From GPS To AirBnb, Here’s How The Travel World Married Modernity

Long gone are the days when the whole family would rush to the travel agent’s office to book hotels, wait in lines at the train station to get the tickets, and reach a place and ask everyone around for directions. Basically, long gone are the days of old ways of travelling, because, in today’s modern world, all the problems of travelling and tourism are met with the solutions of modern technology and advancements. How? Let’s see.

No More Middle Man

Maybe in the olden days, the parents would have rushed to the nearby travel agent’s office and ask them to book the annual summer vacation. Not anymore, though! With Booking.com and TripAdvisor.com logging in 554 million and 156 million visits respectively just in September 2023, it is safe to say that gone are the days when people spent hours in a travel agency trying to plan the best trip ever. With the advent of online booking agencies, everything now is a click away, even presenting the traveller with options they had never known before. Online booking websites offer thousands of hotels to choose from when booking a stay, not to mention the added bonuses, deals etc., ensuring that the traveller chooses the hotel, not the other way around.

On top, these online portals provide the best of facilities at zero or minimal financial risk. Why prepay the entire cost to a travel agent you cannot vouch for when the world of internet booking is granting you options of paying later, zero cancellation charges, additional info, added discounts etc? Social media, too, comes as the saving online grace by providing the world with recent trends, deals, attractive places, best hacks and whatnot. Planning a trip has never been this easy, all thanks to the trusty internet.

Travel to Carpe Diem

With more and more millennials and Gen-Z now taking command of the travel world, one thing is clear: the younger generations travel to make memories, not to put their feet up. For them, it seems, that travelling is all about exploring the unknown, visiting the hidden gems, and traversing through not-so-famous places just so they have excellent stories to tell. And if the reason for travelling has changed, it is obvious that the way the world travels will also change. In today’s world, the reason one travels is not so much to rest and relax but rather to find new adventures, goals, or means. Perhaps this is why new forms of tourism have gained momentum – aerotourism, alphatourism, voluntourism, ecotourism etc.

Not to even mention the babymoons, destination weddings, pilgrimages, wellness holidays, staycations etc., that have found their own little fan club. Add to this the fact that these generations, whilst chasing experiences, are also mindful of the environment and want a vacation that is good for them as well as the planet. Proving this, Statista states that 81% of global travellers today believe that sustainable travel is important for the world. All of this proves that trips today, no matter how small or big, are soused in meanings and purposes, whatever that may be for the traveller.

Staying in Style

A decade or two ago, we only knew handful of travel destinations that had handful of hotels. And so, for every travel session, these limited hotels had their say in choosing guests and asking them for whatever fee they wanted. However, this doesn’t run in today’s day and age. Thanks to our available resources, our accommodation choices are endless. And this does not just mean the hotels available to us, no, but rather the different ways in which we can stay at a place – hotels, AirBnBs, hostels, homestays etc.

The options are as wide as the imagination runs. Case in point – Booking.com offers 1,175 homestays in Himachal Pradesh, AirBnB offers 32,597 listings in Hawaii, Paris offers more than 1700 hotels and so on. From a house, room, penthouse, treehouse, trailer, and even a boat, this modern travelling world offers all kinds of stays for all kinds of budgets, making our travel accessories fit our travel dreams just right.

Pocket-Friendly Above All

Occasional recessions, market crashes, and COVID-19 notwithstanding, life has improved steadily in recent decades. Products and services which were once for the rich have become accessible to everyone. Airlines exemplify this democratisation of services, with low-cost carriers such as AirAsia, IndiGo, SpiceJet, Akasa etc., being at the forefront of the movement. As a result, low-cost airline market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 9.8% and will cross 302 billion USD by the year 2030.

Besides, paying cheap fares for no-frills air travel with fewer comforts is a bargain accepted by the majority of travellers – a move that has not only benefitted them but also the tourism sector as a whole by pushing prices down. With planes getting bigger and their ranges improving withal, all thanks to technological development, flying non-stop has become viable as well, something that would’ve seemed impossible, say, 10 years ago.

Technology: My Travel Partner

Stats suggest that the global travel technologies market was valued at six billion USD in 2023, and is set to hit 13 billion USD by 2033. So, from how we choose a destination to the activities we indulge in there, travel technology forms an indispensable part of our journey, and by virtue of that, of the modern tourism industry. And that’s exactly why we have a gadget for every situation we might come across. Selfie sticks, DSLRs, power bank, bluetooth, smartwatch, noise-cancelling headphones, GoPro – you name it!

We even get suitcases with a built-in USB charger and GPS tracker now. Besides, there’s now an app for almost everything. Got lost? Google Maps at your service. Cannot comprehend the road signs? A photo translator is here to help. Want to convert currencies? My Currency Converter & Rates got your back. All in all, this one travel partner has always got our back, we know!

As new travel trends thus crop up with each passing day, it is safe to say that the travel sector has only onward and upwards to look forward to. Which change in this ever-growing industry is your favourite?