Now Is A Good Time To Become A Pilot

If you’ve ever wanted to become a pilot, now is a good time to follow through on that desire. According to USA Today, airlines are now preparing to face a pilot shortage that will leave the industry needing almost half a million new pilots by 2032.

Three of the biggest factors behind this swelling need for pilots are expanding fleets for many airlines, more complex laws enacted regarding pilot safety, and approaching retirement for many pilots. The increase in pilot demand is greater than previously reported by Boeing and the fact that flight school loans can sometimes reach $100,000 isn’t helping to narrow the gap between pilot supply and demand.

So if becoming a pilot has always been a dream of yours, now is a good time to realize that dream –- the travel industry needs you.

Facebook Timeline For Travel Industry

The World Travel and Tourism Council has introduced a fun element to their Facebook page: rather than a timeline of their own milestones, they’ve designed a timeline highlighting all of the events in the travel industry. Starting in 1400 with the first passport, and ending with the 1,000,000,000 international tourist arrival in December 2012, it puts the whole development of tourism in context. The first airport dates to 1909 in College Park, Maryland, and there are now over 44,000 airfields and airports all over the world. Hilton pioneered the hotel chain concept in 1943, and now has properties in 78 countries on six continents. Expedia has been around for 17 years, and TripAdvisor just celebrated their 13th anniversary.

Check out all the travel industry milestones on WTTC’s Timeline, and be sure to click through all the years.

[Photo credit: WTTC Facebook]

Futuristic travel more down to earth, collaborative says study

Thoughts of futuristic travel often bring images of commercial low-earth orbit flights, man on Mars or rediscovering the Moon. A new study highlights real-world programs and technology being developed right now that is much more common, affecting us all.

By 2020, all airports will be paperless and bags will be electronically tagged, according to the From Chaos to Collaboration report released this week by Amadeus, a leading provider of IT solutions to the travel and tourism industry Just eight years from now, the report says, travelers will be using fingerprint boarding passes and eye-scanning passports.

“We wanted to avoid making techno-centric assumptions about the future of travel – and painting a picture of flying cars and intelligent robots in a world that is otherwise unchanged from today,” Andrew Curry, director and co-author The Futures Company told Travelmole.
New technological innovation should take the stress out of travel, leaving passengers with nothing to remember and the ability to track the location of luggage at any time. Using fingerprints to check in is hoped to reduce or eliminate the lengthy queues and delays in manual check-in.

In the not too distant future, travelers will cruise through customs and immigration with just a scan of their retina…or a chip implanted in their arm.

“If you talk to a technologist they will tell you it’s perfectly possible to have a chip in your arm, or use facial recognition technology and walk on to a plane or a vehicle without checking in,” Tim Jones, a technology consultant, said in the report. “But it seems as if the regulators or border- control staff are intent on adding extra layers of security, rather than removing them.”

Coming up too, passengers will be able to use virtual tour guides to visit sites of interest through the same principles as gaming on smart phones and computers.

It’s all about harnessing technology to make travel in the future simpler and more efficient, “shifting focus from satisfying the needs and wants of individual travelers to providing the environment for networks and flows of travelers as a group to move and flourish” says the report.

“We hope that this study will challenge, provoke and stimulate thinking around how we will all be traveling in the future” added Curry.

Flickr photo by timo_w2s


Travel and technology at the New York City Travel Massive event

On Tuesday, November 8, 2011, New York City Travel Massive will hold their November event at Winston’s Champagne Bar at the Gansevoort Park Hotel. New York City Travel Massive is a Meetup group in Manhattan that aims to bring together travel bloggers, travel brands, and travel start-ups while having a drink and a fun night out.

From 6PM-8PM, Travel Massive has reserved the entire 2-floor venue. While all are welcome, an RSVP is required to secure your spot. Along with wine and beer specials all night long, there will be free drinks given to those who arrive nice and early, and will be served until the allotted free alcohol runs out.

Event located at 420 Park Avenue South. Click here for more information and to RSVP to the event.

Travel industry spending big bucks for you to see them online

If you saw a banner ad today, there’s a good chance it was from a travel company. The industry is recovering as the country moves away from the recession, and airlines, hotels and rental car companies want to claim their share of your cash. To reach into your wallet, these guys are moving online, and they’re spending a boatload of bucks.

Unsurprisingly, the retail sector leads the world in online ad spending, pumping $5.16 billion into it last year – with an expected $5.73 billion to come in 2011. That’s good for 20 percent of the online ad market in 2010 and 2011. The travel industry is a lot smaller. It spent $1.81 billion last year to capture 5.6 percent of online advertising spend. In 2011, eMarketer expects travel companies to push their investments higher, with online ad spending forecasted to reach a whopping $1.95 billion.

You know what’s funny? In 2010, travel companies were responsible for 7 percent of online ad spending in the United States, but the extra $1.4 billion coming this year isn’t good enough to keep that level. In 2011, travel’s share of the online advertising pie will drop to 6.8 percent, according to the eMarketer estimates.

So, what should you take from this?

Travel companies are looking for growth. The market is coming back, and travelers are taking to the road again. Improved service and additional routes are nice, but it’s also important to get in front of potential buyers. After all, we know what kind of wheel gets the grease!