Going on vacation with a chatbot 05 30 2024

Big travel companies have the resources to plan major tech overhauls to integrate AI, but it’s taking longer than some had expected. The focus is on the “unmanaged” sector of business travel — individuals, maybe small business employees, that don’t work with a contracted travel agency, Gulmann said. Gulmann said Otto will also be able to handle details like finding a hotel with specific amenities and within walking distance to a conference center. The tool is meant to learn and remember user data like a favorite airline, frequent flight routes, and preferred hotels.

Matthew Goldberg, president and CEO of Tripadvisor, said that travelers who have used the tool have generated an average of 15 times more revenue than TripAdvisor’s platform-wide average. The company recently added 20 new languages and 30 new regions to the tool, and it has scaled AI-powered review summaries for restaurants and experiences. Amex GBT (American Express Global Business Travel) is leveraging a blend of AI and human agents to enhance its business travel services.

Other than starting to monetize AI answers, Google is doubling down on leveraging search data for its ad inventory higher in the funnel to keep the performance marketing spending flowing via its much hyped Performance Max campaigns. A long-term winning strategy is focusing on providing search engines with optimized, structured data to better crawl and understand your content. This will help to boost visibility in AI answers in each relevant query.

Innovative AI tools are emerging to improve customer-facing travel services.

As a result, hoteliers need to adapt their workflow to match the new characteristics that come with AI search. Already, AI-driven searches are shifting towards a more conversational approach, departing from traditional destination and ChatGPT date inputs. To stay relevant, hoteliers should optimize their websites and marketing strategies to align with this natural, conversational content, enhancing visibility in voice search results and attracting targeted organic traffic.

The primary business for all three companies is their property management system, which handles operations for hotels like check-in and check-out. These hotel tech execs all believe there are big opportunities for AI, but they also believe that marketers are promoting it in ways that don’t make sense. Think about the rate of change in consumer preferences, search, and ecommerce. The winners in data and AI will be those who are bold and passionate about their customers, open to learning and unlearning, willing to be agile in their tactics — and downright persistent.

It’s Tuesday, July 30, and here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today. Cloudbeds has been using AI since it started, he said, but the company hasn’t done much marketing around it. Innovation thrives on free flow of information, data, and open-source technology.

Enhanced Customer Support and Service

McKinsey has estimated that this type of next-generation airline retailing could be worth $40 billion by 2030. That would represent up to an additional 4% of current industry revenue, an equivalent of $7 per passenger. Maps users can also see AI-generated summaries for electric vehicle charging stations, meant to help users more easily locate them.

These models are pre-trained on vast datasets (like the entire internet) but do not continuously learn or update facts. Unlike LLMs, tools like ChatGPT Search, Perplexity and Google’s Generative Search Results fetch live website data and summarize it in real-time, linking back to the sources — something LLMs cannot do directly. Otto is designed to assist unmanaged business travellers—those who don’t have corporate travel partners—by integrating with key industry service providers such as Spotnana and Direct Travel. The company, which is developing an intelligent and autonomous AI travel assistant for business travellers, aims to simplify the travel experience. Not only do they want a piece of the inbound market but now they are after the domestic and outbound markets too, a natural advantage for the Japanese-based companies.

The Tourism Authority of Thailand has launched an AI-driven initiative to enhance spiritual tourism by offering personalized travel recommendations based on astrology. This initiative is part of a broader strategy to capitalize on the growing ‚spiritual economy,‘ with faith-based tourism in Thailand valued at THB 15 billion in 2023. Gen Z is a significant driver of this trend, engaging with spiritual themes through social media, prompting brands to incorporate mystical elements into their marketing strategies. Releasing an update on the goal, the company said the assistant “Super AI Sunny” would guide users through travel planning across search, booking and post-booking, including related ancillaries such as tours and activities. However, travel agents warn that generative AI tools may not always be aware of the full range of options, particularly for less-popular destinations. The limited amount of data available for these locations can lead AI tools to make less-informed recommendations or even provide incorrect information.

However, Prange is certain that travel planning will only get easier, in part thanks to artificial intelligence. In the future, tourists can carry their smart travel planner with them wherever they go — in the form of an app on their phone, for example. However, how well such AI recommendation systems work depends on the information they can draw on.

Google has made several announcements in recent weeks about how its generative AI model is being used to power next-generation travel technologies. The hype around artificial intelligence and, more specifically generative ChatGPT App artificial intelligence, has been palpable over the last nearly two years. The upgraded tech is better at answering multi-faceted questions, said Liz Reid, vice president of Search, during the conference.

Anthropic’s New AI Feature Mimics Human Travel Agents

The AI upgrades aim to provide more comprehensive travel recommendations and brainstorming suggestions, with features like contextual awareness and multi-faceted question handling. In order for AI to transform, rather than simply enhance the travel planning and experience, there are barriers that will take years to overcome. Data silos, such as hotel brands, airlines and OTA’s private APIs „by invitation only“ for real-time data, limit AI agents‘ access to quality data. The public internet is not enough.Better integration of real-time data from IoT devices and wide adoption of voice assistants on wearables could improve this.

Such high levels of personalisation, according to Tharp, would “break down the friction in a journey and not only lead to higher revenue but also potentially more trips and more things purchased during a traveller’s journey”. By integrating AI into travel planning and customer service strategies, hotels can not only improve operational efficiency but also differentiate themselves in an increasingly competitive landscape. Meta AI was useful as a starting point for finding things to do in a new destination — an improvement from its first model but nothing new compared to competitors. Beyond that, a traditional search is far superior for trip planning. Tech integrations can enable suppliers, such as airlines and hotels, to send electronic receipts straight to the expense reports required by companies. Travelers can ideally just click to submit items via travel management software.

Marketers can start testing this strategy today by leveraging Schema.org and Google structured data makeups and measure impact in Google search rich results like the carousel or “people also asked” snippets. LVMH said it would make an unspecified strategic investment in the Orient Express brand. O’Neill notes the joint venture will include ships in addition to trains and hotels. Meanwhile, LVMH downplayed rumors it would open a Louis Vuitton-branded hotel in Paris.

The tech is here to stay, and will deliver on all promises – mostly within this decade, as I see it. Beyond that, there will [be] a new set of dreams and imaginations – and that’s for the next decade. Lufthansa Innovation Hub’s Swifty, an autonomous AI travel agent, exemplifies the cutting-edge applications of AI in travel. Swifty automates travel planning and booking, significantly improving customer service and operational efficiency. Similarly, Gauvendi’s AI-driven solutions for personalized guest experiences and room inventory optimization have led to tangible benefits, such as increased direct bookings and revenue.

• In other words, it makes the whole process of planning a trip a lot less tedious.
• The upgraded tech is better at answering multi-faceted questions, said Liz Reid, vice president of Search, during the conference.
• There has been a lot of news recently about the impact of artificial intelligence in search and how it may or may not impact the future of Google.
• To stay relevant, hoteliers should optimize their websites and marketing strategies to align with this natural, conversational content, enhancing visibility in voice search results and attracting targeted organic traffic.
• We are preparing to incorporate restaurants into the platform by the end of the summer, which is in line with our ambition for Speakspots to be a true all-in-one travel solution.

FLYR has raised $295 million, the artificial intelligence-powered travel technology company announced Thursday. The future lies in AI-powered interfaces that create real-time, personalised user experiences. These UIs will learn from user interactions and offer custom suggestions in formats like voice, images, and fluid forms. This is a big improvement from current complex UIs that have all features built in, which heavily limits customization and clearly obstructs AI innovation.

Teams playing the long game will benefit from the head start and drive innovation for the industry. The company will need to use that time wisely at it navigates the many variables against it. Generative AI is still a work in progress, though that tech is improving quickly. Mindtrip also has a lot of competition from small and large players.

We’ve seen an increase in conversion without abandoning our totally free-to-use model. The article discusses the potential and challenges of integrating AI in the travel industry, emphasizing the importance of data quality and human ingenuity. Additionally, the piece underscores the urgency for travel companies to invest in AI despite industry-specific challenges and evolving benchmarks.

Timothy Hughes, vice president of corporate development at online travel agency Agoda, said usage in back-end development tools is where the Asian online travel agency is seeing „the immediate gains.“ Unsurprisingly, generative artificial intelligence was also a key theme at WiT Singapore this week where travel experts provided views on the most exciting applications of next generation travel technology. A more advanced version of this tech could eliminate the friction of manually navigating options, comparing prices, and making reservations. As the technology improves, users might bypass online travel agencies like Booking.com altogether, relying on AI to find the best deals on their behalf. This could reduce the traffic to agency websites and commissions that they rely on. As the tech advances, users could bypass online travel agencies altogether.

I’ll agree that the GenAI hype has been drummed up quite aggressively – a bit too aggressively I’d say. Reality will eventually catch up with the hype, and will meet or beat most predictions, as I can see. The potential is huge, and this GenAI tech is here for the long haul, so let’s not judge travel chatbot too early. AI has been around for decades now and is already bringing disruptions … like revenue management or personalization for instance. Google is also upgrading Search to respond with fuller recommendations during the brainstorming stage, when the prompts are typically less specific.

Augmenting this paperwork with generative AI could help these mechanics become significantly more efficient at their jobs. Generative AI is making significant strides across the corporate landscape, and the travel and hospitality sectors are no exception. Discover how generative AI is enhancing value for hotels, airlines and travelers themselves. We run technology experiments constantly, both from a web-scraping perspective and an insight generation perspective through JavaScript algorithms. The vast majority of experiments fail, but it’s the only way to find truly innovative solutions such as the one we recently implemented with real-time Booking.com data. Our conversion rate on hotel reservations is 2.9% which is significantly higher than the 1.5 to 2.5% at which the average hotel website converts according to HotelTechReport.

Madrona Ventures led the round, with support from Direct Travel and a star lineup of travel industry veterans. It’s called Otto, and the startup shared its plans on Thursday along with news of a $6 million seed round. So, Skift got an update from Evan Konwiser, chief marketing and strategy officer. However, a longer-term perspective can be useful to see what’s driving the company’s competitive position. The [Tiqets] team has stayed at about 250 people, but with AI, we’ve been able to quadruple our business.

Anthropic is the company behind the generative AI search engine Claude and it released three demonstrations of the tech on Tuesday. One of them was for making travel plans — a common demo that competitors OpenAI and Google have also leaned on when showing how their AI works. In this episode of The Exchange, we explore the future of tourism and how innovation is reshaping the industry. Guy Shone delves into the rising trend of regenerative tourism with Tina O’Dwyer, CEO and Founder of The Tourism Space. Tina shares how this new approach is focused on giving back to local communities and protecting the environment. According to the press release detailing the findings, more than 1,000 travelers were polled.

Thierry Antinori, Qatar Airways Chief Commercial Officer, shares his thoughts on how AI is transforming air travel. With advancements like Sama, the world’s first digital human cabin crew and more innovative check-in processes, travel is becoming more convenient and enjoyable for all. Blask envisions a kind of „travel buddy” that makes suggestions based on previous decisions and interactions with users.

We invested in a lot of things that were already on the roadmap, but I guess we accelerated that. There was just more focus on finalizing things with a little bit less pressure, like fully automated page search, fully automated creation of landing pages. You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. If you look at Gen Z and Millennials, we definitely see that there’s a change in what’s on the bucket list. We’re back in the days of full-city packages aimed at experiences. “I’ve heard they’re super helpful for that experience and I’m not as worried about the personalized recommendations as I would be going to a new city or country,” McCarthy said. McCarthy, though, said she might think about using a travel agent if she takes her young daughter to Disney.

Whether for business or leisure, immerse yourself in [city] vibrant culture from our urban oasis” is nice, but if you don’t include more on product details, the AI is not going to find you. As search dynamics evolve, you should probably be about mindful of maintaining online traffic from these new sources. There has been a lot of news recently about the impact of artificial intelligence in search and how it may or may not impact the future of Google.

We have tools to share our curated inventory with these distributor partners. Tiqets, backed by an investment from Airbnb, has navigated the pandemic successfully and has been profitable since last year. The company specializes in selling admission to museums and attractions with unique twists like exclusive early morning or late night entries. Tiqets is focused on global expansion, leveraging AI for internal efficiency and enhancing user experiences, and forming strategic partnerships with companies such as Sofar Sounds and Klook. CEO Laurens Leurink discusses the company’s growth strategy, emphasizing the importance of partnerships, distribution channels, and curated offerings to cater to the diverse preferences of modern travelers.

I agree that we’re witnessing the rise of a new, AI-driven interface to the internet, which will expand but not entirely replace today’s web interface. GAI chatbots are the first step, worrying Google about the future of its profitable search engine. Despite some comically inept responses from its new Generative Search Experience, it will be a better way to handle many daily inquiries once the kinks are worked out.

Travelers can now use voice assistants, chatbots, and mobile apps interchangeably without losing context. This omnichannel approach enhances the convenience of booking and encourages more spontaneous travel decisions. Of course, the Asian travel market has evolved a lot in the last two decades. During the time when cost of capital was low, online travel companies, local giants, emerged in big markets such as Indonesia, India and China. Steve Singh and a group of industry veterans are rolling out a new AI trip planner and booking agent for business travel. One survey of U.S. travelers in 2023 found that 38% of millennials and Gen Zers said they prefer traditional travel agents to sort out their trips.

Sabre last week announced its new retailing platform for airlines, powered by Google’s AI. Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky is among leaders who have touted how their companies might evolve thanks to generative AI. But the change is yet to come – a fact Chesky acknowledged at an event he spoke at in September. Make an adjustment, such as changing the start time, and the AI automatically repopulates its plan. Similar to SEO back in the early 2000s, expect the leading AI engines to keep tweaking and optimizing the search answers over years to come. Keeping a pulse check in this fast-paced environment and constantly adapting and testing the content accordingly will be paramount to maximize organic traffic in the future.

None of them, however, likely are strong enough yet to change the way travelers search and book. The company raised $7 million in late 2023 and launched a beta version of its product in May 2024. It has been making updates since then, including a new group chat and planning capability released Tuesday.

There are reports of High Street travel agents in the UK opening new physical storefronts, as are several travel agencies in Singapore, for example. The company announced net revenue of $1.8 billion for the quarter, up 14% year over year. Accommodation revenue was up 20% to $707 million for the same period.Transport ticketing revenue for Q2 increased 1% to $670 million. Meanwhile, revenue from packaged tours increased 42% to $141 million year over year. The CCL is part of Travelport’s main platform and uses AI and machine learning to help travel agents compare flights, hotels, and car rentals more quickly.

The German National Tourist Board responded on Instagram, saying it has no plans to replace human influencers because they create “authentic and emotional connections” and that Emma will “complement” and “enrich” their contributions. While the audience chose the ability of generative AI to boost recommendations in travel as most exciting in a poll, panelists opted for more practical applications. Alex Bainbridge, CEO of Autoura, has already tried a developer demo, as he outlined in a post on LinkedIn. Autoura is a robotaxi tour operator and also offers an AI-powered tour guide platform to sightseeing companies. Our Deaf travellers told us that, in a perfect world, they would want live interpreters. Sabre is also utilising Google’s Vertex AI platform to optimise pricing and product merchandising for airlines, with a focus on increasing both internal productivity and external customer benefits.

Of hospitality customers expect generative AI to play a role in customer interactions. I’ve spoken with many younger founders who are juggling full-time jobs while bootstrapping their entrepreneurial ventures. They are often surprised to learn that I bootstrapped Speakspots for nearly five years before securing our first pre-seed round. During this period, I worked full-time and dedicated my evenings and weekends to developing Speakspots until we achieved product-market fit.