Meeting Travelers’ Expectations – and Our Own

If you’re like me, you’re wondering where the year has gone and drawing your attention to 2012 – shaping plans and strategies both personally and professionally. It’s a good time to reflect on the previous 12 months and boil down what you should keep doing, stop doing and start doing.

It also gives you a chance to do some serious outlooking. You can gain perspective and motivation by proactively looking for ideas from other sectors, companies and individuals that you can replicate in your world. I know from my conversations with many of you that you are already doing this, and it shows.

As I look at our own industry, there’s no doubt that the continued pace of technological advancement continues to heighten our travelers’ expectations. The tools and programs we serve up for them must meet their increasing expectations. I continue to see a greater sense of consumer-orientated focus amongst us all.

Many of your programs have built clarity around your traveler network, revitalized your customer satisfaction processes to deliver even richer customer insights, and integrated social media and mobile into your programs to meet demand. In turn, you’ve significantly increased the quality of communication within your programs and taken greater control and buy-in of the process as well.

Over the coming weeks and months we will be seeking to learn and discuss your objectives in greater detail. At GetThere, we are deep into the planning process for our 2012 GetThere Summit events. The EMEA Summit in London is Jan. 18-19 and NA Summit in Chicago March 7-9. We are very excited about the agendas for both events and we look forward to seeing you there.

All the best for the remainder of 2011 and see you next year!