Raft of Huge Travel Companies Sign up to Innovative Uber App

"Uberification"! 

What does it mean and why do the most famous companies follow this trend?

Photo source:

 http://www.journaldugeek.com/2014/09/02/uber-na-plus-le-droit-dexercer-ses-activites-en-allemagne/

Firstly, let’s try to understand why this strange word has currently created a great deal of buzz all over the world. Uber is an app-based transportation network and taxi company which today operates in many countries. Tourism and travel companies are looking for more innovative ways to engage with their customers via this mobile platform. United Airlines was the first company who has featured Uber on its mobile apps. Today TripAdvisor, OpenTable, Starbucks, Hyatt Hotels & Resorts are also following suit and using Uber as a part of the service offered.

The video below demonstrates how to use Uber properly!

Secondly, let’s have a look how companies can profit by "Uberification".

As an example, Trip Advisor makes planning customers’ future travel much easier by means of the app: they simply go on Trip Advisor, plan their trip and the app finds a vehicle in the country-destination.

Hyatt Hotels also proposes to its guests to go on the hotel app to book their transportation directly via Uber. It allows client less hazardous way to get an estimated price for transportation during the travel than using traditional methods of taxi.

United Airlines has also established a commercial partnership with Uber by offering a reward (miles program) if they use the app. This is a win-win situation to both Uber and United Airlines companies: they get a lot of customer who are attracted by the reward offered and who are willing to travel more.

As its common knowledge, every medal has two sides and in this case there are also some difficulties that Uber has encountered. As an example, French taxi can see this app as an unfair competitor as the Uber drivers are not professionals and they do not have to pay for a driving license. This fact challenges the taxi industry regulations  in some countries where the app is very well used.

Despite these legislative issues it has been argued that Uber represents a legitimate example of consumer choice and the app continues to expand. Indeed, Uber is planning to diversify its products by having a greater exposure on the market: company would like to launch a grocery delivery service. The grocery would have a competitive price and would be delivered for free directly to YOUR door.

“Valuable niche of the travel industry”! 

This is the real future of the Uber as hotels and airlines can propose this extra service to the clients.

If you want to stay informed and to be ALWAYS aware of the digital tourism trends, this link is for you and only for you https://www.facebook.com/DigitalTourismThinkTank

More information you can find here http://thinkdigital.travel/opinion/raft-of-huge-travel-companies-sign-up-to-innovative-uber-app/

And of course you can always contact us: 

Fanny fanny.picarle@skema.edu & Anastassiya anastassiya.shikhovtseva@skema.edu

And remember: 

"Things get much easier if one jumps on the bandwagon of existing trends". 

Lei Jun

Smart Data: Airbnb's community has reached half a million users worldwide, all gathered on a virtual globe

Airbnb community on New Year's Eve 2014

Airbnb presents its latest creation: an on-line application, which takes the form of an interactive map to treat all current bookings and travels as to gather all Airbnb users on Earth, virtually. The result is impressive as the community has never been so wide worldwide: a million houses and half a million travelers.

But beyond giving single numbers, the platform continues to go forward on the digital world and ends up today with an intuitive map doped with data. No more banal graphs; by offering a continuous overview of its activities in the world, Air Bnb gives a new dimension to the scope of its network.

Airbnb is no longer a single accommodation provider but has been able to create a wide network that gets stronger and stronger everyday. The sharing and interactivity within the Airbnb community is strong as it is the essence of the company. In deed, their business model is base on a collaborative system by the community: the members of Airbnb are both travellers and hosts! The on line network of Airbnb is international: an interactive map gives us an idea about the destinations and travels worldwide. This map, on continuous update, reveals a live and dynamic overview of the Airbnb travellers day by day. 

For New Year’s eve for instance, we learnt that Paris was the favourite destination as it welcomed around 36 000 travellers. The capital was, for a night, the center of the community platform among 190 countries! Picture that; more than half a million people used Air Bnb to book a night throughout the world. It means that only a very few countries (less than 10) were not reached and some hotspots are definitely coming out as most popular destinations.

This map, an innovative tool developed by the company is a good overview on the community of Airbnb along with the a sight on the evolution of travels and destinations. By day, by location or by interests we can extract interesting data from this map to compare, analyse and evaluate the different trends and profiles of travellers using this collaborative system.

For Airbnb, it is obviously a valuable tool to follow its community and strengthen its network. Moreover, if this interactive map and free of access is possibly a benefit for the users to identify the destinations and travel opportunities, it is also a very good marketing campaign by and for Air Bnb, already acknowledged as an “expert” on virtual platform. The company’s creativity has already shown some brilliant results in a previous video during their marketing campaign Welcome to Airbnb.

The young accommodation provider has understood the potential of new technologies (NTIC) to gather and share within people. In 5 years, Air Bnb has been able, thanks to a very creative and innovative step, to attract from 2 000 in 2010 to 500 000 people today to join the community to travel and host worldwide.. In deed, internet is the one thing that has allowed so many travellers to achieve their goal, it is also the strength of Air Bnb which, with obviously a very good understanding of the virtual world, has succeeded in creating a true atmosphere online around their brand. Creativity and innovation seem to be the master words for their performance and Airbnb delivers us today with a solid proof of their success: their wide community spread around the globe.

Click to discover the interactive map! 

Théophile Pelletier et Marine Issautier

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