Artificial Intelligence: Is it the Future of the Travel Industry?

Artificial Intelligence: Is it the Future of the Travel Industry?

Want to plan a trip abroad? Go ahead! Gone are the days when you had to depend completely on your travel agent in order to do so. But now, with technology seeping into our lives and making it better, you no longer need to engage in some tiresome conversations with your agent for travel arrangements. All thanks to Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the travel industry. You can get an intelligent and personalized travel solution tailored just according to your requirements.

Want to know more? Let’s make you aware of how AI is transforming the travel industry. Read on.

Apple, with Siri and Amazon, with Alexa want to be able to operate all around the world in hotel rooms. They want to serve as virtual assistants to guests. How? By activating appliances and answering all the basic questions. Heard about the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas? This hotel has equipped all its rooms (approx. 4700) with Alexa in order to provide its guests with a modern as well as an exciting experience. Sounds cool?

How does it feel when you can search for something on Google with just by voice commands? Great, isn’t it? Soon, you’re going to find voice-powered reservation systems in many hotels. This is going to be the most exciting use of artificial intelligence in the travel and hospitality industry.

Good news for those who are in the travel business! If they are you losing a significant number of customers as they’re not being able to answer to their customers’ queries 24/7, then they need not to worry anymore. This will be a thing of the past with the use of chatbots. Being in the travel industry, they need to be able to attend their customers 24/7. Chatbots can help them with just that! They can respond to their customers instantaneously, regardless of the time of the day or night, providing complete support. If the chatbots are programmed properly, they can enhance your entire travel experience – from sending you automatic reminders before arrival to suggesting nearby tourist attractions – everything.

Facial recognition tools are of great help when you want to save time in hotels, at airports and other large events. Based in Finland, Finnair is an airline company that has started making use of facial recognition tools at Helsinki airport. They want to make it easier and less time-consuming for people to board, as there will be no physical boarding pass and the wait times will be shorter.

When AI tools make use of natural language processing and machine learning, they can analyze several data sources and extensive data sets in real-time. Depending on that data, the Artificial Intelligence system can not only identify abnormal behaviours, but also create risk scores. This helps in getting a complete understanding of each and every payment transaction. By using these tools, a travel business will be able to differentiate trusted payers from those who are not, thereby securing online travel transactions.

Don’t you check the reviews before buying something? You search for hotels and travel agencies online and see their reviews before making the final decision, right? This makes it all the more important for the travel agencies to keep an eye on what their customers have to say about their business. If they receive a negative review, it can hurt their business a lot. With the use of AI, they can monitor social media comments, customer reviews and other mentions about their brands. Airlines and hotels can observe the trends, respond to negative feedback and get a better idea about what the users want. This can be greatly beneficial in boosting their sales as well as profits.

The ability of Artificial Intelligence to enhance the efficiency of its operations with smart tools is providing travel agencies and hoteliers with a lot of advantages. This includes travel genome for dynamic customer profiles and customer segmentation with the help of automated, AI-powered dashboards. Let’s take Mezi, a personal travel assistant for example. With its AI-powered travel dashboard, it helps its clients such as Bluefish and Casto Travel to respond to customer requests in a much faster way. The technology allows the travel agents to access a traveller’s conversation history anytime they want. Also, they can update user profiles automatically in real-time. With the help of these tactics, the agents of Mezi’s clients have successfully increased productivity and utilisation to a great extent.

From complete automation to enhanced data insights – the travel industry can take all the benefits that AI offers. There are a number of opportunities for a travel business to enhance its service offerings as well as products such as dynamic pricing tools and chatbots. We suggest them to grab these opportunities with Artificial Intelligence and take their travel business to heights of success.

Do you own a travel business and want our help? Get in touch with us now!