Last week, my colleague Jaka and I held a workshop on the latest trends in travel for hotels and short-term rental businesses. We talked about innovation in travel, NFTs and the trend of remote work. In this post, I would like to expand on what I learned from the workshop and give some insight into what these trends mean for the travel experience.
In the last 2 years, we have conducted many workshops on Web3 and NFTs in travel in Slovenia and abroad. The answers are always quite similar - actually, there are none most of the time.
But this is not only the case with travel companies. We get similar answers when we organize workshops for students and young people on the same topic. Most of the time there is little interest and curiosity, I have found. I am surprised when there are just a few people who are enthusiastic and curious about it. Then I am happy.
That happiness hit me recently when I gave a lecture to students at the Faculty of Tourism in Brežice, Slovenia, and the students said that the topic of NFTs in travel made their day. Maybe this is changing and we just need to be patient, because these kinds of innovations take time. It is still a high learning curve.
Also, we need to start early. That's why I was very excited I got to give a workshop on NFTs for teenagers at the biggest scout camp in Slovenia last year. Although the participants were not very numerous, they were very engaged and grateful for the workshop. We managed to open their MetaMask wallets and showed them how to mint and sell their own NFTs. It was very useful to educate them about decentralized finance and the ways in which they can potentially generate income as digital creators.
Nevertheless, NFTs are currently too complex for most of the travel sector. Not only for the travel sector but also for the general public. We need to do much more education, use less technical jargon and use more general language if we want to achieve wider adoption. We also need to highlight some concrete benefits, if there are any.
Gianfranco shared his experience in response to my post that it is best to highlight the benefits for our audience right away because some are not only interested in experiments and the technical part but want to see what it brings them. As he puts it, ''we have come to understand that most people don't care so much about the technology, they want to understand the benefits and advantages right away.''
I always try to ask myself how this or any other technology actually improves our experience, both from a provider and traveler perspective. With this in mind, I have recently been thinking about Airbnb. As a traveler or a provider, the platform can connect you with lots of cool and like-minded people around the world. And at the same time make your life easier and generate revenue.
So for me, it's interesting when we can bridge the gap between the digital world and our real-life experiences. And that's why NFTs are so interesting to me because I think they have the power to create connections with like-minded people. It's not that it's impossible to bring people together without technology, but it can make it easier. Because of this technology, we managed to organize 3 events and numerous other meetups last year where we brought interesting people together.
Many people then ask why they should use and try NFTs or blockchain technology in their daily business. I have an FCD model for an answer:
Fun - you are interested in playing and implementing innovation
Community - you want to build a community around your product (hotel, short-term rental, coliving ...)
Decentralization - you want to avoid centralized platforms and use blockchain technology to own your content, users, reviews and finances
The other trend we talked about in our workshop was remote work and digital nomads and how this movement affects travel. While we did not get any attention at all with the NFTs, it was the complete opposite with the 2nd topic. They asked questions, wrote in the chat and in the last section where they were asked to think about what types of innovations they would introduce in their company, only those related to remote work came up.
Obviously, this is not a technological issue and it is more tangible. There is also a lot of talk about it already. One participant pointed out that Romania is introducing a visa for digital nomads, which is important information for travel businesses.
Imagine a country agreeing with another country that its citizens can stay and travel for a year. Instead of allowing people from only one country to live and reside there, we target people with remote jobs globally. Currently, there are about 30 million digital nomads already, so it's a pretty big country and it's expected to double by 2030.
It is not just a country, it is a new travel segment that we have here. As with any travel segment, there are certain specifics on how to cater to them. There are obviously lots of layers of digital nomads and remote workers, so we can not group them all under 1 or 2 characteristics. In my research, I found a scale for digital nomads that I like best by Reichenberger (2018).
A constant full-time traveler with no permanent residence and home base
Has a home base and always returns to it from my occasional travels to different locations for longer periods of time than the typical holiday
Has location independence but still chooses to remain close to home despite having the possibility to travel further
However, they all have remote or at least semi-remote jobs and their travel needs change because of that. Meeting these needs should be an increasingly high priority for travel businesses. The workshop was fun because we got to brainstorm together about how to achieve this and we linked it to our initial conversation about experience touchpoints and sensory design, especially for short-term rentals and hotels.
Stable WiFi: this one is the most obvious and the most important touchpoint for addressing remote workers
Office supplies: here, lots of ideas spurred about having additional keyboards, mouses, second monitors, headphones and batteries
Desk setup: we all miss our comfortable desk setup while we’re on the road
Leisure activities: after many hours behind the computer, you want to unwind, be in nature or do some handy work
Community: people who travel alone usually want to connect with minds alike and as local hosts, it’s our job to connect them with suitable communities (e.g. giving them the link to the main digital nomad group in the area)
Coffee: also an obvious one
These are just some of the points that came up in our discussion. We can be creative and do so much more to better serve this growing segment of the travel industry. I am pleased that our workshop generated a lot of interest and I hope to share more insights with you from our next workshop!
Speaking of digital nomads, I have a small request. I'm conducting a survey to understand the motivations of digital nomads to contribute to the communities they visit. By participating, you'll have the opportunity to share your experiences and insights on how you engage with local communities, as well as contribute to the growing body of knowledge on this topic.
Your input is invaluable in helping to shape our understanding of the role digital nomads can play in promoting sustainable tourism and community development. You can access the survey here. Thank you for your time and contribution!