The consulting and professional services firm BRAINTRUST, a leader in the travel industry, has issued a new analysis of the industry, in this case of Spanish travel marketing, thanks to a new wave of its Tourism Barometer. In it, it states that omnichannel is an irrefutable fact in a post-pandemic environment, to which the entire industry must adapt as soon as possible, given that there is no longer a mono-channel traveler, and where through its research the consultancy firm demonstrates the progressive combination of channels, although each product and/or service seems to be an exclusive territory of one or other actors in the value chain.
Travel agencies, a space for advice, security and personalization
BRAINTRUST continues with its analysis of the sector, in its goal of helping the tourism industry to recover and transform. In this case it analyzes the concept of omnichannel travel marketing for the Spanish consumer, concluding that the travel agency channel is the one that would provide the user with the most critical travel, advice, security and personalization according to those surveyed in the Barometer. This result is the result of the specialization of travel agencies in a more experiential type of travel, both nationally and internationally, where customers place their trust for the most important trips. BRAINTRUST highlights that the travel agency channel has the highest average amounts in transport, accommodation and package tours due to the type of trips it markets, more complete, more different, more distant, and certainly richer in unique and exceptional experiences, compared to simply buying a seat in a means of transport or a room in a hotel or apartment.
For Angel García Butragueño, Co-Director of the Tourism Barometer, and Director of Tourism at BRAINTRUST: "As we have been anticipating in our Tourism Barometer for some years now, travel agencies are an essential channel in tourism marketing, given their value for the client, who looks to them for specialization, personalization of the experience thanks to technology, and human contact to prepare the most important trips. This importance may depend on the purpose of the trip, the complexity of the trip, or the unique and differential experience to be acquired in important moments, such as honeymoons, family trips, group trips, business trips, or experiential trips, to give just a few examples. The pandemic has eliminated some points of sale, which we estimate at a 20% reduction in travel agency locations compared to 2019, but the market share in that channel remains the same, and could even be higher in view of the behavior patterns of travelers after the pandemic, where they abandon to some extent standard travel to focus on memorable trips, and where only a travel agent can bring their experience, knowledge, tools and information to the service of a more conscious traveler. Finally, travel agencies are knowing how to value their role of specialization, advice and personalization in the face of the changing behavior of travelers, who are increasingly looking for more memorable experiences, within a more humanistic post-pandemic philosophy of life, where being and living take precedence over having and appearing".
The purchase of transport tickets, an exclusive territory of suppliers
Analyzing the data separately, BRAINTRUST proves however that the purchase of transport tickets is an almost exclusive territory of suppliers, with a share that goes from 2019 with 81.4% in all its platforms (web, app, phone and face-to-face) to 81.3% in 2021, demonstrating the relentless power exercised by transport providers in tourism marketing, when it comes to travel, whether airlines, rail companies, ground mobility companies or ferries and shipping companies. In fact, in the comparison of both years, the web channel is down 0.6%, while the human contact channel is up 0.5%, demonstrating that the traveler in these times has put more trust in people than in pure technology.
Accommodation booking, a place shared by the hotels directly and the specialized OTAs
The new wave of the BRAINTRUST Barometer also delves into the booking and purchase of accommodation, and ensures that this is a place shared almost in unison both by hotels with their direct sales, and by OTA's specializing in the sale of rooms and / or tourist apartments.
Direct hotel sales would thus go from 44.1% in 2019 to 43.7% in 2021, while specialized OTAs would go from 38.2% to 38.5%, leaving face-to-face agencies, owners and real estate agencies with the small part of the pie, highlighting that in terms of accommodation sales, technology is gaining ground, regardless of the channel selected by the traveler. The strong implementation of easy, fast and free tools in the last few years has been sentencing the empire of technology in this field, according to BRAINTRUST.
Travel agencies are the exclusive sellers of package tours, both organized and tailor-made.
In the case of travel agencies, they are proving to be intractable when it comes to marketing the sale of package tours, whether these are in their organized package version or tailor-made (called dynamic). The agency channel currently sells 85%, coming from a share in 2019 of 83.4%, once again strongly demonstrating its power in the purchase of complete trips, and pointing to even greater growth in the coming years in the face of the complexity of traveling in times of uncertainty to which we are already becoming accustomed. BRAINTRUST also puts the magnifying glass to their studies, and highlights that within travel agencies, the web channel goes from 28.9% in 2109 to 39.4% in 2021, while the personal channel goes from 54.5% just before the pandemic to 45.6% last year, materializing the technological advance that the pandemic has meant, and that travel agencies have been able to explore and exploit properly, putting at the service of their customers all available channels (store, web, app, email, social networks, forums, blogs, etc.), a fact that was unthinkable only a few years ago, where the face-to-face was the majority in the sale of packages.
Projected channel changes by product in 2022
Looking ahead to 2022, the consultancy predicts the following changes:
- Maintenance of suppliers' share in transportation, in view of the customer relationship strategies being pursued by large suppliers, such as airlines, railroads, ground transportation companies and shipping companies.
- Increase in direct hotel sales by 2 p.p., due to the massive implementation of hotel companies' revenue management programs, to the detriment of brokerage contracts.
- 3 p.p. increase in the share of agencies in package tours, in view of an expected increase in prices, the supply crisis, the need for security, and the "corkage" effect of the recovery of vacation travel on the Spanish consumer.
For José Manuel Brell, Partner in charge of the Quantitative Studies and Models practice, and of the Tourism and Leisure Industry at BRAINTRUST: "Omnichannel is an irreversible fact, and in that sense all links in the value chain must move forward, continuously analyzing not only the shares but also the profitability of each channel, in order to achieve a better balance in the business model. From BRAINTRUST we have been helping all actors in the optimization of channels through our methodologies of channel maximization, optimization of pricing strategies, or customer segmentation by niches based on attitudinal and not so much sociodemographic variables, and we insist on the translation of the data to business decisions. The channel has become not only a marketing channel, but also a tool of greater or lesser profitability depending on the balance of the same in the distribution. The tourism industry has 3 challenges ahead that should be faced in a very professional way and with the help of experts: profitability, innovation and sustainability in all its meaning".
