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How Tech is Making Travel More Hygienic

How Tech is Making Travel More Hygienic

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60% of Americans believe that hygiene is the most crucial factor when seeking out a travel company. That means the way travel stocks perform may rely on the ability of providers to reach the expectations of travelers. Technologically up-to-date hygiene practices, along with clearly posted cleaning schedules are among the necessities for achieving the satisfaction of today’s travelers.

While boosting transparency around health and hygiene practices is becoming a top priority for airlines, cruise ships, hotels, and other travel companies, they’ve also been working to apply new tech advancement to increase hygiene ratings.

Contact Free Means Germ-Free

The combined use of Internet of Things (IoT) devices with fast connections, powered by edge computing, and 5G apps with near-field communication (NFC), supports a range of contactless interactions that providers can offer travelers.

Contact-free check in and boarding experiences are becoming increasingly common throughout airlines and airports. That’s demonstrated by the fact that 64% of airports and 82% of airlines say they plan on providing self-boarding gates before 2023. The possibilities when it comes to contactless travel solutions are wide ranging. They include QR codes for frictionless payments at airport restaurants, facial recognition and phone scanning for entry into VIP lounges.

The performance of travel stocks is likely dependent on the ability some companies have already demonstrated to incorporate tech within their efforts to boost hygiene. There are numerous travel companies that are already going above and beyond to leverage tech to create the experiences travelers are seeking. Singapore Airlines currently encourages travelers to scan QR codes to print their own luggage tags. They’re not alone in leveraging tech to create a seamless, touchless experience for travelers either.

Cruise ships and hotels are also among the travel companies leveraging tech to create a more hygienic experience in numerous ways. Technological advances that can be found on various cruise lines and hotels range from AI-backed self-service check ins, to smartphone controlled room-keys.

Air Circulation and Disinfection

Tech provides travel companies with faster, deeper methods of cleaning common spaces and shared items. Some of the tech advances responsible for this include antibacterial foggers, UV-light cleaning bots, and electrostatic sprays capable of picking up and isolating viruses. Both airlines and cruise lines realize the importance of increasing efforts to create a more hygienic experience for travelers. The fact that more travel companies could potentially be leveraging this technology may have an impact on the performance of related travel stocks.

In fact, nine airlines currently have Honeywell systems in place that are capable of filling the cabin with UV light so intense that it kills nearly all viruses, both on surfaces and airborne. Both Honeywell and Boeing provide handheld disinfection wands designed to reach tough-to-clean spots. Also encouraging is that Safran SA is currently working on sprays that fight against and eliminate germs, while Boeing has touchless toilets that respond to the wave of a hand in development.

Also encouraging is that cruise ships, airports, train stations, and other travel entities are mining data from IoT devices to analyze usage levels and crowd density. This enables them to optimize cleaning schedules for high-traffic areas to be cleaned more often and for cleaning to take place when areas are fairly empty.

Less Crowds, Less Infections

In a world that’s just beginning to show signs of emerging from the Coronavirus pandemic, being jam packed together in close quarters with other travelers isn’t just unpleasant – it could be dangerous too. Taking that into consideration, travel companies are doing their best to eliminate the need to form long waiting lines. This has led to numerous examples of the leveraging of new technological innovations in a way that may have an impact on travel stocks.

Among all of the technological advancements that could have an effect on reducing lines for travelers, wearables are some of the most impactful. That’s because over time smart wristbands may eventually become capable of containing a wearer’s passport, insurance details, health records and itineraries. Even more exciting is the potential for itineraries to be scanned automatically once passengers pass through connected gates, serving as a “fast pass” that eliminates the requirement to wait for details to be checked manually.

The ability for travel companies to make their guests feel safe when entering their spaces could potentially play a big role in how travel stocks perform. Since that’s the case it may be fair to assume that decreasing lines for travelers could be a top priority for travel companies in the coming years. As the world continues to forge its path out of the pandemic, prioritizing cleanliness is likely to have numerous benefits for travel companies.

For Travel Stocks, Cleanliness is Next to Profitability

Since health and safety currently play a crucial role in the decisions travelers make, investors seeking travel stocks to purchase may benefit from learning about how the company is leveraging tech in its efforts to raise hygiene levels. Airline stocks, hotel stocks and cruise stocks prices all have the potential to be affected by customer perception of cleanliness levels.

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