged sword. By leading with experience, the industry has conditioned its customers to expect experience leadership. And customer expectations are destined to become more comprehensive and demanding. By embracing the philosophy of Digital...

For decades, transportation executives viewed the industry as a cut-throat competition to win the business of global shippers. In this view of the market, the ongoing battle for freight volumes defined most interactions in the supply chain. Prevailing incentives justified the frequent addition of complex and costly services to win contracts, the near-constant undercutting of freight rates, and almost any sacrifice that would increase market share. Fortunately, at the insistence of ever more powerful global shippers, the industry has been shaken out of this destructive paradigm and forced to consider ecosystems as an alternative to counterproductive rivalries. The transportation industry...

But 2021 doesn’t seem to be that year. While rising vaccination rates have eased restrictions in many places, pandemic-related concerns are impacting how people plan to celebrate the holiday season. To better understand these perspectives, the IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV) surveyed more than 13,000 adults in 9 countries (Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Mexico, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States).We found that people’s opinions about COVID continue to vary widely—and these perspectives play a large part in holiday planning. Where people fall on the concern spectrum will define, in part, what they’re planning to spend, where...