Humanizing The Digital Travel Experience

Despite its success getting travelers to use Web sites, kiosks, and other digital channels, the travel industry consistently disappoints them. For example, 83 million online leisure travelers don't find the Web easy to use to plan and buy their trips, and fewer travelers are satisfied using digital channels than those using human agents. To improve, the industry must humanize the digital travel experience — putting human benefits ahead of technology. Humanized digital travel experiences are useful, usable, and desirable. They deliver basic value, take content available to all and make it meaningful to one traveler, and tap into travelers' emotions. Humanized digital travel experiences are created by aligning organizations to be customer-centric, gathering and using relevant customer insight, and adopting an outside-in, emotional perspective versus the industry's usual inside-out, clinical approach.