Influence Of Artificial Intelligence On Travel & Tourism Industry By Mr. Rikantpitti, COO, Easemytrip.Com

Influence Of Artificial Intelligence On Travel & Tourism Industry

Mr. Rikantpitti, COO, Easemytrip.Com | Friday, 16 August 2019, 11:42 IST

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Mr. Rikantpitti, COO, Easemytrip.ComTravel industry has gone through a lot of changes. At present, every leisure traveler wants his experiences to be unique and business travelers look for more than a business trip. So, the entire industry is going through a transformation. Among several changes adopted by Indian travel industry, one major change is the implementation of Artificial Intelligence. Travel industry leaders are trying to discover every possible way to use this technology in the most efficient way.

With the help of artificial intelligence (AI), traditional travel industry is gratifying the new expectations of the modern day travelers. Artificial intelligence allowsthe OTAs knowing their customers in a better way. This new technology has brought several opportunities for travel industry that will keep influencing many online travel players in several ways. Here below are some opportunities that AI is offering for travel and trade business, which are going to create great impact on this sector.

Making Recommendations

Data-driven recommendation tools are adopted by OTAs that help the users in receiving recommendations based on their previous searches or bookings. For example: Google flights can suggest the travelers cheaper travel times and cheaper airports based on destination. Some sites also provide the map view of an area displaying prices of hotels and popular restaurants. It will also help you find out destinations for eating, sightseeing, shopping, and nightlife in a city.

Convenient Transportation

Using big data, some cities are working to ensure that their natives and tourists coexist peacefully. For example, Barcelona tracks the movement of the traffic in the city to place rideshare bicycles where they are required in maximum number. A city has developed an app to help the travelers finding hidden gems in the less crowded areas of the city. It will help in boosting tourism to those sites and decrease jam in the city. Ride sharing services have also redefined services in several ways using AI.

Easy Forms of AI are Simple to Implement

Several simple forms of artificial intelligence are there to be executed into any tour company. It is convenient for the travel agents to take advantage of technology like chatbots. It is one of the simplest and most cost effective forms of artificial intelligence. It not only responds to the questions and feedback of customers but also improves overall communication strategy.

Analyze Large Data

Travel industry can utilize the huge amount of data supplied through AI to make it more convenient for them to grab new customers. By reforming the data analysis process, a tour company can better use that data to take decisions about their business strategy. Additionally, data analysis can provide tour and activity operators with solution to proficiently personalizing the experience a tourist seeks while enjoying an activity.

Challenges with Artificial Intelligence

It is true that Artificial Intelligence will bring great influence on travel industry but there are several challenges with this technology.

Have Bugs & Yet to Be Explored

Artificial intelligence is a new technology and there are still bugs that everyone needs to work upon.Travel industry leaders are yet to discover this technology fully. There will be noteworthy changes when this technology grows and matures. So,travel and tour operators are hesitant about implementing it within their business. Artificial intelligence technology needs lots of research before you consider and understand this for implementing within a tour company.

“Online travel industry, technology is very important. In case of any hardware or software malfunction, it will be very difficult to determine that whose fault was this”

Different Development Approach

The traditional travel systems environment used to follow the general phases like analyze, design, test,plan and organize, but AI works differently. AI development is mostly about recognizing data sources and then collecting content and filtering it. This approach needs exclusive methodologies. Additionally, AI-powered intellectual systems finally result into a platform that can give feedback and supervise. But travel and tourism sector is not only about these, travelers have several queries and curiosities that need to be satisfied with personalized answers. So, travel agents like us (EaseMyTrip), assures personalized trips can’t solely depend on AI.

AI Only Predicts & Needs Lots of Data

Artificial intelligence needs data to learn things and it guesses everything based on the behavior patterns on a particular system. It speedily becomes accustomed to develop the accuracy of the conclusions derived from analyzing that data. So, if you don’t have huge amount of data or information, systems based on AI won’t give required results. If you are running a travel company, it is not necessary that you will get extremely balanced data. So, the system can be biased on the data sets fed to them. This sometimes becomes challenging for OTAs to give required information to the right customers.

No Clear View on Generating Insights

Artificial intelligence development hides in its experimental nature. So, it is really difficult to calculate improvement it can bring to any travel company. You will be unable to predict ROI. So, it’s really hard to understand the whole concept of AI. To optimize any result, a skilled team is always required that will choose the right algorithm for the essential result.

Responsibility and Privacy

For online travel industry, technology is very important. In case of any hardware or software malfunction, it will be very difficult to determine that whose fault was this. Prior to AI, it was relatively easy to conclude whether it happened due to any user, developer or manufacturer. Since AI works on data, there are chances that companies may try getting into uncharted territory and cross privacy boundaries that may lead to data theft.

With the rise of new technology, every sector will keep facing the consequences and the travel industry is no exception. However, combining AI with intelligent personalization can give good results but we can’t deny its challenges.

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