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Transportation, travel & leisure
Overview
The travel and leisure industry was hit hard by the recession of 2007/8.
As The Economist commented when it surveyed the industry in August 2011:
“Europe’s travel industry has had four terrible years: a recession, an Icelandic volcano, unrest in the Middle East, costly oil, a weak dollar and a widespread sense of malaise. People want to get away from it all, but worry that they can’t afford to. Airlines, hotels and cruise ships have all suffered, but the worst-hit are the tour operators. To survive, they have merged and cut costs. In 2007 Thomas Cook, a German-owned travel firm, took over MyTravel, a British rival, to create Europe’s second- biggest package-tour firm. A couple of months later Hanover-based TUI, Europe’s biggest travel company, merged its travel business with First Choice, another British package-holiday company, to create TUI Travel, a company based in London and listed on the London Stock Exchange. Both package-holiday giants cut capacity by as much as 25% in the following years1.”
Two years on from that article and this industry is being robustly re-built – with BRICs:
“In 2011 some 150,000 Chinese tourists made it to Britain, compared with 3.6m visitors from France. Their numbers are growing fast, though, rising by 35% from 2010 to 2011 and 20% year-on-year in the first 11 months of 2012, according to VisitBritain, the national tourist board. To lure more visitors, Theresa May, the home secretary, is moving to simplify the process of applying for visas—something that currently puts off many Chinese. With China’s total outbound market likely to be three times as big as Japan’s by 2020, according to the Boston Consulting Group, the British government is reluctant to miss out on a lot of potential shoppers2.”
The prediction is for tourists from Brazil, Russia, India and China to head for Europe in increasing numbers as their own economies experience dynamic growth and their newly affluent citizens embrace the pleasures of international shopping3.
Related developments include the growth of shopping hotels with the Middle East as a destination of choice:
“Megamalls are booming in the UAE, Lebanon, Egypt and Qatar, while associated hotel developments, Euromonitor notes, are key to the recovery of tourism in many nations that saw a tough year after the Arab Spring in 2011. Following the popularity of shopping in the Middle East, hotels are locating within or next to shopping malls. Even with a slow year, the Dubai Shopping Festival drew 3.5 million visitors last year and saw hotels at 90 percent occupancy4.”
Technology is also coming to the fore as a catalyst for industry growth.
Reflecting the dominant trend in Telecommunications[MB1] , for example, mobility will be key as customers make the move in increasing numbers to browsing and booking their travel on smartphones and tablets:
“For online hotel booking firm, HotelTonight, the single biggest trend to emerge in 2012 will be the continued penetration of smartphones and the resulting shift of everyday activities from PC-based websites to the device in the customers’ pocket. “We believe the smartphone will become the new laptop and the resulting opportunities and challenges for businesses will be extreme,” says Jared Simon chief operating officer of HotelTonight.com5. ”
We can also expect to see technology permeate journeys from end-to-end with innovations such as virtual agents at airports and other travel hubs, mobile WiFi connectivity, closer integration with social media platforms and a wide choice of business travel apps.
In fact, technology may well prove to be the clearest area where it makes for operators to outsource their requirements to trusted specialists as they concentrate on their core task of taking care of travellers.
To discover more about the ways in which we can help our customers, please click the links below:
We offer transportation, travel and leisure organisations the opportunity to remove complexity across a full range of business processes. By unburdening themselves of back office functions which support their operation but are essentially peripheral to their vision and mission, we give these customers time and efficiency to focus on what they do best. The result is more flexibility and greater efficiency in the face of formidable challenges. A leading provider of worldwide hotel and resorts destinations already trusts us to deliver HR Advisory services, process excellence and financial and accounting services. When required, we can also provide offshoring services which can deliver advantages including speed to market, back office transformation, on-demand business, improved customer service and cost optimisation.
We offer extensive technology capabilities across a variety of industry sectors. In this sector specifically, we manage IT network services, migrate a legacy platform and deliver end user computing services for a major international airport. We also design, build and run the software that supports a range of business processing solutions. We embed our intellectual property (IP) to create a solution faster and more cost-effectively than our customers can themselves. We can also provide customers with Total IT Outsourcing (ITO) solutions – a single point of supply for an end-to-end managed service.
Customers include: Gatwick Airport Limited, Singapore International Airlines
We are experts in supporting procurement professionals with services including sourcing, spend management, procure to pay (P2P), system management and software solutions. In this industry, we already provide customers with a procure to pay (P2P) service that helps to reduce procurement costs, control operational costs and ensure compliance with procurement policy.
Customers include: Hyatt hotels
