Hype versus reality: How fast is generative AI changing the travel industry?

You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. While there is always risk in adopting a new technology, the rewards with AI are clear. While we’ve seen widespread integration of “smart” chatbots by travel startups and incumbents, their limitations are evident. They struggle with ‘proactive’ tasks such as customizing genuinely unique trips. They also struggle with last-minute travel disruptions due to limited breadth of real-time data. AI can only be as effective as the data it is fed, and in many hotels, different departments work with separate systems that don’t communicate with each other. Until a solution is developed that captures and unifies all these critical data points, the impact of AI will remain limited to narrow functions.

In addition to its AI-focused announcements, Cruise Planners shared a number of new technology upgrades, from directly integrating VAX VacationAccess bookings into CP Maxx and video upload to the CP Maxx Video ChatGPT App Library. I’m excited for the stories of people trying to jailbreak the AI agents and make them get angry with them. They encounter these chatbots, and their first instinct is to break them in that way.

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As AI continues to evolve, its integration into hospitality and travel promises a future where technology and human experiences are seamlessly intertwined, driving both sectors towards greater heights of efficiency and personalization. Altour’s new AI Predict tool is built to send predictive alerts about potential travel disruptions and delays, along with advice. A new AI Respond tool provides speedy responses to requests like booking confirmations and alternative options for flight cancellations when a traveler is attempting to rebook during a disruption. Unfortunately, ChatGPT will not liberate the industry from the yoke of the OTAs, on the contrary, it will cement their dominance.

Glenn was also surprisingly open with me about regulation. Booking.com is based in Amsterdam, and Europe’s big new tech law, the Digital Markets Act, classifies it as a gatekeeper just like Apple or Google. Glenn is not thrilled about that, as you might expect, but at the same time, it means competition with Google might be on a more even playing field.

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First, we wanted our staff to see Al as a helpful tool rather than a threat. Al can help them be more efficient, reducing the need for repetitive and mundane tasks. July’s weaker-than-expected job growth sparked a selloff in global financial markets and raised concerns about a recession.

Many of the travel booking platforms that experimented with generative AI tools early are now releasing second or third versions of that tech. One of the wonders of doing an AI agent is that there’ll be no hold time — you’ll go right to the machine. And, by the way, the AI agent is never going to get angry back at the customer. Sometimes customers get really angry, justifiably sometimes, and they may say things that would upset the agent, and the agent may then yell back, if it’s a human. The machine’s never going to yell back, it’s always going to be nice, and it’s never going to come with a bad attitude because it had a fight with its spouse in the morning.

And I still believe, though, in the end, the best thing is to provide a better way to do travel, and that’s how you win in the long run. And so this is where you’re rich (and) don’t (have) time (but) have money and want ChatGPT somebody to plan your family vacation — honeymoon, 50th birthday, whatever it is. And so travel agents come and they’re specialized travel agents, whether they’re focused on sports travel — sports travel is a big sector.

Yet we do observe already a proliferation of impactful use cases in particular in domains where the risk of error has a low impact. This includes for instance use cases for internal productivity or assisted sales. What will for sure take time is the improvement of these models and therefore the acceleration of fully automated use cases such as customer-facing features or marketing related topics. When these accelerate, it will for sure disrupt our sector. […] We have been able to take the Expedia experience outside of our ecosystem and into channels like iMessage or WhatsApp and take advantage of that, which I think is unique,” he said. Expedia said it pulls in data from various sources like AccuWeather and Yelp to tailor the search and the bot.

It won’t come really tired because it stayed out too late the night before. I tell you, there are a lot of benefits to having an AI agent versus a human. In fact, one of the reasons people say, and I don’t know, I’ve never gotten this from Google, a lot of people say, “You know what reasons Google does not go further into the actual transaction? They don’t want to deal with that actual messy, messy part of customer service.” Now, that may be true, may not.

It’s been just over a year since ChatGPT launched, and everyone gets that artificial intelligence will have a huge impact on businesses in every industry, including travel. Less clear is the timeline and where the changes will hit most. Oneworld piloted the AI travel agent for 18 months and found it a success.

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Beyond that, there will [be] a new set of dreams and imaginations – and that’s for the next decade. Steve Singh and a group of industry veterans have launched Otto, an AI-powered trip planner and booking agent for business travel. Otto recently announced a $6 million seed round led by Madrona Ventures. The startup, founded by Michael Gulmann, former senior vice president of consumer products for Expedia Group, aims to serve the unmanaged business travel market with features that include booking hotels, flights, and more.

Customers in Japan versus India, for example, have very different needs when it comes to payment options, languages and even the types of accommodations they offer. Ryokan inns in Japan are not like any other hospitality option. Unlike usual software, GenAl is inherently unpredictable. It’s often easy to create a “wow” demo, but much harder to develop something that consistently performs as expected. This requires significant effort and time to build robust testing and evaluation frameworks. We worked with all departments to map their problems to possible Al solutions and then prioritized them based on cost, confidence and impact.

• This new capital will support Acai Travel’s mission to build a comprehensive operating system for travel agencies, designed to double agent efficiency, streamline travel call centres, and enhance the overall traveller experience.
• The hype around artificial intelligence and, more specifically generative artificial intelligence, has been palpable over the last nearly two years.
• It specializes in special early morning or late night entries and getting direct exclusive inventory, partly by selling hardware and software to the attractions.

I love the speed and depth of knowledge of artificial intelligence. For example, it generated a full itinerary when I planned my recent reporting trip to the Caribbean, which was mostly reliable. “You’re unlikely to find local favorites and hidden gems,” says Peggy Cleveland, author of “100 Things To Do In Tacoma Before You Die.” And she should know; she specialized in finding both.

Gonzalo Estebarena, the chief technology officer of Despegar, said the new tool is the first version of what he believes will be the future of how the Despegar website operates. He sees the tool evolving as a virtual travel agent that will be able to accompany the guest before, during, and after a trip. Altour, a travel management company run by Internova Travel chatbot for travel agency Group, which is owned by Certares, debuted new AI-based tools related to helping travelers recover when their flights are delayed or canceled. When various tools sync, though, the process can be simpler. Tech integrations can enable suppliers, such as airlines and hotels, to send electronic receipts straight to the expense reports required by companies.

The company also opened 531 hotels during the same timeframe. However, Hilton also said it now expects its revenue per available room to grow between 2% and 2.5% this year, a slight decrease from its projections in both April and August. One use of AI in travel and beyond is real-time translations that can make understanding a different language much easier.

After the acquisition, the Qlika team transitioned to Agoda, which is headquartered in Singapore with operations in Bangkok, Thailand and was acquired by Booking Holdings in 2007. Their reactions to GenAI tend to be very different than leaders in other industries. They’re not reacting fearfully or warily at all — instead, they’re embracing the capabilities of GenAI with open arms, largely because they quickly see the potential and are able to capitalize on this new technology.

When we do things that may appear to be duplicative, you want to say, well, what is the cost of standardization? How much are you going to slow things down while you’re putting everything together onto just one platform? On the other hand, though, as I mentioned earlier, about driving things down to the lowest levels of the organization, letting people just run hard with what they are doing, it gives it, I think, a benefit overall. Well, I think the way you phrase that may not be the way I would look at it.