American Outbound Travel Aspirations Defy Inflation Concerns

02-09-23

Technological advances, along with the increasing amount of sensitive data and information that companies manage, are forcing companies to have technology that is able to adapt and offer a response to customers' demands for automation and personalisation. 

In this context, the digitisation of the travel industry has been on the rise for years and growth forecasts suggest that the size of the global online travel market will continue to increase to $521 billion in 2023 from $475 billion the previous year. Thus, according to Statista estimates, the size of the global online travel market will rise to more than $1 trillion by 2030.

In this process of digital transformation, artificial intelligence (AI) plays a key role and is already present in almost all areas of travel and tourism. This technology enables the development of different types of applications ranging from personalisation and recommendation systems, bots, conversational systems, intelligent travel agents, prediction and forecasting systems, language translation applications and voice recognition and natural language processing systems. 

"Websites, chatbots, online forms, FAQs and any of the currently developed self-service functionalities are still purely transactional, not interactive. The demand for humanisation of products and services is necessary and inevitable," says Maria Pardo de Santayana, commercial, marketing and communications director at Wehumans.

Artificial intelligence is a key trend that will continue to act as a transformative element of the travel and tourism sector over the coming years. 

So much so that a recent Statista survey of travellers around the world on their willingness to rely on Artificial Intelligence (AI) for travel planning in 2033 revealed that accommodation planning (75%), local and international transport management (74%), passport renewal (73%) or travel insurance customisation (72%) are the aspects of travel where a higher proportion of travellers would rely on AI.

Recent improvements in big data, algorithms and computing power have enabled significant improvements in AI and the largest travel giants are already employing AI assistants and chatbots to shorten processes such as booking flights and accommodation. This technology offers a personalised experience and has the ability to offer the best deal based on user preferences, as well as warn of cheaper flights, set alerts for price drops, and so on.

In the case of digital humans, for example, their potential in the world of tourism is enormous and lies largely in their ability to act as digital tour guides. 

Thanks to the support of technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, these digital tour guides have the potential to learn hundreds of languages and adopt different well-defined personalities to carry on a conversation, listen and move in real time. Digital humans as tour guides can be integrated with the history and culture of the place to act as guides in a digital environment.

Another application that enables the development of this technology is in AI-based predictive systems, helping to find the best flight price at the right time. 

The technology uses a machine learning algorithm. Using the flight database, the software can predict hotel and flight prices. It provides recommendations based on your preferences. They are based on the database of many previous flight prices and live price information.

Author: Smart Travel