Fresh from family road trip of Europe, GlobalTix’s Chan ticks off top trends in tours and activities
The human touch blended with Augmented Reality technology in tours is the next frontier in storytelling, believes Chan Chee Chong, CEO and co-founder of the tours and activities technology platform, GlobalTix, who’s just returned from a two-week family holiday in Europe “where I behaved like a true tourist, no work or blended travel at all”.
Start of ghost tour in Prague.
Travelling with his 83-year-old parents, and six-year-old son – ticking the boxes of current trends (multi-generational, longer trips) – he and his wife rented a car and did a road trip that started in Frankfurt and covered Prague, Krakow, Budapest, Vienna and Munich, looking for experiences along the way that would suit the entire family.
Citing an example, he said, “We went on an underground ghost tour of Prague. The guide telling the story made it come alive, but the best part of the tour was going down into a dungeon, where the lights flickered, the background music turned on, on its own, and there was the projection of people in the old days, and the guide getting the group to participate in the experience.
“I also went to Salzwelten Hallstatt (the oldest saltmine in the world, dating back to 5,000BC) and the lightshow telling the story of the ancient miners was beautiful too. I believe the next frontier for story telling will be AR, once the price of AR glasses come down or projection of 3D images becomes a reality.”
Lightshow in the saltmine of Salzwellen Hallstatt
However, he said, it is getting very confusing for tourists to find the right tours.
Said Chan, “AI is already taking place, from content writing, customisation and upselling right to customer services. AI is creeping into everyday booking experiences.”
Father and son in the dungeon torture chamber – we wonder who’s having more fun?
“As the number of experiences in every city shoot up, it has reached a point that it’s impossible and tedious for consumers to scroll though. For example, a simple day tour to Mt Fuji, you have luxury version, simple version, one tour that adds more stuff, one day tour that allows you to chill more. There are more than 10-15 options.
“That’s why I think customisation on delivery of services, knowing your customers want, through their searches is important. OTAs tell me that they see a trend of natural language in search bar rather than purely keywords.”
He also noted the surge in popularity of immersive experiences such as the Van Gogh Immersive, which will end in Singapore this month. However technology can fail. “I was at Schonbrunn Palace (Vienna), the audio guide was simple to use and it brings alive the tour experience. My kid and parents loved it and used it, but in the Mercedes Museum in Stuttgart, the audio guide was absolutely irritating and hard to use. It uses automation trigger that didn’t work half the time and a laser pointer that didn’t work as well.
“Technology needs to be delivered in way that is seamless, more doesn’t mean good. ”
Chan also said he’s seeing an increase in “technology unplugged” tours, that is, nature-related activities.
“It seems like nature is the best story teller. It touches our soul and rejuvenate us. It doesn’t seem to need technology to enhance it.
“Robert Basiuk from Borneo Adventure (Sarawak), during WiT Indie, said that while bookings for his company’s experiences changed from fax machine to online booking, his best-selling product fundamentally did not change for the last 30-40 years. It is still experiencing the heart of Borneo in all its splendour. Likewise for breakfast in the wild by Mandai Zoo, no change except for the different animals.”
What’s changed is how consumers search and take in information which has gone from words to pictures to videos – “from Google to Facebook to TikTok”.
“As content creator operators to content delivery people (OTAs), we cannot ignore the changing trends and the various platforms that our customers are choosing to discover us. The fortunate thing is that consumers now want authenticity which means it’s much easier to create the videos. There are also plenty of tools outside to help you with videos.”
Note: Chan Chee Chong will be speaking at WiT Singapore, Oct 2-4, on a panel about “The Human-ness of Travel & Experiences”.
