The changing face of travel

Bahardeen (left) and Rafat (right). 

A fireside chat between Fazal Bahardeen, CEO of CrescentRating and HalalTrip and Rafat Ali, CEO and Founder, Skift at the Halal-In-Travel Asia Summit touched on how travel agents have evolved.

Rafat noted that retail travel agents are "pretty much gone" in the US, with companies retreating into sectors where travel is complex, such as for cruises, or luxury travel.  "Nobody buys an airline ticket through them any more, they buy experiences," he said. 

"The mindset of 'I need choices, guide me to pick the right choices, let me figure out my own way', is cutting across a large swathe of (generations). Baby boomers are the fastest-growing part of people who do book AirBnBs, and the largest part of people who rent out their houses. It is changing quite a bit," he said.

He observed that Millennials are independent and prefer to bypass travel agents, but that the attitude is spilling over into other demographics. "The Millennial mindset is a mindset that is growing across diff generations. Don't get hung up on a single demographic - even Millennials aren't a single demographic. 

KSA has projected that it can accept 15 million umrah pilgrims by 2020.

He noted that when it comes to Hajj and umrah, a big proportion of people may be travelling for the first time. "None of the marketing for any travel brand ever talks about the first-time traveller," Rafat pointed out.

"The human touch is important," he said.

Asked if Skift will focus on Muslim travel, Rafat said no. The publication does cover CrescentRating reports, but he draws the line at "creating separate lanes". He explained that the editorial stance is global and that his personal philosophy is that Muslims should exist within the larger society. 

"We should travel as normal human beings carrying our normal identities but we don't ask (for special treatment) – I can figure out my own way," he said.

"Let's integrate into the larger world and hence have a larger platform for what we can discuss in Muslim world."

Rafat also said that Muslims can adopt multiple 'skins'. "In a Muslim country we can turn on our ma sha Allah, in sha Allah, whatever. In a non-Muslim country a large part of us can do what they do for a large part," he said.

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