Top 10 Travel industry trends you need to know…

By Erik Torkells Tuesday, Aug. 03, 2010

Because of increased price transparency — you can compare airfares and hotel rates much more easily than in the past, especially on meta–search engines like Kayak that search all over the Web — airlines and hotels are desperate to build whatever customer loyalty they can. They think that if everything is equal, or at least close to it, you’ll reserve with them.

So they reward loyalty — not just by giving perks to repeat customers through frequent-user clubs but also by offering last-minute discounts via promotional codes, through e-mail newsletters and to friends and followers on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. (Here’s a list by Resideo.com of hotels using Twitter, organized geographically.) And in a related development, travel companies are already looking at ways to customize offers to you based on topics you’ve written about on Facebook, on Twitter and elsewhere.

The deals are last-minute because airlines and hotels want to avoid handing deals to the very folks who might have been most interested in booking anyway.

Price transparency has also made it harder for the travel industry to fill seats and rooms at rock-bottom prices without everybody knowing it; hotels and (to a lesser degree) airlines don’t want to cheapen their image or alienate customers who paid full price. That’s why we’ve been seeing more “private sales,” in which a controlled group of people — like on Facebook or Twitter — gets access to a deal.

The Gilt Group, known for its private-sale fashion sites, introduced Jetsetter.com, which offers deals on luxury hotels and vacation rentals; fashion site Ruelala.com has followed suit. Tablet Hotels, a booking site specializing in “noteworthy” hotels, has a private club; to join, you have to book a stay on the site, be invited by a member or fork out $195 for a Plus membership, although the site has been known to post a promo code (see trend No. 2) on its Facebook page. The same goes for Bonvoyou and Vacationist.com, an invitation-only site launched in April by LuxuryLink.com and Travel + Leisure magazine, which offers private sales on rooms at luxury hotels and resorts — follow it on Facebook or Twitter. Kayak also launched what it calls a private sale; its deals are exclusive to Kayak but not exactly private — you merely have to submit your e-mail address. (It plans on adding deals for airfare and hotel packages.) And then there’s Spirit Airlines, which has a club that — not surprisingly (see trend No. 6) — you have pay to join. For $40 a year, you get access to certain members-only fares.

Note: Many of the hotel deals are nonrefundable and unchangeable. Which leads us to …

Read the fine print or else. Companies such as Hilton, Hyatt, Starwood and Fairmont have been offering extra-low rates with a major catch: they’re nonrefundable and can’t be changed. There are a number of reasons hotels are doing this: 1) A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush — and don’t think for a second that hotels aren’t extremely envious of airlines’ ability to charge passengers itinerary-change fees; 2) the hotels can dangle a low rate on their own sites and on booking engines — “rooms starting at $149″ — knowing that many travelers will end up choosing more expensive, cancelable reservations; and 3) travelers have been getting wise to hotels’ (and car-rental agencies’) trick of dropping prices at the last minute, so these rates discourage people from canceling and rebooking at a lower rate.

The Transportation Department’s new rule forcing planes to disembark passengers after three hours of waiting on the tarmac solves the nightmarish problem of the eight-hour tarmac delay. But one unintended consequence is that airlines may simply cancel flights. That’s their current modus operandi whenever a big storm approaches, because they don’t want their planes stuck out of position (which is why sometimes airports list themselves as “operational” even when all their flights have been canceled).

There’s less downside to simply scrapping the flight: airlines already have the passengers’ money, which is why they may suddenly be willing to rebook with no penalty — they’d rather book someone onto a new flight than risk having to refund money later on. If you’re flying out of a European Union country, be aware that the E.U.’s passenger-friendly laws cover all passengers, even if they’re on a non-E.U. airline. So if your flight is delayed or canceled, the airline may have to cover your hotel and meals or — now this is a switch — pay you a fee.

They’d charge for SkyMall if they could. Airlines have been “unbundling” fares for years now — instead of paying one price that covers everything, you now pay à la carte. The specifics vary by airline: you might find yourself shelling out for food, entertainment, seat selection, checked baggage, a guaranteed standby seat, a pillow and blanket or priority boarding. And recent evidence shows that the airlines aren’t done finding new ways to monetize the flying experience. Spirit asks for $20 to $45 to put a bag in the overhead compartment, British Airways charges £10 to choose a seat more than 24 hours before a flight (even if you only want to guarantee a seat next to your travel companion), and European discount airline Ryanair says it will begin demanding £1 or €1 to use the lavatory. Ultimately, travelers have to look at airfares the way they look at products sold on TV: the price might seem low, but what about the shipping and handling?

Remember when you needed a case for your travel documents? Find another use for it, because one of the last scraps of important travel-related paper, the boarding pass, is headed for the recycling bin. As the industry has embraced 2-D bar codes vs. the relatively expensive magnetic strips on old-fashioned boarding passes, the location of that bar code — on a pass you printed at home or at a kiosk or on a Web-enabled cell phone — has ceased to matter. So has where you checked in; you can do that from your phone.

Continental leads in the adoption of smart-phone boarding-pass technology, allowing passengers to board with electronic passes at 42 U.S. airports, followed by American (27 U.S. airports), United (18, which will add to Continental’s total, now that the two carriers have merged) and Delta (17).

Doing good while traveling has been a trend for years, but organizations have long required one or even two weeks’ commitment, arguing that it takes time for people to get trained and make a difference. For someone who’s never volunteered, that can be a high threshold. But more organizations are discovering that a day of help is better than no help at all. Most U.S. national parks have cleanup days and other volunteer opportunities for which they put out a call — often on Facebook — for locals and visitors who want to donate four hours. (Also check out volunteer.gov/gov for volunteer projects at national parks and with the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and Fish and Wildlife Service.)

It’s not just the Teva-wearing set that’s gotten on board: in 2008, Ritz-Carlton launched Give Back Getaways, in which every property has joined with a nearby organization for a social or environmental endeavor. Guests might spend half-days assisting staff and locals as they build facilities for street children in Jakarta or plant endangered indigenous trees in Tenerife, Spain. You can do good in the morning and kick back in the afternoon.