How Artificial Intelligence Is Changing Travel & Tourist Business

By Oliver Smith on ALTCOIN MAGAZINE

The advent of technology is fostering a change in the travel and tourism businesses in the travel industry, as well as their customers. Technology plays a vital role as it has the capacity to increase the efficiency of business operations and also improve the customer experience. Consequently, travel companies are adopting various technologies to improve operational efficiencies and meet customers’ expectations.

Artificial Intelligence & Travelling Industry:

There is a drastic increase in the role of Artificial Intelligence in business over the past few decades, and the last few years, in particular, have seen much more widespread adoption in the travel industry. Deploying AI can save travel businesses time and money. Bellow, you will find the most important ways artificial intelligence is being deployed in the travel industry:

Chatbots And Online Customer Service:

Customers are demanding faster and faster response times on online platforms, and artificial intelligence allows businesses to deliver times that would be impossible for humans. For hotels and other businesses in the tourism industry, one of the most exciting uses for artificial intelligence is to providing assistance to customers online.

In particular, there has already been widespread adoption for the purposes of powering chatbots on social media platforms, as well as instant messaging apps, even when a customer service representative is not available.

Geolocation Services:

Companies operating in the travel industry can also use artificial intelligence to send location-specific information to customers and to gather valuable data too. For instance, this might mean sending messages about local attractions or to point out nearby public transport services.

Facebook has recently launched a travel hub website designed to help travel companies accurately connect with customers as soon as he moves to a new location. Facebook data helps companies target you with that information most effectively.

Face-to-Face Customer Service:

While the use of artificial intelligence for powering online customer service is now relatively commonplace, one of the emerging trends is for the technology to be used for face-to-face customer service interactions too. Crucially, this has the ability to cut queues at an information or reception desks, and improve overall efficiency.

One example of this technology in action is the AI robot ‘Connie’. This robot uses artificial intelligence and speech recognition to provide tourist information to customers who speak to it. Each human interaction also helps to teach the robot, improving the quality of all future communications.

Data Processing And Data Analysis:

Finally, it is important to understand that the applications of AI within the travel and tourism industry are not limited to customer service alone. In actual fact, one of its most popular and effective uses is for gathering and interpreting data in order to draw conclusions about customers, business practices and pricing strategies.

The key advantage of artificial intelligence in this particular field is its ability to sort through huge amounts of data quickly and accurately, where the equivalent for humans would take significantly more time and potentially contain more errors.

Identity Verification Within The Travel Industry:

Identity verification using artificial intelligence technology is also being explored and utilized more often in the travel industry. It can be especially useful here because tourism companies have to deal with a huge number of travelers and customers. In addition, within airports and hotels, security is a key concern and identity verification with facial recognition and other biometric data can be used to more easily identify people. There are several identity verification services out there that provide flawless and real-time verification of travelers, thus securing the traveling industry from multi-million dollar losses. These services provide protection against online identity theft, credit card fraud and also allow businesses to perform KYC verification of their customers, as it is becoming a norm in the online marketplace

It is revolutionary as in the US, Delta Air Lines has already begun trials of using biometric data as a way to speed passengers through airports. Similarly, Jet Blue is ­testing facial recognition ­equipment at Boston Logan ­International Airport to match ­travellers with their ­passport ­photos.

Business Apps & Websites:

Technology has fostered changes in the travel industry. Now, we can book our flights everywhere using our smartphones from apps. We can also snap a couple of photos and upload them on our social media accounts while on a trip. Indeed, we are living in the times where the travel industry continues to thrive.

This year, travel websites depicted new trends that will emerge. For instance, Bleisure. Some travel experts say it is the “coolest trend to happen in the history of business travel”.Bleisure gives an opportunity for corporate travelers to spend less. If one wishes to stay for a few more days after a business trip.