Waymo, the autonomous car development company, recently made history by launching cars on public roads without any safety drivers behind the wheel. The tests aren’t limited to one or two routes, and the cars are able to go anywhere within a defined space, in this case, the space being Chandler in Arizona.

Driverless cars have the potential to completely transform the way we travel. In his most recent TED talk, even Elon Musk, co-founder of Tesla, said that “by the end of this year, an autonomous car will be able to leave a parking space in Los Angeles, navigate all the way across America, and park in a space in New York.” With this shift, there will also arrive a plethora of benefits; from reduced travel costs, to increased road safety and more efficient trips.

We all have, at some point of time in our lives, faced the nightmare of holiday traffic. Long weekends and holidays like Christmas and New Year’s are considered to be some of the most popular and busiest travel days of the year, with many travellers driving to their destinations by car. The advent of self-driving cars could reduce, if not fully eliminate, all this holiday traffic. Self-driving vehicles will be able to travel quickly, instead of being stuck in traffic on congested highways. They will be able to drive closer to the cars in front of them, at faster speeds, and navigate narrow lanes than are generally prone to human error.

Image source: EnergyKids

Self-driving cars may even help travellers plan ahead for increased efficiency. Once the vehicle knows the destination, it could suggest an alternate route based on the expected number of vehicles on the usual route. The car could then also recommend that travellers leave a day earlier or late, or even at two in the morning, to avoid getting stuck.

Autonomous cars could be a game-changer for the airline and rail industry as well. With increased efficiency and reduced costs, people may choose to travel by car than planes or trains. This, in turn, could drastically cut down flying costs, as the airline industry tries to keep up with the advent of this new technology and changing passenger demands. Additionally, self-driving cars allow for point-to-point transportation, which means no more wasted time travelling to a bus or train station or the airport.

Self-driving cars are all set to alter the landscape of mobility and revolutionize the automotive industry, public transport and swathes of the global population. While there is still a lot that needs to be sorted in terms of acceptance and readying our infrastructure for such cars, the excitement in the air is tangible with a faster and more efficient future of travel on the way.

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Two weeks back, KLM introduced a series of weirdly humorous videos. The videos were just made around letting people know that it is in fact an Airline and nothing else. Why, you would ask. Because their recent brand study revealed that many American consumers believed that KLM is a radio station or a milk brand. So the company set off to address that with a dash of humour to drive awareness.

American actor and comedian Ken Marino got onboard to create series of silly and shouty videos in which he zips around a blue set with arms stretched like wings. In another video he describes what appears to be a romantic encounter with a lady while speaking of the flight attendant. The other videos describe airports and passengers in a similar fashion.

The campaign executed with help from creative agency Moustache seems to have clicked very well with the audience. In two weeks, the campaign videos have collectively generated close to 300K views on YouTube alone, certainly should have helped KLM spread the word that they are not a radio channel, and certainly not a milk brand.

While the brand was clearing the air to let its message fly, it also used the opportunity to attract some new fliers through a microsite. It featured simple games meant to educate about KLM and also giving an opportunity to earn loyalty points with frequent flier programs. The microsite attracted close to 8K visitors in a matter of days just in month of August according to estimates by SimilarWeb. It will stay live till the end of November.

You can check out all the video on their YouTube channel.

The post KLM pulled a successful campaign by telling it’s not a radio channel appeared first on TravHQ.

Getting stranded on a long haul flight. Did the airline call in an operational loose end? Does the feeling seem oh so familiar? Airlines have been trying to incorporate operational recovery measures which the tech-savvy traveller has on his fingertips. This has also gotten the airline in a position where they are fighting to keep the customers loyal to their brand who can afford alternate modes of travel; thanks to the technology of the millennium.

Customers can never be categorised in a vertical which would depict the entire behavioural pattern of them. Airlines would have to offer more personalised solutions to these problems if they want to survive the breakneck competition in this segment.

Cognizant has been active in finding industry solutions to all major problems existent today. Their travel and hospitality solutions have been dedicated to niche problems that have a direct impact on brands and their loyalty. Their report on the ability of airlines to deliver customised experiences through operational hazards has a lot of insight to offer. Let’s take a quick look at what are the key takeaways from the case study.

Handling disruptions in all together personalised way

Airlines have come up with collating behavioural pattern and data along the way while bookings and delivering services. This huge data stacked with them has all the potential to build a customised solution around the traveller. This data can be derived from traveller’s online activities and when blended with an understanding of their behavior can devise a personalised disruption solution.

Developing personas

By analysing the data based on behaviour, time and event, the airlines can then develop different personas around the traveller. This varies around their behaviour and their reaction. To develop accurate personas, airlines should use these two attributes to derive data.

Empowering social media channels

By choosing right media channels like Whatsapp or Facebook and sending it on the right device, airlines can greatly reduce consumer anxiety. Around a maximum number of passengers say that they are informed about a disruption after reaching the airport.

Enabling staff

Even after the sense of self-service penetrates, the travellers would prefer the disruption to be handled by the airline staff. Staff enables information exchange channels wide open through a disruptive handling.

Predictive disruption handling

Most of the passengers would want to hear about any disruption on a first-hand basis. Airlines like British Airways employ predictive disruption identification models such as possible cancellation or a future disruption scenario and interact with the flyers.

You can see the entire report here.

The post Here’s how airlines can handle operational disruptions without losing loyalty appeared first on TravHQ.

Quite often you want to evaluate your brand’s performance against competitors and want to judge how your content is faring. In the context of social media, competition evaluation applies to both organic and paid content. To help you out, leading social media analytics company, Socialbakers has come up with a new feature: Promoted Post Detection. Through it, the marketers can compare their competitor’s interactions from organic and promoted posts.

It is widely known that brands are paying for a vast majority of their reach on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ etc. The airline and aviation industry is no different, when it comes to promoted content. If you go by data, 14% promoted posts have contributed to approximately 14.8 million interactions (48% of total 31 million interactions).

(Image: Air Berlin B737-700 Dreamliner D-ABBN by Wikimedia Commons)

Promoting the right posts for maximum engagement is an art to learn as putting money behind every post will prove expensive and unproductive. The story by Socialbakers talks about the contemporary competition that exists within the Airlines industry. The graph below indicates that Turkish Airlines and Qatar Airways have had the highest percentage of interactions in the group.

Image Credit: Screenshot taken directly from Promoted Post Detection in Socialbakers Analytics

Turkish Airlines promoted 14% of their content which is 90% of the total interactions, i.e. their paid post received 55 times more interactions than their organic posts. Qatar Airways performed brilliantly too! 20% of their posts were promoted and they obtained 68% of the total interactions. This is 8 times more interactions than the organic posts.

At the first instance, we might conclude that Turkish Airlines and Qatar Airways are the best in the league. But is this true? Another graph below by ‘Promoted Post Detection’ feature, shows the two real winners of the promoted social media posts in terms of number of interactions.

The graph clearly points out that Turkish Airlines is achieving the largest amount of interactions. KLM is promoting fewer posts but achieving the 2nd largest amount of interactions comparatively. What’s the reason behind its success is also available in this new feature.

Promoted Post Detection will prove beneficial since it will find out for you which post has performed the best. Hence, it can be promoted at the most effective times and to the appropriate audience. There are even markers that will indicate whether the paid posts of the past have performed well or not. If your post has not done well, you can change a few variables of the newly paid posts to try out what works with your audience and makes your spend more effective.  

These details will really assist the players to set the path for paid content. Imagine the application of this feature for hospitality industry, DMOs and other travel startups. Certainly, the usage of Socialbakers Analytics looks quite bright in our opinion!

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