Collinson’s Chris Ross reflects on sector’s past three decades and looks ahead to the future
As Priority Pass turns 30, we’ve collectively taken pause to look back at the last three decades and take stock of just how much the travel sector has changed. In that time, we’ve seen huge change – whether it’s the ban on smoking, biometric security measures, or significant shifts in physical security requirements. There have also been small changes which have had a big impact on travel experiences, such as digital boarding passes, onboard Wi-Fi, and personal in-flight entertainment screens, all of which are now largely commonplace. It has been eventful time and a lot has progressed in the last three decades.
During this time, Collinson has gone from a small team of travel enthusiasts looking to improve airport experience, to a global team providing access to over 1,300 airport lounges and travel experiences around the world.
Yet, despite all the innovation and change we’ve seen already, it does feel like the next 30 years will be even more transformational for the travel sector. I’m increasingly conscious of the importance of the travel industry collectively working together to understand what will be truly meaningful and memorable to travellers of the future and how we fully realise that reality.
When we look to our future products and services, we must consider the customer of the future. Millennials and Gen Z passengers already make up three quarters of the travel market today, and their attitude towards technology, lounge experiences and loyalty are vastly different to the generations before them.
For starters, we’re seeing younger travellers demand a more authentic look to their airport experience. In 1992, with Priority Pass first launched, setting out to empower regular travellers to really enjoy their time in the airport, all lounges largely looked the same, a familiar home away from home to help the busy business traveller relax. You, honestly, could have been anywhere in the world, with few embodying the culture and character of their location. Our challenge will be to put greater emphasis on making sure the lounges in our network provide local experiences, ensuring they’re examples of spaces where travellers can unwind, work, or just grab a drink, in an environment designed to reflect the region’s heritage and support local vendors.
We have started to talk about our industry’s shift into navigating the so called ‘experience economy’ – travel is inherently about experiences after all, whereby each interaction on a traveller’s journey should feel authentic, personalised, and connected. Over the next thirty years, I would argue that the personalisation of travel experiences is going to be critical to ensuring big and small players alike remain front of mind for customers when they come to make a purchasing decision.
In short, travel brands and service providers must re-energise efforts to make the customer feel like the most important person in the world, by creating quality and personalised travel experiences. Personalisation can support businesses create better travel experiences, increase passenger bookings, and potentially most importantly, it must be a key tenet of building long-term loyalty. By building an authentic understanding of the customer and exercising and demonstrating this understanding to the customer on a regular basis.
The core question remains though, how do we create a travel experience which starts before any flights are booked and ends after the customer is back home with their feet up? There is cross-industry collaboration underway to start answering this question with practical solutions, but there is a long way to go. At Priority Pass, we’re looking forward to the next 30 years of working with the industry to make this, genuine personalised travel experience, a reality.