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Travel Subscriptions on the Rise

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Coming off from one of PhocusWire latest webinar on travel trends and learning about how the change of consumer behaviours and shift in loyalty is driving the emergence of travel subscription models prompted me to look further into this growing trend.

Togetherness whilst having a sense of uniqueness is pushing travellers to look differently at how they book holidays today. They are searching for meaningful, purposeful and inclusive holidays. They are exploring more, they want to be inspired, they looking for experiences that convey emotional value with sustainability reflected across the entire travel journey. That is some of the output resulting from searches led into this topic by Google Travel Sustainable Team.

According to Eurocontrol, The European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation, the airline traffic is consistently rising, week-on-week, with the United Kingdom, Spain and Germany being the busiest countries. This is a healthy indication that the travel industry is heading back to good operational levels.

Subscriptions and memberships represent a way for travel companies to create lasting relationships with consumers. Reading through a few articles to tie in with the overall insights shared by the PhocusWire panel, I’ve predominantly come across 5 subscriptions models in operation today (although they may be a lot of variations relying on the same principles):

  1. Free/Paid membership programme - whereby travellers get discounted rates for booking hotels, accommodations from a specific TA, OTA, marketplaces but can also enjoy other benefits outside of that travel network (e.g. retailers, grocers etc)

  2. Annual subscription model - similar to a paid membership but with the additional flexibility to modify, change the travelling plans as needed and typically operating in a close loop.

  3. Flat fee model - giving the flexibility to travellers to book a number of nights at a reduced flat fee per night to stay within any accommodations of a specific brand.

  4. BNPL (BuyNowPayLater) - not quite a subscription model, but deferred payment models are growing [travel recovery] trends that cannot be ignored.

  5. Travel subscriptions boxes - for a monthly subscriptions fee, customers get delivered elements of their favourite destinations (or places they have yet to discover) directly at their doorstep. This caters to those who love everything about traveling, from sampling traditional foods to shopping in local markets, from beach lovers and campers to culture vultures and foodies, the options are endless.

Travel membership models are evolving to embrace so many different aspects of travellers’ lives beyond the trip. The subscription market has grown significantly beyond the streaming services and those models can be quite appealing. For a great end-to-end experience with tangible benefits such as lower costs consumers will possibly be willing to subscribe to those models.

 I am personally quite curious about the travel boxes and may well sign up to try this soon.

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