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Bridging the Action-Awareness Gap: Trip.com Group’s 2024 Sustainable Travel Consumer Report Insights

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Gap between awareness and action among travellers for sustainable travelAround 54.7% of respondents seek access to sustainable options when booking onlineGen Z’s attitudes toward sustainability highlight greater need for motivation and targeted engagement

SHANGHAI, Oct. 13, 2024 /CNW/ — Trip.com Group, a leading global travel service provider, reveals that while sustainability awareness is rising among travellers, there remains a gap between awareness and action. This is one of the key insights from the Sustainable Travel Consumer Report 2024 that the Group released today.

The report draws from 9,867 survey samples from 109 countries and territories, including the Asia-Pacific (APAC), Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), North America (NORAM) and Latin America (LATAM). It also looks at Gen Z’s travel preferences and regional variations in motivations and perceptions.

Gap between Awareness and Action

An overwhelming 92% of travellers may consider sustainable travel, yet only 56.9% say they have actually practised it. Of those who did not consider this option, some cited confusion around what sustainable travel entails. Others doubt the authenticity of sustainable products or initiatives. This highlights the need for better consumer education and more straightforward communication from travel providers.

A series of other factors also contribute to the gap between awareness and action. Primary barriers include the perception of sustainable travel as a collective endeavour or the view that it does not bring added benefits to trips.

These considerations diminish travellers’ appetite for usually more expensive sustainable options. The report reveals a divide when it comes to paying extra for sustainable travel options. While some travellers are open to paying a premium, many have clear limits on how much more they are willing to spend. Findings show that 38.8% of travellers are unwilling to pay more, while 42.5% are open to paying a premium, but only within certain limits. For example:

1 in 5 travellers (21%) are willing to pay up to 5% more for sustainable travel.Willingness drops as costs rise: only 4.7% will pay 10-20% more, and 1.7% will exceed 20%.

The report also underscores contrasting attitudes toward cost: APAC travellers are generally more likely to pay a premium for sustainable travel. About a third of them (32.3%) opt out of paying any additional cost at all.

Price sensitivity is noticeably higher among travellers in NORAM, EMEA, and LATAM, where 53.0%, 49.4%, and 47.3%, respectively, are unwilling to pay extra for sustainable options.

Demand for Sustainable Travel Information

Travellers may not always practise sustainable travel. But an increasing number of them now seek sustainable options when booking trips online. Over half of those surveyed (54.7%) now routinely look for these options. This is in line with the report’s findings about their expectations for online travel agents (OTA). Further findings include:

Three in four (75.83%) travellers anticipate clearly labelled sustainable options when booking from OTAsMore than half (53.07%) prefer to see sustainable travel tips online

According to the report, a significant 72.4% of travellers are attracted to OTAs and providers that highlight sustainable travel offerings. These choices act as a feel-good factor, as people express increased interest or positive sentiments when informed about them.

Four out of five travellers from APAC and LATAM expect OTAs to clearly label sustainable options, coming in at 80% and 83.6%, respectively. This reflects a growing demand for transparency and more sustainable choices. Access to sustainability-related information has steadily become a basic consumer right in the eyes of travellers.

Diverse Motivations for Sustainable Travel

While sustainable travel is gaining momentum worldwide, the report shows that priorities differ across regions, with travellers focusing on distinct motivations depending on their location:

Globally, environmental and cultural concerns lead the way, with 47.3% of travellers prioritising environmental protection.APAC and LATAM travellers are driven primarily by environmental factors.EMEA and NORAM travellers adopt a broader perspective, considering wildlife protection, cultural heritage, and economic impact.

As sustainability awareness grows, environmental concerns are no longer the sole driver of sustainable travel. Travellers are now motivated by a broader range of factors, signalling a shift toward viewing sustainability more holistically.

Opinions differ on who should lead efforts to reduce tourism’s carbon footprint. APAC travellers see it more as an individual responsibility than a shared commitment. In contrast, their counterparts in EMEA, LATAM, and NORAM place a bigger emphasis on collective action from governments, communities, and the travel industry.

Engaging Gen Z in Shared Responsibility

The travel industry can strategically engage Gen Z travellers by understanding and addressing their views on sustainable travel.

Despite greater exposure to sustainability-related information, Gen Z is just as hesitant as other age groups to pay extra for sustainable options. Gen Z exhibits several distinct characteristics:

Three in four (73.0%) Gen Zs consider buying from OTAs with sustainable offeringsMore than half (53.6%) say the environment is a key motivator for travelling sustainably48.3% are unsure of what qualifies as a sustainable trip31.5% fail to see any added benefit from sustainable travel

These insights indicate that stronger understanding or motivation is needed to get Gen Z onboard in the quest to advance sustainable travel.

To align themselves with this goal, OTAs can guide this generation with clear labelling and incentives for sustainable choices. By closing the gap between awareness and action, they support travellers in making sustainable decisions.

Trip.com Group’s Commitment to Advancing Sustainable Travel

As sustainable travel awareness grows, OTAs have a key opportunity to bridge the gap between awareness and action. For its part, Trip.com Group continues promoting sustainability within the travel industry. The Group has introduced a range of ‘lower-carbon travel products’ and partnered with organisations like GSTC, Travalyst and WWF to advocate for sustainable tourism.

Trip.com Group is committed to reducing its environmental impact across its operations and supporting the global fight against climate change. It joined the Science Based Target initiative (SBTi) and aims to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. Additionally, the Group also aims to introduce over 10,000 lower-carbon travel products, targeting 100 million travellers to consider adopting lower-carbon travel practices.

“As we enjoy the planet’s natural wonders, it is our duty and responsibility to protect and preserve these treasures for future generations,” said Trip.com Group CEO Jane Sun. “We are encouraged by the growing awareness of sustainable travel, and will continue to collaborate with, and empower, our stakeholders in building a sustainable future.”

To read the full report, please click here Trip.com Group Sustainable Travel Consumer Report 2024

About Trip.com Group

Trip.com Group is a leading global travel service provider comprising of Trip.com, Ctrip, Skyscanner, and Qunar. Across its platforms, Trip.com Group helps travellers around the world make informed and cost-effective bookings for travel products and services and enables partners to connect their offerings with users through the aggregation of comprehensive travel-related content and resources, and an advanced transaction platform consisting of apps, websites and 24/7 customer service centres. Founded in 1999 and listed on NASDAQ in 2003 and HKEX in 2021, Trip.com Group has become one of the best-known travel groups in the world, with the mission “to pursue the perfect trip for a better world”. Find out more about Trip.com Group here: group.trip.com.

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SOURCE Trip.com Group

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Primer’s enhanced AI platform delivers near-zero hallucination rates

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AI-powered search, discovery, and analysis tailored to your mission, data, and secure networks

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Primer Technologies, an AI/ML technology firm delivering tailored, mission-critical AI solutions for secure data analysis and decision support, today unveiled an update to its AI platform, achieving near-zero hallucination rates when analyzing and summarizing massive data sets.

In high-stakes environments where precision and timeliness are crucial, Primer’s enhanced platform emerges as a game-changing solution. It rapidly converts vast amounts of data into actionable intelligence, seamlessly integrating with your workflows and secure networks to empower mission-critical decisions.

Imagine accessing critical insights in near real-time, free from the noise and inaccuracies that often hinder traditional tools; finding the exact relevant set of documents to drive your analysis and developing your insights and courses of action with the help of AI. With the launch of Primer’s AI platform, the company is raising the bar on hallucinations, setting a new industry standard with 99.9% retrieval augmented generation (RAG) accuracy. The enhanced version will be demonstrated live at Primer’s booth during AUSA in Washington, DC, October 14-16.

“Very few can develop tailored, mission-critical AI solutions at scale for the world’s most demanding agencies and organizations,” said Primer CEO Sean Moriarty. “Even fewer have earned the trust to deploy AI responsibly in the most complex and sensitive environments. Primer has proven itself as a trusted partner, delivering AI that organizations can rely on when it matters most.”

“We’re driving the error rate to near-zero on retrieval augmented generation (RAG) through a range of proprietary techniques,” said Primer CPO Leonard Law. “High performance and transparency are crucial because customers deserve better than a black box that demands their blind trust. Primer’s AI platform cites sources and maintains traceability.”

Near zero hallucinations

While other tools experience up to a 10% error rate due to hallucinations, Primer is specifically engineered to dramatically reduce these inaccuracies. Its proprietary fact-checking technology, RAG-V, captures over 99% of errors before they reach users, ensuring every piece of intelligence is rooted in your data. This precision is paramount when leveraging AI to produce decision-ready intelligence you can trust in mission-critical situations.

Unrivaled speed

Primer’s proprietary algorithmic framework, BabyBear, dramatically reduces both latency and cost by automatically selecting the best AI model for each task, balancing cost-efficiency and performance without sacrificing accuracy. This ensures that only complex tasks are sent to resource-intensive models, significantly speeding up processing times and reducing GPU usage by up to 90%.

Primer increases the time available for analysis, allowing analysts to dedicate more attention to in-depth, value-added assessments. This shift empowers analysts to focus more on what truly matters: interpreting and acting on critical insights.

Practical, reliable AI

Primer’s AI platform delivers a personalized AI-enabled search and discovery experience that integrates with customer workflows, including:

AI-powered search: Instantly uncover critical insights with AI that understands your questions in everyday language, scanning millions of public and proprietary documents at lightning speed.Dynamic summaries & visualizations: Automatically transform raw data into clear, actionable intelligence with tools like network graphs, timelines, maps, and entity profiles, revealing patterns and trends that help you stay ahead of threats.Instant intelligence delivery: Compile and distribute fully sourced, actionable intelligence swiftly up the chain of command, ensuring your team remains ahead of the curve.

See Primer in Action

The Primer team will demonstrate live in their booth at AUSA in Washington, DC (Booth #348) October 14-16, 2024 and DoDIIS in Omaha, NE (Booth #1717) October 27-30, 2024.

About Primer

Primer’s AI software is deployed by the U.S. government, strategic allies, and Fortune 100 companies to extract timely insight and decision advantage from massive datasets. Primer has offices in Arlington, Virginia, San Francisco, California and Pasadena, California. For more information, please visit www.primer.ai.

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SOURCE Primer

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Act Now or Pay Later: Strategic Shifts, Technological Innovation Will Be Key for Growth in Maturing Payments Industry

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BOSTON, Oct. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Boston Consulting Group (BCG) today released its 22nd annual Global Payments Report highlighting the urgent need for decisive action to ensure profitable and sustainable long-term growth in the payments industry. The report, titled Fortune Favors the Bold, emphasizes the strategic imperative for payments companies to navigate mounting challenges from evolving customer expectations, regulatory scrutiny, investor priorities, and technological disruptions.

The payments industry, once the poster child for a rapid growth sector, is now under pressure as investor expectations shift toward profitability and differentiated business models. With growth rates slowing sharply across North America and Europe, firms wanting to remain competitive in the payments space need to reshape their strategies, modernize their technology, and embrace generative AI (GenAI).

“The payments industry is entering a new phase and the days of easy secular growth are behind us. Firms will need to embrace bold capital allocation and portfolio strategies to deliver industry-leading shareholder returns,” said Inderpreet Batra, Managing Director and Senior Partner at BCG and coauthor of the report. “They must leverage new technologies like GenAI, modernize their tech, and enhance their risk and compliance frameworks.”

Key findings from the report include:

Growth is slowing across regions: Global payments revenue growth is projected to halve, rising at a 5% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) through 2028 to create a revenue pool worth $2.3 trillion. This is significantly lower than the 9% CAGR from the previous five years, which drove the global revenue pool to $1.8 trillion in 2023. North America and Europe will see the most dramatic declines in growth, with projected annual revenue increases of just about 3%. Asia-Pacific remains a growth driver with 6% growth per year, fueled by increasing digital payments adoption and the rise of middle-class consumers. Latin America and the Middle East and Africa are expected to see higher annual growth rates at 9% and 7% respectively, driven by accelerating digital payments in emerging markets.

Shift from cash to digital is nearing its peak: In established markets like the US, UK, and Nordic countries, the transition to digital payments is almost complete, with less than 10% of consumer transactions by value still made in cash. Even traditionally cash-reliant markets such as Germany have seen a sharp decline, with the value of cash transactions in store dropping from 50% in 2010 to approximately 25% in 2023. The digital payments market is reaching maturity, slowing the opportunity for further rapid growth in non-cash transaction volumes.

Shareholder value creation requires a strategic shift: Historically, revenue growth was the primary driver of shareholder return in the payments sector. Between 2016 and 2021, revenue growth contributed to over 55% of total shareholder returns (TSR). However, from 2021 to mid-2024, this dynamic shifted, with revenue growth, profit growth, and multiple expansion playing an equal role in driving TSR. During this period, buybacks, dividends, and other capital return strategies gained significance, and now account for about 36% of TSR. Investor profiles have evolved as well: 33% of the payments industry’s investor base is now value-focused (up from 26% in 2021) and expectations for tangible value in dividends, buybacks, and capital returns have sharpened.

Instant payments and digital currencies are reshaping the payments landscape: Real-time payments systems are revolutionizing how transactions are processed and making it essential for payments players to anticipate higher adoption by shaping relevant solutions and preparing their back office to be operationally ready. The rise of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) is poised to further disrupt the industry, with programmable payments offering new use cases and additional efficiency in financial transactions. Adoption of these technologies could significantly reshape traditional payments and the overall payments ecosystem.

GenAI will reshape the payments landscape, and companies must act now: Generative AI is expected to revolutionize the payments industry. Early movers are already using it to boost customer service, improve operational efficiency, and enhance fraud detection. Companies that hesitate risk falling behind as GenAI will soon become a competitive necessity. Payments players must invest immediately in AI capabilities to improve the customer experience, streamline their operations, and create personalized experiences at scale before the window of opportunity closes.

Technology modernization is critical to staying competitive: The payments leaders of the future will need a rationalized, cloud-based, modular technology architecture to remain resilient and cost-efficient. By transitioning to scalable systems in a modernizing market infrastructure, companies can reduce tech debt, cut operating costs, and bring products to market more quickly. Leading firms are already leveraging modern cores to streamline operations and maintain competitive advantages through continuous innovation.

“As the payments sector reaches a critical turning point, those who act decisively now will emerge as the clear leaders,” said Markus Ampenberger, Managing Director and Partner at BCG. “The companies that embrace bold product innovation and technology modernization today will not only shape the future of the industry but also deliver lasting value to both their customers and shareholders.”

Download the publication here.

Media Contact:
Eric Gregoire:
+1 617 850 3783
gregoire.eric@bcg.com 

About Boston Consulting Group
Boston Consulting Group partners with leaders in business and society to tackle their most important challenges and capture their greatest opportunities. BCG was the pioneer in business strategy when it was founded in 1963. Today, we work closely with clients to embrace a transformational approach aimed at benefiting all stakeholders—empowering organizations to grow, build sustainable competitive advantage, and drive positive societal impact.

Our diverse, global teams bring deep industry and functional expertise and a range of perspectives that question the status quo and spark change. BCG delivers solutions through leading-edge management consulting, technology and design, and corporate and digital ventures. We work in a uniquely collaborative model across the firm and throughout all levels of the client organization, fueled by the goal of helping our clients thrive and enabling them to make the world a better place.

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SOURCE Boston Consulting Group (BCG)

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Resecurity Partners with emt Distribution META to Elevate Cybersecurity Solutions Across the Middle East and Africa

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LOS ANGELES, Oct. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Resecurity, a global provider of cybersecurity solutions, is proud to announce its strategic partnership with emt Distribution META, a leading value-added distributor in the Middle East and Africa. This collaboration aims to deliver comprehensive cybersecurity solutions tailored to the unique challenges faced by businesses in the META region.

As cyber threats continue to escalate in complexity and frequency, organizations are increasingly seeking robust defenses to protect their digital assets. Resecurity’s suite of advanced cybersecurity products, including threat intelligence, endpoint protection, and risk management solutions, will now be made available through emt Distribution META’s extensive network of resellers and partners.

“We are excited to partner with emt Distribution META to drive cybersecurity innovation and protect businesses and consumers in the region from the emerging threats. This great alliance will accelerate the global channel network and facilitate unparalleled delivery of our solutions,” said Ahmad Halabi, Managing Director MENA at Resecurity.

The partnership will empower emt Distribution META to provide its partners with the tools and knowledge necessary to implement Resecurity’s cutting-edge technologies effectively. This includes training sessions, workshops, and ongoing support to ensure that businesses can navigate the increasingly complex cybersecurity landscape.

“We are excited to collaborate with Resecurity to enhance our portfolio of cybersecurity offerings,” said Khaled Kamel, Business Unit Director at emt Distribution META. “Resecurity’ s innovative solutions will enable us to better serve our partners and clients, helping them to safeguard their operations against cyber threats.”

To kick off this partnership, Resecurity and emt Distribution META will host a series of webinars and events designed to educate partners and end-users about the latest trends in cybersecurity and the importance of proactive measures in today’s digital environment.

For more information about Resecurity and its partnership with emt Distribution META, please visit emt Distribution META’s website – www.emtmeta.com

About Resecurity:
Resecurity® is a cybersecurity company that delivers a unified platform for endpoint protection, fraud prevention, risk management, and cyber threat intelligence. Known for providing best-of-breed data-driven intelligence solutions, Resecurity’s services and platforms focus on early-warning identification of data breaches and comprehensive protection against cybersecurity risks. An Official Partner of the Cybercrime Atlas by the World Economic Forum (WEF), Member of InfraGard National Members Alliance (INMA), AFCEA, NDIA, SIA, FS-ISAC and the American Chamber of Commerce in Saudi Arabia (AmChamKSA), Singapore (AmChamSG), Korea (AmChamKorea), Mexico (AmChamMX), Thailand (AmChamThailand), and UAE (AmChamDubai). To learn more about Resecurity, visit https://resecurity.com.

About emt Distribution META:
emt Distribution META is a value-added distributor specializing in innovative technology solutions across the Middle East and Africa. With a commitment to partner success, emt Distribution META offers comprehensive support, training, and resources to enable effective technology adoption.

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SOURCE Resecurity Inc.

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