How has technology affected travel?
With the advent of the internet and the smart phone (along with a million other things) technology has revolutionised the way in which we travel. Not only has it affected the literal forms of transport that we use to move from A to B, but it has also had a huge impact on the whole experience of travelling in itself.
At I Love Meet and Greet, we are constantly adapting our services to keep up to date with technology transformations, from making our booking process ‘mobile friendly’ to sending out offers via email.
As technology has developed, the opportunities to travel around the world have expanded dramatically. The extensive development in air travel has resulted in us being able to travel both faster and at a lower cost to virtually anywhere in the world. With technology at our aid, we can literally arrange and book every essential for our journey (including I Love Meet and Greet parking!) at the click of a button. Gone seemingly are the days when we rely on travel agents to organise our holidays after spending hours on end studying hefty city guidebooks deciding on our location. It’s not just the booking of our travel that technology has made easier, as we can now also use our smart devices to do everything from checking us into a flight to relying on it to give us directions to a location.
Another form of technology which has made an impact on travel is media and communication. TV has provided a format not only for travel and holiday advertisement, but also for programmes devoted entirely to advertising a foreign country. The fact is, it is now more than possible for us to visit the amazing places we see on the TV and at the same time keep in contact with the people we leave behind. Whether it’s by a quick update via social media or a skype conversation, thanks to technology we can stay connected with family and friends from virtually anywhere that we travel to.
Although we may get lost in technology, the chances of getting physically lost in real life are now very low. A blog post on www.reachtoreachrecrutining says: “Anybody armed with a Smartphone and a wifi connection finds themselves not lost, but found.” Although it is of course a relief to know that it is unlikely to get lost, sometimes we find the best places by mistake and also meet new people through asking for direction.
We can’t argue that technology has definitely made our lives easier when it comes to travelling, but at the same time we question whether it’s making us less sociable. It’s nice to be able to go to a place already knowing exactly where the best restaurants and places are, but surely it’s nicer to explore and find out from locals about these hotspots as apposed to just taking advice from the likes of Tripadvisor!
By Sarah Anglim at 13 May 2014