Travel Apps that Help you Save Money

 Ok, yes, that is a leading headline. It is what GOOGLE thinks you want to hear, right? 

But what if I told you that travel apps are already facing extinction? Yes, they will always exist in some iteration. But the paradigm is shifting. Incrementally yet dramatically. Implicitly yet definitely. Here's why:

1: Tech changes, frequently. 

The moment a new application launches? It has a thousand counterpart competitors, waiting in the wings. What you must ask yourself, therefore, is whether you, as a user want to invest time and perhaps 'fremium' monies, in a tool whose redundancy is all but inbuilt? 

2: There are STILL things that apps cannot, or at least do not, as yet 'do'! 

Sure, things have improved. An app can tell me at each stage of a journey, which direction / route/method to deploy. Yes, there is indeed, up to the minute updating available when delays or cancellations occur. But why stop there? 

When was the last time an app gave you a PRECISE read out of ALL terrain on your route, including crowds, delays, insurance options, coffee prices? A fully interactive, right to the wire in updates, stage by stage, bespoke experience simply is arguably NOT in existence. YET! 

There are versions of that. Parts of it. But the consolidated, innovative, visionary joined up thinking IN an application? They have not even scratched the surface! 

3: When I say 'bespoke':

That means integrating every service you use as part of the travel experience. Including insurance. Yes, you can insure your journey and even get monies back. But what if you or the insurer do not WANT it that way? As in: yes, insure my journey please. Yet also: no thank you, do not presume how I speak to my broker or which underwriting process I use, etc?

The myth is that crossing every application and function is what the user wants. 

Not so! What is needed, instead, is an efficient model in each stage of the transaction, from inception through execution, navigation, management and follow up. 

The average user has been sold the story that the goal in that is having it all in one click or switch. It isn't. 

Control! Efficiency! Peace of mind! And across every sector. So, if that requires MORE applications, but piloted in such a way as to still ensure optimal speed and accuracy? I think the general punter would be open to that, though equally, it is 'on' each sector and provider to team up and minimise the baggage. 

4: An App does not, in itself, 'fix' the deficits it is designed to help you endure: 

It is time for tech to step up, speak to and team with the providers of transport, insurance and so on. Each company / authority, IN TURN. Let the innovators provide the technological AR/VR/AI/other templates and THEN allow their allied customers to fight for improvement. That applies in both product AND service, because the paradigm of their separation, has shifted, overnight. 

So building and launching a new mapping app is all well and good. I exaggerated, when I said they will all be extinct. But there is a better, faster, more economical and ironically more immersive and inclusive model of collaboration. 

Here is one company looking at that: taking the fight, to the providers and ensuring, the insurers and others, harness tech to improve all round, rather than allowing endless apps to do the heavy lifting without true innovation.