How AI Can Improve Travel Industry

Artificial intelligence, or AI, touches your daily life whether you know it or not. From spam filters to voice to text to digital menus at fast-food restaurants, AI is a new fix to problems that have been plaguing humans for decades (and sometimes even centuries). This even holds true in the travel industry. In fact, numerous travel positions have even been eliminated in recent years because of the way technology has improved the travel industry. Here’s everything you need to know about how AI will impact and improve travel for years to come.

Feedback

Did you hate the wait at airport security? Did you love your flight attendant on your last flight? Well, that airport and airline can now hear about it! Travel entities have worked hard in the last couple of decades to improve their feedback mechanisms. Understanding their clients is key to developing their services, implementing new ideas, and moving past their competitors.

Unfortunately, the primary ways that companies have done in the past were through lengthy surveys or feedback forms, and these can be difficult to get clients to fill out. To revamp the process, companies are now implementing a feedback system with chatbots that allow a more engaging experience. The AI in these situations uses natural language processing to adapt the conversations to the specific customer and their feelings so that the survey is easy and painless for the participant.

Recommendations

How many times have you purchased a flight or booked a hotel only to have a car rental or tour package email appear in your inbox? Online travel agencies are now utilizing AI to improve their recommendation process. They’re taking data from the sites you visit and bookings you make to narrow down what else you might like.

This means that you get a personalized travel experience and the best possible options with minimal effort on both sides. The company providing them to you didn’t have to lift a finger – AI did it all for them! And you didn’t even ask for recommendations, but low and behold, here they are. What’s next you may wonder? Perhaps a “customers who liked your destination also enjoy these” section just like they have in eCommerce stores with items purchased. Wouldn’t that be fun!

Identification

Globe-trotting travels know ALL about this one. If there’s one word that goes hand in hand with travel these days, it’s “security”. Between airports, train stations, and bus terminals, these areas are some of Earth’s most-watched. Facial recognition technology is now eliminating the need for customs officers left and right. Customers can move through immigration and border control in some countries (while having their documents scrutinized) without so much as a single stamp in their passports. This is all thanks to blockchain technology, which combined with facial recognition, allows reliable and trustworthy travel data to keep these transactions secure. 

And what does it mean for you? It means potentially shorter lines. If you’ve ever been to an airport that has these electronic, facial recognition gates, you know that they move quite a bit faster than any human customs officer. That means greater efficiency at the airport, less frustration on your vacation, and better access to the world around you. It’s a win for travelers everywhere!

Social media

The power of social media in the travel industry is unparalleled. Social media has the ability to attract attention to any given area, blow up a customer service nightmare, reward a brand that did well, serve as a mechanism for answering questions or getting clients to help or much more! Brands already use social media to customer service queries, but it has proven so effective that they’ve started to use AI to uncover what customers really believe about their brand and analyze this impact on their business. 

For example, AI could uncover whether or not a customer has had a poor experience with a brand and whether or not that has impacted the customer’s actions moving forward. Did it prevent that client from booking with the brand in the future? Having this type of information can prove useful to rekindling relationships and continuing to foster brand loyalty.