International Travel Satisfaction Grows with Increasing Digital Transformation
In today's technology-driven world, the travel industry is experiencing a significant amount of digital transformation that is redefining customer experiences. These changes have continued to accelerate since the smartphone revolution of the late 2000s. To better gauge these satisfaction gains and find out what pieces of an international traveler’s journey could still be improved, we conducted a new survey of 2,000 frequent international travelers across the G20.
Our findings indicated a substantial increase in customer satisfaction as travelers embrace innovative solutions designed to enhance convenience and personalization. From intuitive mobile applications that streamline booking processes to AI-powered chatbots offering real-time support, these advancements – including advanced identity verification (IDV) systems – are reshaping the way we explore the globe. Let's delve into these survey results to discover how digital transformation, with a focus on IDV, is elevating the travel experience to new heights.
While the smartphone emerged in the late 2000s, the trends in digital transformation have been long in the making but uneven in their wholesale adoption. The COVID-19 pandemic changed all that, with a massive acceleration in digital transformation. After the pandemic, that acceleration has been a significant turning point in traveler satisfaction with new innovations in the travel industry.
However, these satisfaction gains are not the same for every stage of the traveler’s journey – border control and immigration are far behind in customer satisfaction when compared to other areas of the journey.
In our latest survey, we validated these trends and uncovered fresh insights about who international travelers are in 2024, along with their feelings regarding digital transformation in the industry.
Customers Prize Technological Reliability Over Data Privacy Concerns
As digital transformation of the travel industry expands across the globe, Entrust was interested in gauging travelers' concerns, not just their satisfaction, as a critical part of our survey. We found customers were concerned with technological failure (ranked #1) over concerns about data privacy (ranked #2). These concerns have only increased after the large breakdown in airport digital infrastructure that affected major U.S. airlines reliant on CrowdStrike as a cybersecurity provider during the summer of 2024.
The next ranked traveler concern was how digital transformation UX (user experience) could be negatively affected by increasing digital transformation.
While travelers will never truly escape delays, cancellations, and rescheduling, travel service providers can do their part to accelerate digital transformation and improve customer satisfaction.
One solution is exploring new ways to integrate cutting-edge technology like Entrust IDV to enhance traveler satisfaction during immigration and border phases of the traveler journey. The two Entrust case studies below offer ways forward for travel service providers who might be struggling to improve international-traveler satisfaction.
Start A Curaçao Vacation Off Quickly & Easily
It's easy to imagine an ideal airport immigration experience – quick, easy, non-invasive, safe, and secure – but can it be done? It is being tried in Curaçao!
The island nation of Curaçao is a global vacation destination that welcomes more than 1. million visitors each year. These visitors have an estimated economic impact of $1.4 billion on the nation. So it only made sense for the government of Curaçao to partner with Entrust to deploy a technological solution that eases friction throughout the immigration process, leading to a dramatic increase in customer satisfaction.
After an extended period of research and planning, the government of Curaçao launched the Curaçao Express Pass in collaboration with Airside, an Entrust company.
Register for our December 10 webinar on the success of the Curaçao Express Pass!
The program uses pre-enrollment before travel and biometric corridors with e-gates inside of Curaçao Hato International Airport after arrival to allow passengers an end-to-end seamless travel experience. With immigration and border crossing paperwork completed beforehand, those who have pre-enrolled and completed the logistics from their mobile device can deplane and immediately enter the country to begin their stay.
Welcome to the UK – No Physical Visa Necessary
Entrust has worked closely over the last few years with the UK Home Office to develop the infrastructure and technology to build up a digital alternative to the common paper visa needed for medium - and long-term visitors.
Now this work with Entrust and the UK Home Office has been expanded to offer visitors to the United Kingdom an Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA) in place of the traditional visa. The ETA lasts up to two years and can be used with biometrics at ports of entry. This technology could increase the satisfaction of over 30 million travelers from eligible countries who land at UK airports each year.
Learn more about our international traveler survey and the data we found.
Or if you are interested in how your airport or government travel bureau can implement similar industry-leading solutions from Entrust, read more about our IDV and Seamless Travel offerings.
