Richard Turen
There are two or three mental closets I try to never open. One has to do with novels I need to write; another has to do with travel apps I need to design.
The size of the travel app market reached an estimated $17.5 billion last year, with smartphones becoming the travel planner of choice for more than 60% of travelers. The typical overseas traveler uses an average of nine apps to research and coordinate a single trip.
So I started thinking about apps that might have the potential to have an impact, however small, on the travel decision-making and implementation process.
Airline "Who Ya Gonna Call?": Connects you with supervisory personnel at every major airline and airport in the world. Name, title, email and phone contacts provided.
One Free Travel Question: A team of travel experts in every major sector agree to answer one question a day from worldwide users on topics related to their specialty.
The Cruise Line Dining App: Offers menus from every restaurant on every cruise line and, where possible, enables the user to make reservations in specialty dining venues.
In-flight Trivia: Can only be activated while onboard an aircraft, with a prize for the winner supplied by the sponsoring airline on every flight segment. All questions will be related to travel.
Meet the Guest: An app that enables guests to prepare a Hospitality Preference Profile that would be sent to any hotel worldwide booked for a future stay. This would enable management to know some unique things future guests are willing to share that could contribute to a more memorable stay.
Fee-Free Travel Specialists: A curated list of well-qualified travel specialists who charge no fees of any kind for their services. Each agent's area of specialty and background as well as consortium affiliation would be noted.
Recommended Rooms: The independent app that lists the preferred rooms in major categories at four- and five-star hotel properties worldwide.
International City Private Profiler: Users take a 20-question psychological multiple-choice test that results in the app recommending a specific city in the world that most closely meets the users specific needs, expectations and profile.
The American Expat Guide: For the increasing number of U.S. tourists seeking a real understanding of local lifestyles and practices, there is no better guide than an American who has moved to the city they will be visiting. This app can deliver on expectations of American guests, and a catalog of those willing to do some private guiding could be extremely popular -- although the quality of work would need to be carefully evaluated.
The Intelligent Traveler's Country Prep: Unlike millions of other apps, this destination guide would have one purpose: familiarize the user with summaries of leading news stories that have appeared in local newspapers over the past 30 days in locations they will be visiting. This could be a wonderful enhancement to the often dated materials found in guidebooks or travel blogger posts.
The Travel Writer Compensation App: This would identify the specific means of compensation for travel writers and bloggers. Just exactly how are they paid, and is free travel part of the deal? I feel like anyone who follows travel advice from any source would love to know.
Don't-Go-When: An app for our times. Based on tourism and local hotel industry data, this app would feature specific dates when the destination in question is going to be severely overcrowded to the point that it could negatively affect a vacation.