Transforming Marketing and AI in Tourism
Travel Bookings: AI assistants and Intelligent chatbots have now taken the place of travel agents allowing travelers to book flights and accommodation and hire vehicles online.
ChatBook: If you are unsure where to go, just type ‘anywhere,’ and then the bot will provide you with suggestions, including the price for each destination using real-time search trends.
Robotic Hotels: Robots can free up the time of human staff and help personalize a guest’s stay. In 2016, Hilton and IBM partnered to create Connie, the resident robot at the McLean hotel in Virginia branch. Connie (named after Hilton’s founder, Conrad) is a concierge. The robot tells guests about nearby attractions, places to eat, and hotel information. Powered by IBM’s Watson super-computer AI, Connie is about as personable as a robot can get.
Personalized Travel Planning: Today, people need more, and most importantly, they need it conveniently, and in recent years, the definition of convenience has changed big time, in terms of hospitality and tourism. Smart rooms powered by Amazon, Google, and others not only understand your taste in music and knows about your lifestyle it will make your hotel room feel just like your home with the touch of personalization.
Covid-19 New Regulations: How can we not talk about this global pandemic which has changed this industry at multiple levels. AI tools have been deployed online to help consumers understand various country travel restrictions and advice them on safe travel options.
Here are few tips to get going with AI in tourism:
- Ensure you are using AI to solve real business problems
2. Don’t jump on the AI bandwagon for fear of being left behind, Have a clear strategy
3. Don’t reinvent the wheel, Research the open-source tools available to you and on the shoulders of giants.
4. You can't jump steps. Many companies have a budget for AI but have yet to survive the digitization wave.
5. AI will be prevalent in tourism for offering quality service and experience.
6. Many older people are resisting change but beginning to grudgingly accept it.
7. AI is making major inroads in hospitality and retail such as greeting customers, checking visitors in, filing their documents, photocopying their records. Many repetitive and time-consuming tasks are being completed more efficiently using AI technologies.
8. Data will be able to determine what the client’s habits are to encourage them back by offering a tailor-made experience.
9. Despite seeing the advantages, people are sometimes unwilling to give away too much personal information.
10. Many believe that marketing is the next space to see real disruption from AI.
11. Dubai is aiming to have 25% of their system driverless or smart by 2030.
12. The smarter companies are not reinventing the wheel. They are using the models that Google has trained on and are then deploying that model in a targeted way. So they use open-source python or open-source machine learning AI implementations and connect to more powerful models.
13. Salesforce ‘Einstein’ engine is integrated into paths created for customers, enabling trends analysis and pattern recognition.
14. You can create an advertising network that personalizes content for the user. In retargeting, it won't show you the same ad again. It keeps adapting, The machine will alter different colors, different backgrounds, and different lines of text. It gets to the point when the advertiser may know more about you than you know about yourself.
15. In the world of AI — I still think large billboards or a beautiful brochure will still have an impact.
16. The Plethora of digital messages makes the physical more powerful, as does the evolutionary desire for people to physically own something in a world where everything sits in the cloud.
Reference: Using Artificial Intelligence in Marketing by Katie King
