Travel technology is a general term used to describe the use of information technology (IT) in tourism, travel, and hospitality. In any case, travel technologies strive towards these goals – to save time, cut travel costs, and enhance the travel experience for customers. Notably, travel technology has not only been pivotal in enhancing customer experience but has also helped businesses to run operations seamlessly.
The ravages caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in the last 2 years have pushed for more technological innovations in the travel sector. From the Internet of Things (IoT) to contactless payment technologies, the future for technology is bright.
Let’s look at some of the merging technology trends in the travel industry.
Contactless Payment Technologies
Contactless payment options saw a tremendous increase in adoption during the pandemic thanks to the need to maintain a safe distance between individuals. Increased usage of mobile payment options during the pandemic encouraged innovations in the online payment industry as we saw new entrants into the market.
While APIs have been around since the 1990s, they took off in the 21st century after the creation of Web 2.0 – a web technology primarily characterized by user-generated content. Payment APIs have enhanced the travel industry through the integration of existing mobile payment technologies with travel platforms such as mobile apps and web applications.
As of 2017, the mobile payment market size was valued at $1.48 trillion and is expected to hit $12.06 trillion by 2027.
Internet of Things (IoT) IoT is poised to influence the travel industry with wearables, biometric security systems, wireless room appliances, and wireless inventory tracking systems. With advanced remote sensing devices, IoT is expected to enhance travelers’ experience through information gathering and analysis. For instance, wildlife researchers plant remote sensing devices in the jungle to gather information for easier tracking of wild animals.
Robotics
As far as Artificial Intelligence (AI) is concerned, robotics tops the list of the most popular AI technology in the travel industry. In the hotel business, robots are used in catering and hospitality activities. Moreover, some hotels use them for luggage handling. Rapid advancement in AI is expected to provide more innovative solutions for the travel industry.
Virtual Reality (VR)
Virtual reality is an emerging AI technology that allows users to experience a simulated reality. Travel enthusiasts can explore hotels, restaurants, and scenic landmarks in the comfort of their homes. With a virtual reality headset, you can go on an adventure without leaving your house. Innovations in VR were critical during the pandemic and are expected to impact tourism post-pandemic.
Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity is part and parcel of every technology and it encompasses two major aspects, that is, attacks and countermeasures. While travel technology is pivotal in improving the quality of travel experience the associated cybersecurity threats cannot be ignored. Cyberthreats such as cross-scripting attacks, data breaches, online fraud, hacking, distributed denial of service (DDOS), and malware attacks are common in the industry. Ergo, industry stakeholders ought to keep up with these attacks and implement suitable measures to counter such threats.
Remarkably, travel technology is broad and will continue to grow as demand for better travel experiences increases. Looking at how fast the industry has changed thanks to modern technology, it is hard to predict what the industry will be like in the next 10 years. Notwithstanding, we can be sure of one thing – the industry will be chiefly dependent on technology.
Partner with us
At Dew Cis Solutions, we endeavor to contribute to the ever-changing travel industry. From contactless payment solutions such as MPESA integration to secure software systems, our products are cutting-edge solutions to travel agencies.
Bet on people, not strategies.” Lawrence Bossidy, Retired CEO Allied Signal
Great help isn’t difficult to find when talent looks for you when you have a solid showcase of work. Employees favor companies with great societies, competitive pay, and advancement opportunities. Giving employees what they require will assist you get — and keep — the top talent that you want.
Bringing lead talent to your group not only influences the accomplishment of the company’s vision but also the existing individuals of your group. Talent can be characterized in different ways such as experience level, instruction, preparing, achievements, and a long time within the industry. By composing a list of perfect qualities of an employee, one can effectively narrow down the list and get the favored employees for your group. The following practices help to bring the best talent to your team:
Know your company’s mission and values.
When you know the most important values and skills of your company, you can fill positions around these needs rather than hiring one employee to replace another. When you are clear with your values and your brand from the beginning, candidates have a better time assessing whether or not they are a clear fit for your organization. These will be attractive qualities for prospective talents to the individuals you are looking to recruit.
Connect online.
Most of us are extremely active on social media in some way, whether it is on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, or a combination of these platforms. Social media marketing can be a good tool to attract the best talent as it allows organizations to showcase their identity, values, and mission. It also allows these organizations to find suitable individuals for existing positions. This is done by use of keywords like job titles on LinkedIn enabling the organization to find the candidates with the skills and experience they want. The candidates can then be contacted directly to see if they can work for you.
Construct a positive environment and strong culture.
When you treat employees well, you will attract the best. If your employees feel valued, wanted and respected, they thrive at your company and in turn the organization gains a good reputation. The best talent wants to work for a company that is the most reputable and ensuring your company is one of the best will make you stand out from the crowd in its specific sector. If your company does great things, great people will want to do them with you.
Cultivate Employee Ambassadors.
You can make your employees brand ambassadors for your organization and encourage them to recruit talent from their contacts. Your current employees are most likely to know an individual who is the right person for the job. However, you will need to guide them to ensure they properly communicate your best brand attributes so that they recruit talent with your mission, vision, and values in mind. This ensures that the talent they bring to your team is a great fit for the company.
Describe your benefits
Gone are the days where candidates relied solely on hours of work and pay on offer. Candidates now consider multiple factors such as values, reputation, career progression, and more. Consider what you can offer your employees. There should be an esteem balance between fun and serious activities. Employees like it when you offer adaptable plans for getting work done. Up-and-comers and workers additionally like professional openings that are hands-on and help in possible advancements in their careers. These benefits should attract the best talent to your team.
We are looking for a motivated and results-driven sales executive to join our growing team. We are seeking a candidate who is bold, persuasive, energetic, and ready to go the extra mile to ensure customer satisfaction.
Deadline for Application isFriday , 11th February 2022
Job Duties and Responsibilities
Research and recommend prospects for new business opportunities
Research and analyze sales options
Follow up leads on customers and ensure prompt feedback on call, emails and visits to inquiries
Carry out cold-calling in order to create interest in products and services,
Generate new business leads and arrange meetings
Identify and develop new business through networking and follow-up courtesy calls
Prepare presentations and demonstrations of software to customers
Maintain awareness and keep abreast of constantly changing software and hardware systems
Develop effective sales plans using sales methodology
Advise on software features and how they can be applied to assist in a variety of contexts such as accounting, manufacturing or other specialist areas
Meet sales targets set and contribute to team targets
Network with existing customers in order to maintain links and promote additional products and upgrades
Manage workload in order to organize and prioritize daily and weekly goals
Contribute to team or progress meetings to update and inform colleagues.
Qualifications and Requirements
At least 1 year experience in sales
Have a proven record for sales
Have a degree or a Diploma in sales and Marketing or a business related course.
Be aggressive and result oriented.
Skills
Passionate about sales
Excellent technical knowledge
Presentation skills.
The ability to write reports and proposals.
Team player
Negotiating skills.
Ability to create and deliver presentations
Fast learner and quick thinker
Ability to adapt and grow in a competitive environment
How to Apply
1. Click on Job / Internship portal
2. Fill in your details
3. Check email for credential to login to the portal
4. Update your details on form provided
5. Apply for the position and check that you get email confirmation
We are looking for a motivated and results-driven sales executive Intern to join our growing team. We are seeking a candidate who is bold, persuasive, energetic, and ready to go the extra mile to ensure customer satisfaction.
Generate a leads list
Research and qualify leads
Speak to customers, either face to face or over the phone
Gain an understanding of customers
Follow up leads on customers and ensure prompt feedback on call, emails and visits to inquiries
Carry out cold-calling in order to create interest in products and services,
Generate new business leads and arrange meetings
Identify and develop new business through networking and follow-up courtesy calls
Prepare presentations and demonstrations of software to customers
Maintain awareness and keep abreast of constantly changing software and hardware systems
Develop effective sales plans using sales methodology
Advise on software features and how they can be applied to assist in a variety of contexts such as accounting, manufacturing or other specialist areas
Meet sales targets set and contribute to team targets
Network with existing customers in order to maintain links and promote additional products and upgrades
Manage workload in order to organize and prioritize daily and weekly goals
Contribute to team or progress meetings to update and inform colleagues.
Job Requirements
Diploma in sales, marketing or business
Excellent selling skills.
Excellent technical knowledge
Initiative.
Presentation skills.
The ability to write reports and proposals.
The capacity to work well on your own or in a team.
As discussed in part 1 the pace of technological change in the previous decades has been unprecedented and the wheels of the machine that is scientific discovery and invention still continue to turn. In part one we saw that all elements of daily life, intellectual pursuits, or economic activities are affected.
The way we make, ship, market, and utilize items is always changing—a chain of procedures that covers a wide range of sectors including;
1. Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Artificial intelligence is a technology where interconnected devices learn, predict, adapt and become intelligent systems that can do tasks that human beings can perform and even become more complex. and that can learn and adapt will become more complex. Artificial intelligence systems are rapidly becoming popular and will soon be everywhere, including homes, offices, factories, and medical facilities.
Some include Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri, Google’s Now. This technology through these companies is becoming the foundation of consumer operations at work and home while robotics and smart automation are replacing basic skills, including autonomous cars, around the world.
2. Business Application Ecosystem
In the past, many IT departments tried to simplify their environment by choosing a single vendor i.e. implementing Oracle for most of their application portfolio. As niche solutions explode across the company, this environment becomes increasingly difficult to pursue. IT needs to cooperate with multiple vendors and various technologies, and everything is more interconnected and interoperable than in the past.IT departments must mix and match software and hardware solutions, and master ecosystem integration and data management as their key IT responsibilities.
API‘s (application programming interfaces) are robust architectures that are essential to providing modular, flexible dynamic solutions. The power of disruption lies in the general technical support capabilities that a company can provide. For example, Airbnb and Uber have disrupted traditional industries in the hotel booking and taxi industry yet they do not own taxis or own property.
3. Cloud-Based & Scalable Applications with Infinite Infrastructure
IT assets were mostly on-premise in the past. Today, a business must manage a hybrid environment that includes on-premise and cloud-based assets that are managed by numerous vendors. As more firms actively move functions to the cloud, cloud computing is becoming more important. In the next two years, it is expected that a third of all ERP systems in the world will migrate to the cloud.
While some businesses use cloud platforms to save money or ensure continuity, the majority of the advantages are agility and the flexibility to scale an environment on demand.
The pace of technological change in the previous several decades has been unprecedented, from the birth of the Internet to the arrival of big data and quantum computing. The wheels of the machine that is scientific discovery and invention continue to turn. Furthermore, the planet is undergoing some of the most significant transformations in its history. Moreover, no element of daily life, intellectual pursuits, or economic activities is unaffected.
The way we make, ship, market, and utilize items is always changing—a chain of procedures that covers a wide range of sectors including;
1. Digital Banking
With the rise of digital evolution, every industry has been impacted and thus redefined customer expectations. The digital disruption has seen businesses being transformed and making use of digital technologies. Rather than just putting up a mere website, leading companies use digitization from start to finish by doing product design, service, customer care, marketing, customer lifecycle, sales and online engagement.
Industry leaders not only use technology and processes to increase productivity and reduce costs, but they also use digital technology to develop new services, improve customer service, increase revenue, improve business models and products. Successful industries now have a comprehensive digital strategy to determine how to use digital technologies in all business aspects.
2. Internet of Things (IoT) Connecting Everything
According to the Harvard Business Review, IoT is a major transformative wave of innovation. The previous wave of change was mainframes and minicomputers, as well as the rise of the Internet. Internet-connected devices with embedded sensors that can provide actionable information will continue to grow at an exponential rate. These platforms will connect smart machines and smart everything in a collaborative ecosystem.
The Gartner Group refers to it as the “digital grid.” With the rapid growth of the installed base of IoT terminals, information technology (IT) must integrate IoT terminals, mobile devices, wearable devices, consumer equipment, transmission equipment, environmental equipment, etc. Information Technology integrated with IoT into business applications and analytics will provide meaningful insights into business processes and operations.
3. Mobile
Mobile devices remain a strong trend in the future and they are continually integrated into our daily work and personal life. Consumers want to be able to communicate and conduct business with companies through their smartphones, laptops and tablets and they’re wearable devices. The number of mobile devices so far exceeds the number of laptops and desktops that are currently used, and customers are more likely to access applications through smartphones or mobile devices than through PCs.
As mobile device sales increase, so has the variety and number of downloaded mobile applications. Businesses in all industries are using mobile devices to increase customer engagement, boost sales and build customer loyalty. This is done by the use of technology that supports a rapidly changing mobile workforce and customers. It is expected to see the mix of mobile devices, smart devices, and the Internet of Things across all industries and functions.
Job requirements are skills, attributes and experiences that employers expect to have among their hired candidates. Employers believe that these qualifications are essential to achieve satisfactory job performance. A prospective candidate should therefore focus on developing the skills that will enhance their employability.
Most job listings usually list the requirements a candidate needs to have to successfully secure a job. This may include specific skills, personal qualities, professional and educational certificates, work experience and other qualifications. These requirements serve to set expectations for employers and potential employees to ensure qualified individuals apply for positions.
It is important that candidates take the time to demonstrate to the hiring manager that their qualifications meet the requirements of the position. A candidate should carefully review the provided job requirements while applying for a job and reference their corresponding qualifications in their cover letter and resume. Employers can sometimes select candidates who have performed well in some key areas but who have not performed well in others.
Some of the things that employers look for are;
1. Skill
Employers seek both hard and soft skills in candidates. Hard skills are generally teachable and measurable abilities, such as the ability to use specific software programs, analyze data, code, implement social media campaigns, draw, etc. Soft skills usually refer to traits that are hard to quantify, such as critical thinking, active listening, creative problem-solving, and communicating effectively. Requirements that employers give usually involve both hard and soft skills. It is crucial for the candidate to develop both these skills.
2. Experience
Experience requirements typically refer to time in a specific field or role related to the position. The employer might also include working with a specific population or in a specific industry or employment sector.
3. Educational requirements
Some positions posted by the employer will require applicants to have a certain level of education. For example, the job may require a high school diploma, a college degree, or a graduate degree. In some cases, related work experience, known as equivalent experience, might be substituted for some or all of the educational requirements.
In conclusion, a candidate should not make assumptions that the skills they put in are the same as the ones recruiters emphasize on. Candidates should also gather a lot of information about the employer and use it to their advantage. Recruiters value technical skills but soft skills set successful graduates apart. This applies across sectors and is just as important in science and technology roles. While a candidate is trying to meet the requirements of today’s employer, they should also be open to failure and take it as a learning opportunity.
There is an upsurge of email scams, otherwise known as phishing scam where email conversations are intended to trick victims into making payments into a fraudulent bank account. At DewCIS, we take this opportunity to alert Internet users against ongoing email scammers who manipulate email addresses to deceive the victims into trusting the authenticity of the email and obtain sensitive information.
The scam starts by the fraudsters hijacking an otherwise very genuine email conversation between a supplier say of email address Frankline Njuguna <fnjuguna@tamshi.com> resident in Kenya and a genuine client John Doe <johndoe@shippers.com> resident in Spain for example.
Because scammers are motivated by money, they will lay in wait and only hijack the email conversation when a prospect of payment is real.
At this point, the fraudster will create parallel seemingly similar email addresses as follows; Frankline Njuguna <frjuguna@tamshi.dr> for the supplier and John Doe <johrdoe@shippers.com.dr for the customer.
With this communication hijacked, the fraudsters will be well positioned to act as both the supplier and the client sharing only that information they find appropriate such as fraudulent banking details to the unsuspecting client.
The supplier still believing that they are communicating with genuine client negotiates and shares quotations with the client, while the client still believing that they are dealing with the genuine supplier confidently makes payment to the fraudulent bank account. Immediately the money hits their account, the fraudsters immediately cease communication and disappear into thin air.
It is only when the client doesn’t receive the agreed services in time and either makes a call or reach out using another channel to the supplier that the parties realize that they have been defrauded.
This sort of trickery is not very sophisticated at all. The fraudsters are simply taking advantage of our “humanness”; that users do not often care to check the true email addresses of the people they are interacting with. Thus, the fraudsters simply modify the email address but retainsthe username of the source and or recipients, and therefore catching us unawares.
This is very easily done within existing domain registries. For example, it would cost someone just about $ 2 to register a shippers.com.drdomain and create an email address johrdoe@shippers.com.dr for use to defraud unsuspecting users.
From this fraud, it is clear that the fraudsters are possibly collaborating with an insider at either the client or the supplier business; the accomplice who steals the email trail from the mailbox and shares with the fraudsters. Since this is the point of entry and therefore the weakest link, there is need to limit transactional email communications such as those with bank account details to only the necessary staff.
The other very important check is to encourage communication between the customer and the supplier using alternative channels including telephone, WhatsApp etc particularly as a follow-up to ensure the appropriate banking details are shared.
Another practical way of preventing email fraud particularly on sensitive or confidential information is to wrap the content of your emails encrypted with a password that is time bound to expire within a specified time period. To ensure that none other than the intended recipient accesses the message, the passwords ought to be sent via a different channel such as via a phone call or SMS.
While it takes practice to pay attention to domain email addresses of users, we are encourages to always be vigilant so that one can spot the tweaks and tiny differences in email addresses and catch the fraudsters on their tracks and avoid losses.
