Holiday comparison site Skyscanner has predicted that planning and booking a holiday will be as easy and speedy as buying a book from Amazon within the next ten years. Here's what could be in store for the next generation of backpackers.

Digital travel buddies and wearable AI

Having a Digital Travel Buddy, a virtual companion which uses artificial intelligence to accurately suggest and book suitable trips for the traveller, could become reality. In the future, we'll have wearable technology evolve from Google Glass to a mobile device so small that it will fit onto a contact lens and can provide immediate translations, breaking down language barriers and the need to learn the holiday lingo.

Virtual reality becomes reality:

Rather than replacing holidays, Skyscanner forecasts that virtual reality will offer holidaymakers the opportunity to ‘try-before-they-buy’ by test-driving trips such as a dive on the Great Barrier Reef. Haptic technology, which takes advantage of a user’s touch to provide tactile feedback, will enable consumers to actually feel what they could experience during their holiday, such as the texture of the bed at a hotel or the plushness of an airplane seat.

Semantic search:

In 2024, voice and gesture-controlled online tools will further help travellers book a bespoke trip based on their responses or even through facial coding algorithms that will enable search engines to read and react to human expressions and adjust results based on the user’s response.

Commenting on the report, Skyscanner’s Head of B2B Filip Filipov says: "The travel industry has evolved a great deal over the past ten years so trying to predict what the next ten years has in store has been fascinating.

"With so many emerging technologies it is mind-boggling to imagine just what their impact on travel could be."

Want to read Skyscanner's full report? Click here.

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