Report Predicts Future of Travel

　　By 2020 airports will become paperless, passengers will need just their finger prints as a boarding pass, they will cruise through customs and immigration with just a scan of their retina and will be able to track the exact location of their bags from the minute they drop them off until they pick them up at their destination thanks to electronic tagging.

　　Those are just some of the predictions from a new report titled “From Chaos to Collaboration” released on Wednesday by global travel distribution system Amadeus in collaboration with The Futures Co. that forecasts the changing face of travel in the next decade.

　　The report combines the views of experts and travellers from around the world and reveals a future where technological innovation will alleviate the stress of travel, while at the same time providing a richer travel experience.

　　Predictions include:

　　Automatic transit: Check-in may become the exception rather than the norm as travellers are able to transit seamlessly using automated identification systems that use biometrics, long range fingerprinting and contactless technologies negating the need for manual check-in, signaling the end of long queues and delays, while ‘intelligent’ luggage and tickets will mean travellers can be secure in knowing that bags will not be lost and disruptions managed effectively.

　　The next generation of experience: Giving people access to information when they need it and using game design (known as ‘gamification’) can radically enhance the experience of travel i.e. use gaming principles means travellers could experience Rome as the gladiators did and visit the sites that are of most interest, alternatively they could deploy augmented reality and smart mobile devices to have a "gastronomic" experience of Rome.

　　Intelligent recommendation: This is the idea that you will be able to benefit from the combined views of experts as well as fellow travellers that share similar interests, unlike the current recommendation model that just gives you a blanket of reviews and comments that may have little or no relevance to you (60-year-old couples may have a vastly different set of needs than a 25-year-old group of friends travelling and this is currently not considered). The idea is that you will be able to access your own personal guide of a destination created by thousands of users but designed specifically for you.

　　Payment with memory: digital memory of expenditure and new contactless technologies will make it easier for travellers to buy in groups and negotiate discounts (a sort of Groupon whilst travelling) as well as allowing for a more tailoured package of services and products to be delivered to you as an individual.

　　Taking the stress out of travel: the impact will be two-fold a) technologies that will remove the stress of travel i.e. those identified in the automatic transit section and b) those technologies that will give the traveller greater comfort by allowing them to monitor their health whilst travelling or in destination using mHealth apps.

　　The "business tourist": this is supporting the trend towards work/leisure travel where increasingly travellers bolt-on days to explore a destination. As business travel becomes less of a luxury and more of a disruption to domestic life technology will be used to create "homes away from homes" whereby travellers can access their own music, films, files, photos and have communications with their family. This is particularly relevant to hotels, airport lounges etc. as well as transit forms including airlines and rail companies.

　　The report also considers what needs to happen from an industry and societal perspective to make these innovations happen such as increasing information exchange, greater collaboration and placing the traveller at the heart of the travel process.