How technology has changed the way people travel

Technology has forever changed the way billions travel for pleasure or business. Smartphones, apps, biometrics, the sharing economy and social media have, for better and worse, affected travel in immeasurable ways, from digitised room keys and itineraries to selfie sticks. Here are some of the most obvious but significant and peculiar disruptors.
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Social media has engulfed every aspect of travel and tourism. Perhaps the biggest transformation is in the way people travel, interact with foreign, unfamiliar places, people and cultures. We experience the physical world through a virtual lens. We live in the time of ‘pics or it didn't happen'.







(Russian photographer Murad Osmann’s photos with his girlfriend leading him around the world)

It's affected how we share experiences with each other, not just for its sake or to boast and broadcast. But to share hard earned knowledge, a kind of cultural currency. Social media has made us, for lack of a better word, lazy and ‘play it safe' travellers. Discarding adventures and thrills of the unknown, unwittingly perhaps, for the comfort and security of being constantly connected. Tethered to a familiar world in alien lands. However, it has also given us access to information that was perhaps inaccessible or not easy to find before. “Where can I get the best ramen in Kyoto?” This isn't a search on Google. It's a tweet by a person looking for insider-tips in realtime. Also TripAdvisor, which claims to be the world's largest travel site, has travellers both on the road and those currently at home or at work, helping with queries like the easiest way to get from one end of a country to the other, quick and cheap, its owlish logo is becoming the Lonely Planet recommendation for the 21st century.

Over 1.5 billion monthly active users post billions of photos and videos of strange sights and (real) beef steaks, “checking in” at places like St. Peter's Square and Burning Man Festival, on Facebook. Also the world's largest social network has, for all intents and purposes, made the physical photo-album virtually redundant. Snapchat is the new darling of travel startups exploring new, low-cost ways to provide immersive brand experiences to users. And Instagram and its filters have turned us all into travel photographers.

-Google Maps, Street View and Google Translate

If people from the TV show 'Lost' had Google Maps, the long-running series would have ended after Season 1. Internet-willing, no woman, man or child can ever lose their way or be taken for a ride by a merciless cabbie, if one has Google Maps. Save, customise, integrate, get traffic updates, take photo tours, check event listings, and search for hotels. With Street View, what you see is really what you get. No surprises. So check out places you plan to visit or simply pay virtual visits. Take a stroll down Unter den Linden or Marine Drive or Times Square. And how do you say “Is this vegetarian?” in Swedish?



-Whose Home Is It Anyway?

Like Google, Airbnb is close to becoming a verb. Despite regulatory and security concerns, Airbnb, poster-child of the sharing economy, is valued at $25.5 billion, thanks to the millions who use it to "check-in" at people's homes, mansions, castles, boats, igloos and teepees.

-Excess Luggage?

Books or shoes? The answer: Kindle. Penguin Books, founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and VK Krishna Menon, made pocketable books and changed how people read at home and on the road. Tech Crunch calls the 6-inch Kindle Voyage, Penguin's "emotional successor". Because "both revolutionised the physical notion of books."



-Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi is non-negotiable. Hotels are chosen not just on the basis of ensuite baths and 1000 count Egyptian cotton sheets but whether they have Wi-Fi or not. Think about it. What do you say to the garcon when he seats you? "Menu, please?" No. "What's the Wi-Fi password, please?" is more like it. No Wi-Fi, no Facebook updates. And that's just unacceptable.

-WhatsApp and Skype

When was the last time you bought an international calling card? Used a pay phone? Communication tools like video calling app, Skype and messaging and calling service WhatsApp help us stay in touch, constantly. Even when we're away from friends and family swimming in Cleopatra's pool in Pamukkale, they are a free call away.

-Stick Em Up

It's not the lizard that frightens Caravaggio's boy. It's that awful contraption, the bane of every museum director's existence — the Selfie Stick. Will Mona lose an eye today or Venus her head? Many museums around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), have added the selfie stick to their list of banned items which include other dangerous objects like grenades and two-year olds in the throes of a sugar rush. In 2015, in Cremona, Italy, a selfie stick destroyed a marble statue of Hercules. Several people have come dangerously close to knocking over priceless Egyptian busts and skewering Vermeer's masterpieces. Even without a stick, though, selfies are a real threat to art and antiquities. One victim: the Drunken Satyr at the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera in Milan. A statue of a follower of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, passed out after one too many tequila shots. A foreign student sat on the naked Satyr's leg to take a selfie and broke it. Disney and Wimbledon have banned selfie sticks, too.