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How travel brands are prioritizing group travel plans
Here's a new iMessage from “Mom.” A new iMessage from “Dad.” The new iMessage from “Brother.” “dad.” “sibling.” “mom.” “mom.” “mom.” While planning a group trip with family or friends, you may be constantly getting pinged. There's always at least one person who doesn't respond, resulting in resentment for everyone involved.
Group communication can be difficult, but the challenges of organizing group tours have historically extended beyond text etiquette. “Whether you’re traveling with one additional person or with a group of 20 or 30, we want to address different opinions, needs and preferences,” says Michelle Denogean, chief marketing officer at Mindtrip, which offers group plans on its platform. “It will work,” he said.
As group travel grows in popularity, companies like Mindtrip, Expedia Group, and Airbnb are looking for ways to simplify the process by integrating new tools. Meanwhile, others like SquadTrip, Joyned, and WeTravel are focused solely on simplifying group travel planning.
“As more people seek to share experiences with friends, family or strangers with similar interests, suppliers are recognizing the need to facilitate these group experiences more seamlessly,” said CEO of SquadTrip, the provider of everything. said Darrien Watson, co-founder and founder. It is a platform where you can plan, book and pay for group travel.
Group travel is on the rise
As group travel grows in popularity, there is a focus on simplification, according to a recent report from MarkWide Research and Phocuswright. For example, in Phocuswright's 2023 U.S. Consumer Travel Report, 11% of respondents said they were traveling with a loved one. This is a 57% increase from the previous year, when the 2022 report found that 7% of survey respondents said they were traveling with friends and family.
“Now that the pandemic is over, not only is the need to travel greater, but so is the desire to travel with others,” said Alicia Schmid, director of research at Phocuswright. “Our research shows a corresponding decline in the number of people traveling alone. “More and more travelers are traveling for the purpose of rest and relaxation, but also to spend time with friends and family.”
As more people seek to share experiences with friends, family, or strangers with similar interests, vendors are recognizing the need to facilitate these group experiences more seamlessly.
Darian Watson — SquadTrip
According to Denogean, group travel once existed as a ‘niche product’ within the context of larger groups and tours. Now things are changing.
“The travel industry is increasingly recognizing the value of group travel not only as a revenue stream but also as a way to diversify products and improve service delivery,” Watson said. He believes the focus on group travel planning is driven by a shift in consumers. The same goes for behavioral and technological advancements.
“Today’s travelers are looking for more curated and shared experiences, which is increasing the demand for group travel.”
Group travel has traditionally required a lot of manual work, with many more happening across multiple communication channels: various social networks, planning tools, individually tracked payments, reconciliation, and more.
“The more manual travel planning, the more errors occur and the more time it takes for time-poor organizers,” said Zaky Prabowo, co-founder and chief operating officer of WeTravel.
Jonathan Abraham, CEO and co-founder of Joyned, which helps online travel companies offer group bookings, said the group travel planning process was “long, fragmented and very cumbersome.”
“There is a growing demand for platforms that streamline and centralize this process into simple solutions,” Abraham said.
How travel agencies are using technology to advance group travel
Making group travel easier is becoming a priority for many travel platforms.
“As a technology platform, we are missing out on a key and growing market opportunity if we do not support the growing demand for group travel with planning and booking capabilities,” Prabowo said.
Travel giants Airbnb and Expedia Group announced group planning features at their May update event.
Airbnb said 80% of trips planned on its platform are group trips. The company announced features such as shared wishlists, group messaging with hosts, and trip invitations in an effort to streamline the group travel planning process.
Meanwhile, Expedia Group unveiled Romie, an artificial intelligence travel assistant that can be pulled into group text messages and WhatsApp groups to make travel plans. Romie can provide suggestions, information and summarize group chats, and even gives you the option to take group chat discussion points into the Expedia app to make travel shopping easy.
New players are also prioritizing group travel.
Group planning is “at the core” of the recently launched Mindtrip, Denogean said. Once a trip is created on Mindtrip's AI-powered platform, users can invite co-travelers to collaborate. Each traveler can then review their details, leave comments, add and remove items, and move their itinerary. Other group members will be notified whenever there is a change.
Similarly, at SquadTrip, planning begins with one traveler (the host) setting up a travel landing page on the SquadTrip platform. Hosts can implement automatic billing, manage reservations and payments, and communicate with participants in one place, where they can view trip details and register and pay on the site.
And WeTravel, which started out as a multi-day travel planner for educational institutions, allows group organizers to create an itinerary on the platform and then create a link or embeddable “Book Now” button on their website. From here, organizers can manage reservations, communications, information and payments. We also offer a variety of payment solutions, allowing organizers and suppliers to transfer funds between accounts.
Meanwhile, Joined, which launched an AI planner for travelers last May, is a social commerce service provider directly integrated into the vendor platform. Joyned is also working to provide key group planning insights to our vendor partners to help with personalization and more.
challenges and opportunities
Although travel technology providers are developing ways to streamline group travel planning, many challenges remain, including the nature of group travel and the nuances that come with planning for crowds.
“One of the key technology challenges in facilitating group travel is creating a platform that is robust enough to handle complex and variable data and user-friendly enough for a wide range of users,” said SquadTrip’s Watson.
The nature of group travel requires adjusting to different payment schedules, preferences and needs, requiring technology solutions that are inherently dynamic and flexible, Watson said. He added that various systems, such as payment and communication systems, must also be integrated into one interface without compromising security or efficiency.
This presents “significant technical hurdles,” Watson said.
However, the challenge remains open to solutions.
“Advances in technology now allow us to build comprehensive tools that can automate some of the most tedious aspects of group travel planning,” Watson said. Watson uses data analytics, AI and machine learning to make personalized recommendations, automate He said it offers advanced schedule management and real-time travel planning. Times change.
Prabowo said creating technology for rationalization is itself an opportunity.
“For the growing markets and submarkets within group travel, there is a huge opportunity to better develop technology to support travel-related needs in managing multi-day group travel,” Prabowo said. Activities, accommodation, transportation, ticket costs, deposits, etc.
Most technology solutions handle one method of that process, Prabowo said. That's where opportunity lies.
“Before using WeTravel, we had clients who would send monthly payment links through their regular contractors to ensure each installment was paid. Now they can do that through WeTravel’s automatic payment reminders, allowing them to spend more time on parts of the group experience that technology can’t support.”
And Denogean said Mindtrip is looking at opportunities around personalization, group chats and in-travel features, and is shifting from travel-related features to generating recommendations for “everyday experiences.”
This article originally appeared on PhocusWire.