I recently had the opportunity to give the keynote address at the Recreational Vehicle Industry Association’s annual meeting in Hawaii. As you might imagine, with the price of gas hovering around $3.50 a gallon and the economy softening, the general mood was one of apprehension.
The same could probably be said for the travel and tourism industry in general. I, however, see a number of reasons why the future of travel is bright.
For example, the rising price of oil is making itself felt in the airline industry, but new technologies—including advances in new biofuels — will help lower the cost of jet fuel over time. As it does, air travel will get a boost.
Much the same is true for automobile travel. Advances in cellulosic ethanol, biodiesel and advanced hybrid batteries will soon begin lowering the cost of travel and should spur people to make more and longer trips.
The travel industry need not depend only on advances in clean energy for a bullish future, though. A number of other technologies will soon begin making it easier for people of all ages and nationalities to travel anywhere in the world.
Undoubtedly, among the major deterrents keeping people from traveling today are concerns over safety. Progress in biometrics and sensor technology continue to improve airport safety; and the growing use of digital cameras (which now populate cities such as London), are having a noticeable impact on crime reduction and are helping rejuvenate certain areas. As the technology continues to improve and proliferate, some people who were reluctant to visit certain areas might be convinced otherwise.) As an example, recall how much tourism to New York City increased after safety improved in that city. Now just imagine the implications on a world-wide basis.)
In terms of increasing individual’s comfort-level with travel, advances in voice and speech recognition will soon allow many travelers to at carry out basic conversations with native citizens. To this end, IBM recently delivered 10,000 voice translation devices to soldiers in Iraq. The technology allows U.S. soldiers to speak—in real time—with Iraq citizens with a 90% accuracy rate. (For a longer discussion of this issue, I recommend this old post: ”What Language Will the Future Speak.”) The bottom-line is if people know they can effectively communicate with residents in Paris, Shanghai, Mumbai, etc. they will be more comfortable traveling to those destinations.
Other trends that bode well for the travel industry include the growing health of seniors. Due to a variety of health care advances, many seniors are now actively traveling well into their 80’s. This trend will only continue to grow. (As a personal example, last summer my 75 year-old mother-in-law had hip surgery. Next month, she and my wife are traveling to Buenos Aires for 12 days.)
A trend somewhat related to this is what I call the “traveling worker.” Now, I understand that many people already travel extensively for work, but what I am referring to here is the idea that as professional, knowledge-based workers become empty-nesters, some of these people will continue to work but—because they can do much of their work from a computer and the Internet—they will also be able to satisfy their pent-up wanderlust at the same time.
Some people have recently argued that virtual meetings could have a negative impact on business travel. This is true to a degree, but I’d encourage the travel and tourism to think counter-intuitively about how the technology might actually bolster business. One way is that harried business executives and other work-a-holics might actually be convinced to take more vacations with their families if they knew in advance that they could stay in touch with their business colleagues through such virtual reality technologies. (On a side note, virtual offices set ups could become profit sources for hotels that cater to this need.)
Lastly, the continued growth of Web 2.0 technologies– such as geotagging and photo-syncing– in combination with advances in RFID technology should also spur travel. As people continue to have access to ever more information through smart phones—and these devices can communicate with an ever increasing array of objects from the surrounding external environment which will soon also be embedded with RFID chips — they will be able to do everything from telling people where they are to educating them about what they are looking at. As a result, travel will become both easier and more enjoyable.
And that, in a nutshell, is why I believe the future of travel is bright. Thanks to a variety of new emerging technologies, travel will be less expensive, cleaner (or greener), safer, easier and more enjoyable.
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Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, public speaker and host of jumpthecurve.net. He is the author of seven books, including Jump the Curve and The Next Big Thing is Really Small: How Nanotechnology Will Change the Future of Your Business. He is also a frequent speaker on future trends, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and associations.
