Why is Travel an Interesting Industry ?

Why is travel an interesting industry to learn about? Well, first to state the obvious - it is about Fun and Generating Memories. Ask anyone a hypothetical question around you "If you have all the money and time in this world, what would you do?". The answer you are most likely to get it "Travel" without much hesitation. My personal favorite quote for years is:

"Life is not measured by the number of breath you take, but by the moments that take your breath away"

Everyone mentally inks the most pleasant memories in their own personal history book. I would dare to generalize that the most indelible experiences and memories are happen when we travel. Why? well, the way our brain functions just remembers those novel experiences better than routine mundane circumstances. Do you agree? If you also believe in that we are a cumulation of our experiences then you also are most likely to believe that life is about brief joys, those saturated moments when you stand shaky, but upright, and find that you have everything in balance... is when memories will be stores in permanently in our cerebral.

Let's take a look at some facts about the travel industry before I get too carried away in philosophical talk :)

The travel industry pulls in approximately $1.3 trillion annually in the United States alone. That figure leaps to $7 trillion when measured worldwide. That's some serious money and there are many out there looking to get a slice. It's even bigger than energy and health care industry!

Four significant trends that contribute this:

Trend One: There are almost 1 billion baby boomers worldwide. One person every eight seconds reaches retirement age. This trend will continue for the next 20 years. So what? What will these newly retired baby boomers do when they retire? Travel, of course!

Trend Two: The travel industry is growing 23% faster than the global economy. That means that travel is expected to double to $14 trillion worldwide in the next 10 years.

Trend Three: The growth of E-Commerce. Consumers last year spent billions of dollars on the Internet. Travel is the fastest growing segment of that trend.

Trend Four: Statistics show that there are a growing number of small home-based businesses focusedon online travel as a result of travel engine commoditization. With large companies outsourcing and downsizing, people are turning to home based businesses to provide them with job security.

You might ask what the heck is commoditization? According to MSN Encarta dictionary, it is the process by which a product reaches a point in its development where one brand has no features that differentiate it from other brands, and consumers buy on price alone.

Having worked for corporate America for years and being a technology industry insider, it is hard to avoid this concept. You might ask, “Is online travel such technology to be commoditized?” You bet, web technology gets commoditized even faster since they have much shorter development and rework cycle, that’s why there are so many options to do everything online (i.e. local searches via Citysearch,Yelp, Menuism, Judysbook, MetroseeQ (my favorite)). It exists in all general life cycle of a product not limited to technology products like microprocessors, cell phones, game consoles, iPods (you gotta check out iPod Touch!!!) but also household... that’s why it’s called commodity.

So is travel the next wave? the next disrupter that you'll hear in the news? Probably not, because the overall user/customer experience is the same. Booking online is already a skill that most of us have, the only difference is that there will just be more of it, and most destinations to venture to and more money to be made on these travel commissions!

Life is a journey, Travel it. :)