This article was first published on ComfortSkillz.

Technology has played a major role in simplifying our life and the way we travel too. Can you imagine how much technology has influenced the travel industry?  A report by World Travel and Tourism Council claims that the industry has grown with a rate of 3.9% in 2018. You know how much revenue it generated; almost $8.8 trillion. So, this makes it the second fastest growing sector in the world.

Various technologies have their share in the growth and development of the travel industry. But, there is one technology that has influenced it the most and is expected to give a great impact in the future too. And, that is Artificial Intelligence (AI).

AI and the Travel Industry

When we say perfection then we rely more on machines than humans and so as the reason for the popularity of AI. With the right approach and perfect calculation, AI can make a lot of difference in the way of doing business.

Artificial Intelligence as the name suggests is the intelligence or we can say the machine approach to complete a task. When we try to find out the influence of AI in travel industry then we find that there are many ways in which the technology is influencing the industry.

Whether we consider the robots at a hotel reception or a chatbot on a travel website; every AI assistance is helping in delivering great travelling experience. And yes, this is automatically generating more revenue to the business as well.

Best Examples of AI in the Travel Industry

From the time of its inception in 1956 until now, the world has witnessed various modifications in artificial intelligence. When we are particularly talking about AI in travel industry then here are the three best examples of the technology.

Chatbots

Hotel and travel industry are the fields where the businesses have to be attentive 24/7. It might be sleeping time for you but someone somewhere must have been planning for a trip and trying to get your assistance in the same.

Practically, you cannot deploy staffs to work because it is going to cost you much more. In a situation like this, Chatbot favors you. The use of AI in chatbot helps in solving the queries of a prospective client in real-time.

They are found very effective in solving online queries and hence help businesses increase the number of conversions.


Source: Booking.com

Robotics

Face to face customer service interaction is also one of the successful examples of AI. Just imagine you walking at a tourist destination and a robot is there to provide you information about the place, where to go what to see and all.

‘Connie’ the robot developed by the Hilton group of hotels could be quoted as the most positive implementation of the technology. The best part is that with each human interaction the robot improves quality for future communications.

Data Analysis

You don’t even know how the machine is learning your mind through the moves of your mouse, halts of the cursor at a place and a repetitive search of a particular word. Data analysis has helped the travel industry to won many accolades.

Going through the needs of the user through data analysis the desired result is shown. This, in turn, increases the chances of the lead conversion into the business.

Influence of AI in the Travel Industry

Let us put a light on how AI is benefitting travel industry…

Improved Operations: Big data that AI collects with user behavior and experience helped in influencing the operations. Companies can track the interest of the user and can present the deals they would be interested in. It is just like hitting the bullseye.

Improved Customer Services: Chatbots are somehow capable to solve the queries of a customer regarding the trip or stay. It ultimately aided in improving the customer services and increasing the satisfaction ratio too.

Better Content Curation: With the help of data collected through AI, the content can be curated considering the demands of users and. This, as a result, would help the businesses to create better and to the point content which in turn would give better outcomes.

Fraud Detection: Machines are intelligent than humans. They can sense scams easily. Juniper Research reports claims that travel and airlines industry are amongst the worst sufferers of online scams and frauds. Billions of dollars are lost every year as a result of the frauds. Analyzing customer behavior using profiling and machine learning technologies can stop illegal transactions.

Easy Addressing to Travel Disruptions: What happens when a flight gets canceled? Travelers would start calling the airlines to know the status. Addressing so many people at a time along with the regular customer queue is tough. This is where AI comes in rescue. With the help of AI, it is easy to address any type of travel disruptions and that too with perfect ease.

Dynamic Pricing in Hospitality: Have you ever noticed that if you will keep on searching for a particular hotel many times without making the final booking you will find that hotel rates skyrockets. This is because of AI that the hospitality sectors can help in predictive analysis such as competitive pricing data, weather, a user’s booking pattern, occupancy data, room types, daily rates, and other variables. This hence automatically helps in forecasting the best price.

The Future of Possibilities

The predictive analysis has a big role in the development and growth of the travel industry and every one of us is much familiar with it. Other than this, AI has played many other roles that collectively generated good revenue for the travel industry. 

And definitely, there are great possibilities for the future as well. Mobile app development companies are continuously trying to make the best use of technology in order to offer great services to users and good outcomes to businesses in the travel industry.