For travel merchants, having a loyalty program in place offers more opportunities to engage customers across more channels. But the course of loyalty is transforming. It’s no longer “travel on my airline, stay in my hotel, or buy my product” but “buy and be loyal to my brand.”

Over the next 20 years, global demand for air travel will nearly double to 7.2 billion passengers, while inflight broadband connectivity will add $30B of ancillary revenue for airlines by 2035. This generational wave of travelers will be open to packaged experiences far beyond just the airline ticket or hotel room, and their sheer numbers represent a new era of global travel that will radically increase opportunities for airlines, hotels and other travel merchants, strengthen loyalty and grow ancillary revenue.

How will changes in travel technology impact your business through the next decade? This question is a central focus for us at Switchfly, as we leverage technology to create new revenue opportunities and stronger brand loyalty for travel merchants. The answer, we believe, depends not necessarily on keeping up with the pace of change, but rather leading the way in creating more value for your passengers and customers.

The travel industry is complex and complicated. We could even call it what it really is: messy. Billions of travelers, millions of flights, thousands of hotels, hundreds of countries, dozens of apps per phone, a few major GDS systems and one question for travel technology: how do we connect everything seamlessly? This is a question Switchfly wants to discuss at The Phocuswright Conference in Ft. Lauderdale, November 7-9.

Imagine if airport desk agents had to work without a computer system, taking customer information by hand and physically shuttling updates between different departments. This is unimaginable for a reason – the global aviation system would grind to a halt – yet there is still one aspect of air travel that relies almost exclusively on manual and offline processes: the re-accommodation of passengers stranded due to irregular operations (IROP), which requires re-ticketing, generating vouchers and booking hotels.

Travel has never been more rewarding – or more complex – than it is today. Frequent flyer programs are still wildly popular, but airlines are also expanding and diversifying the ways in which they generate ancillary revenue – and that means more partners, more channels and more complexity.

Since the early 2000s, the travel industry has been re-inventing itself with new visionary companies, new channels for selling travel and new strategies for engaging customers. The Internet made air fares, hotel rooms, car rentals and other travel inventory readily accessible to independent travelers. New “dot-coms” created booking engine websites where travelers could plan and book their own trips – this was the beginning of online travel agencies. Today, mobile booking is once again re-inventing the travel industry. However, as the travel industry becomes more complex, it’s harder for partners, channels and systems in the ecosystem to connect and communicate.This was the beginning of online travel agencies. 

Switchfly recently attended Aviation Festival in London, September 6-8. We collaborated with Iztok Franko from Diggintravel to host the Airline Merchandising Lab – a hands-on set of demos and experiments showing how ancillary merchandising works in a real-world booking engine. The problem we hear time and again is how hard it is to actually implement an ancillary merchandising strategy that drives conversions and grows revenue. That’s why we created the Airline Merchandising Lab for Aviation Festival. If you were there or if you were unable to attend, here’s a post-conference reflection by our partner Iztok.

For the past five years, airlines have remained profitable by finding new ways to increase passenger capacity, unbundle fares and generate more ancillary revenue with baggage fees, á la carte services, and frequent flyer programs. However, there is still one thing customers are not happy about: the fee to change a flight, which can cost $200 on average.