Airline Shopping Based on Traveler Preferences

As the travel industry grows increasingly customer-focused, it’s not enough to have an expansive inventory of discounted flight options. 

Why it matters: Recent feedback from the agency and corporate travel managers reflects the frustration and lack of transparency they or their employees are experiencing when booking business travel.

  • Corporate travelers want the best value and expect variety in airfare and lose trust in platforms that limit choices. To meet the increasing demand for customization, travel managers require a sophisticated, data-driven personalization tool to offer their employees. 

What’s next: Travel managers can level up the booking experience by utilizing a data-driven approach for airline shopping. Discover all you need to know about how to enhance the flight booking process.

A brief explanation of data-driven personalization in the airline industry

The booking experience has been revolutionized by  Next Generation Storefront (NGS) technology, a cutting-edge approach to flight shopping that utilizes attribute-based shopping (ABS) for seamless customer experiences.

  • Big benefits for travel managers: Their employees can quickly find flights that align with preferences through a more user-friendly, intuitive flight shopping experience. Moreover, it enables bookers to easily compare flights, streamlining the process of evaluating and making informed decisions.

 

  • Customer-oriented: NGS leverages its expertise in advanced technology and data analytics, delivering personalized and customized flight options to customers. With a diverse array of attributes to choose from, such as seating preferences, baggage, or cabin class,  customers are liberated from pre-defined flight itineraries.

How data-driven personalization works

Travel platforms implementing NGS standards use your entered preferences to recommend the best matches, replacing the days of endless airline search results. This can be done in several ways.

  • Collection of traveler data: Airline shopping results can include past bookings and preferences.

travel managers can give more freedom to their travelers to pick flights so they can seamlessly book without a hassle. (BTW travel managers, you can implement your policy in our system so your employees don’t go over the budget!) 

  • Personalized options to travelers: The results are presented in a clear and engaging way, making it easy for travelers to select and purchase the options that best suit their needs.

The interface of how the results are displayed makes or breaks a good booking experience. Make sure to use a platform that implements NGS in a user-friendly way. 

  • Customization of traveler preferences: Based on the data inputted, the tickets offered can meet the unique needs and preferences of each traveler.

Not only will the data showcase dates and times relevant to the traveler but also give 100% visibility on what’s available based on their maximum price limit. 

Successful examples of data-driven personalization in airline shopping

When seeking platforms that claim to provide data-driven personalization, look out for these key features in airline shopping.

Here’s what to do: Prioritize features that guarantee a seamless journey from searching for flights to checking out.  

  • User-friendly booking interfaces: Platforms that simplify the flight search process that reduces time without sacrificing quality.  

 

  • Amenity highlights: Transparent benefits each cabin offers such as comfortable seats,  extra legroom, and a refundable policy. 

 

  • Side-by-side comparisons: Different flights are presented simultaneously next to each other so you can choose when based on preferences or affordability.  

 

Importance of travel policies during the booking experience

Empowering corporate travelers to make their own decisions on their business trips gives them control over their booking process.  

Yes but: Travel managers need to ensure their employees stay within budget while still offering a personalized experience to them. 

  • By prioritizing travel policies: during the booking experience, organizations can avoid the uncertainty and potential missteps that employees can accidentally make. 

 

  • Working with a travel platform: that offers custom configurations for your corporate policy is ideal so all options presented to employees reflect if the flights are in policy or not. 

 

  •  With the right tools and a customer-focused approach: travel managers can balance staying within budget and providing a personalized experience.

Final thoughts

Personalization allows each corporate traveler, to choose flights and seat upgrades based on their preferences, and travel managers get to offer a healthy balance of booking flexibility to their employees while keeping them within budget.

  • Personalization allows each corporate traveler, to choose flights and seat upgrades based on their preferences. 
  • Travel managers need to find a platform that can offer a personalized booking experience for employees while staying within their budget.

Our platform can help! Try us out for free

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