With the beginning of the new year, everyone is making new decisions, resolutions and grand plans. Many of the plans circle around travel wish lists and where to visit next.
As you’ll discover later on, most serial travelers haven’t yet decided on a destination, though! With the use of digital signage, you can help them decide and nudge them in your direction. Digital signage has the capability of playing an important role in the travel industry. It helps accommodating the needs of your travelers, and influencing their travel-related decisions. Take a look at what else you can achieve if you incorporate digital signage in your business plans and adapt it to the industry of travel!
1. Accommodate travelers’ needs
Let’s start off with the basics. Today, the modern traveler has certain needs and expectations for when they arrive at any travel destination, be it an airport or a bus stop. Be it a location they’ve never visited, or a location they’ve visited many times before, travelers will welcome the following provisions via digital signage:
- Wayfinding can be presented through your digital displays to highlight locations of interest, nearby events, restaurants, hotels and even wayfinding within the station. This is especially beneficial for airports and train stations given their size.
- Wi-Fi is another excellent accommodation the modern traveler will without a doubt accept.
- News, especially local, are an excellent way to keep travelers informed. Local news are especially useful if they provide data about weather, traffic density, or unusual happenings. This helps travelers make plans more efficiently and safely.
- Digital signage has several great benefits for tourism, ensuring anyone new to the given location knows where to go next and what to expect.
2. Make the journey more enjoyable
Apart from meeting travelers’ immediate needs, there are other ways in which digital signage can further push you ahead of the competition. If you have the option to make one’s traveling experience as comfortable as it possibly can be, you should by all means take advantage of it.
For instance, digital signage can lower perceived waiting times through entertainment. TVs in buses or airplanes aren’t new, as you’ve surely seen your fair share of them in your travels. Yet, through the use of digital signage software, the content on in-vehicle displays can be more diverse and entertaining. This ensures time between destinations passes more quickly.
Entertainment is the best way to make the journey more enjoyable. However, data about arrival time, current destination, news and other types of information can be a great option as well. If there are other types of content available to use, you can incorporate them as well. Showing available excursions to local hotspots might inspire your travelers to go exploring. This content can be easily scheduled through the use of any digital signage software.
3. Engage airport shoppers
Promoting local businesses and services is a great use of digital signage displays. Be it a bus station, train station or an airport. Airports in particular, though, have the greatest potential for digital signage.
Customers shopping at airports behave quite differently from your usual store shopper. While some have a few hours to kill before their next flight, most don’t spend too much time browsing through stores at the airport. Clarity and speed of information in this scenario can benefit stores quite a bit. Keep in mind that airports have massive traffic, and it can be difficult for the staff to present information to each customer individually. Add to that the factor of certain travelers not speaking your language and you have a big challenge on your hands. A challenge solved easily through digital signage!
An excellent example can be seen in Dixons Travel stores, where shelf sensors are used to display product information. If a customer picks up one of the displayed cameras from the shelf, the display in front of them immediately shows product specifications.
4. High potential for GPS tracking
Combining GPS tracking with digital signage can bring about some creative campaigns. This combination on buses, for example, can advertise local services such as restaurants or hotels based on location. This can be achieved through the use of digital signage software. It can provide you with a way to trigger certain campaigns when entering specific locations.
There is plenty of information you can use which interests the traveler. Ads for local businesses, news, insights from the local community and more are just the start! Additionally, you can provide precise information on arrival times. This is especially important to first-time travelers who might be a bit apprehensive.
5. Adapt based on statistics and trends
With digital signage as one more tool to use, that’s one more method of adapting to the latest emerging trends and expectations of your customers based on their behavior. The fact that 37% of flights are booked through mobile, and another 43% for accommodations is a clear indicator that mobile plays a big role in travel, especially intercontinental. Digital signage can help you adapt even further by providing mobile-friendly content.
Wi-Fi beacons and access provided via digital signage displays would be an appreciated commodity. Additionally, by pushing your own Wi-Fi connection through your digital signage, you can bring unique offers to the mobile users both through their devices and your digital signage network.
6. Influence traveler motivation and decisions
Digital signage can benefit the travel industry, even if it’s used outside of an airport or a train station.
It may come as a surprise, but most travelers, when planning their next trip, don’t have a specific location in mind. Well over half of all nationalities are trying to decide between two or more destinations. Naturally, their decision making process depends on their nationality, preferences and other factors. This indecision offers an opportunity to influence the indecisive traveler. You may, and should try to nudge them in the right direction.
In the end, digital signage can ensure travelers enjoy their journey and rely on you to provide it. Some uses of digital signage aim at making a profit, or satisfying the greatest needs of any traveler. Others, can provide that cutting edge advantage over the competition, and bring the travel experience to an new, more prestigious level. As the average traveler’s needs constantly grow, the one who keeps up with them is the one who takes the cake!
