Air India enters the digital age

Air India chief, ex Scoot Singapore boss, Campbell Wilson, is making digitalisation of the airline’s operations a priority.

The national carrier has been a laggard for years but under new owners Tata Group, Air India hopes to recapture some, if not all, of its former stature as a leading international airline.

Customers will benefit when the airline upgrades its website and mobile app, introduces a user-friendly customer notifications system and a ChatGPT-driven chatbot.

Other improvements cover a customer service portal with real-time customer support request tracking, digital marketing, contact centre modernisation, disruption management and self-service re-accommodation, customer feedback, and analysis.

The airline’s in-flight entertainment system will also be upgraded.

Air India recently announced a record mega deal for 470 planes from Airbus and Boeing, a move that is being viewed as a direct challenge to the influence of the Gulf carriers in India’s aviation market – and an attempt to establish India as a preferred connection hub for travel to the US and Europe.

Time for the train to take the strain.

Cost and travel time still take precedence over carbon emissions when people book trips. But sustainability is a growing concern among travellers, with an increasing number of consumers citing emissions as a factor in their booking decisions, according to a new study.

Omio, a Berlin-based ground transportation platform, reports these and other findings in “The Omio Mobility Report: Winter Travel Trends,” which compares data from the first three months of this year to the same period four years ago. The Omio Group is comprised of Omio and Australia-based multimodal company Rome2rio.

The comparison of Q1 2019 with Q1 2023 shows a 20% increase in total train bookings and a 54% decrease in total flight bookings, as some travellers find trains are often more hassle-free than airplanes, said Peter Tomlinson, vice president of data at Omio.

“Travellers are continuing to take a deeper interest in sustainable travel, and we’re thrilled to see that train travel is more than a trend,” Tomlinson said. “This shows us that train travel is not simply a buzzword or popular hashtag but is here to stay.”

While flight prices have increased substantially due to labour shortages and increased fuel prices, train costs have remained level, according to Omio.

Omio said stable train prices could be due to various factors, including new European Union policy enforcing competition in the rail sector and consumer confidence in making advance bookings.

Source Kathryn Walson/Phocuswire

No Dolce Vita for Russian travellers

Travel intelligence provider, Mabrian, has been tracking travel trends in the Russian market and not surprisingly has found that Russians are steering clear of many European tourist destinations.

Turkey was the destination that grew most in popularity with Russian travellers during 2022, while the UAE and Thailand also benefitted from the reluctance of Russians to venture into the classic destinations of Italy, Germany, France, Spain and Greece.

Of all the countries impacted, Italy has been the destination that has been hit the most compared to 2019.

Important factors that have affected European tourist destinations: the impact of sanctions on Russians and the difficulties of travelling from Russia to Europe due to the EU and UK visas’ restrictions and the ban on direct flights because of the war in Ukraine.

The fall in the value of the rouble during the summer of 2022 was another relevant factor, making the average hotel price in Italy 46% higher than the average price in Turkey.

The Mabrian study was based on an analysis of the hotel demand of the Russian travellers and the average hotel room price in the more than 700 destinations worldwide during 2022, comparing with 2019 trends.

Mabrian’s team analysed more than two million reviews posted by Russians and the published hotel prices in the main OTA’s (Booking, Expedia and TripAdvisor) for these two years.

As for closer proximity tourism, Georgia, Armenia, and Kazakhstan have now become part of the top 20 preferred destinations for Russians in 2022.

Coronation tags for Heathrow travellers

Heathrow, the UK’s busiest airport, will be offering commemorative bag tags during the 10 days around the London coronation of King Charles.

Twelve thousand tags will be given out to passengers from May 1-10, the same number of flights that will be arriving and departing Heathrow during that period.

The tag’s design by artist Morag Myerscough includes a splash of colours and an archway symbolising Heathrow’s role as the gateway to the UK.