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Indonesia soars up the travel rankings because of AI!

eVNexpress.com this week reported that Indonesia has jumped 10 places in this year's Travel and Tourism Development Index, now 22nd overall and “ahead of neighbors like Malaysia, Vietnam, and Thailand, according to the biennial ranking released by the World Economic Forum.”

The reason for the jump? AI of course! At least that is what Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy Sandiaga Salahuddin Uno said at an event in Jakarta last week: "AI has succeeded in helping us to achieve this jump,…..AI assesses that the quality of tourists is more important than quantity, Uno said, adding the quality of tourists in Indonesia is reflected by the length of their stay at a destination and how much they spend.”

It not made clear how AI does this. But like most things AI, it sounds pretty cool!

“Thanks to AI, Indonesia has launched more qualified and sustainable tourism services, he said.”

Randomly, I’ve actually just returned from a trip to Indonesia. And it was awesome. Any AI was obviously running deep under the surface but I’m happy AI selected me as one of the quality tourists who should arrive there. If the AI is listening, I’d love it to tell future visitors about filling out the customs deceleration online when they are standing in the first immigration queue. Or even maybe just a sign.

Is your AI secure?

A really interesting round up of the “Black Hat” conference in Las Vegas by Charles Givre on LinkedIn this week certainly gave some cause for thought.

Givre says of the conference: “Usually when I go to conferences I return inspired and full of new ideas. This year, I came back genuinely scared.”

OK - that doesn’t sound good. Here is why according to Givre:

1. Gen AI cannot be used to secure Gen AI.

2. Gen AI is a very immature technology, and despite that companies are going all in without a clear understanding of the risks.

3. Nobody and I mean nobody knows how to secure it.

According to Givre “Basically, any situation where a user is providing input to an LLM is opening up the possibility for a malicious actor to launch a remote code execution attack on your system. And there's no way to stop it.”

He likens it to the early days of SQL injections, which took a long time to work out how to prevent.

For context, it is these types of attacks that cause the mass outages we saw recently with Crowd Strike.

Interested to hear more from those who know more than me their opinion on this in the comments to this newsletter post on LinkedIn.

AI to take center stage (again) at World Travel Market (WTM)

Don’t expect AI to go quietly into the night when it comes to industry conferences. Announced this week as reported by conference-news.co.uk is that the “Minister’s Summit” will “bring together over 50 global tourism leaders to explore how Artificial Intelligence (AI) and emerging technologies can transform the tourism industry.”

I mean that is what the Slack group associated with this publication does on a daily basis - but granted, I don’t think the Minister has signed up yet.

“This year’s summit, moderated by a BBC journalist, will examine the potential of AI to enhance travel experiences and streamline processes, while also addressing the ethical implications and challenges, such as ensuring equitable access to these technologies.”

The focus is on positive change. That definitely sounds like a good thing. As a former recipient of the Gold Award for engaging people and culture at the WTM Responsible Travel awards, I certainly appreciate WTM’s continual efforts to keep the spotlight on how travel can be a force for good. I’ll be very interested to see what 50 power brokers come up with.

My current obsession is that AI can be used to get more bookings directly to suppliers by both upping their game in building trust on their own web properties, in particular by using video to show authentically what they have to offer but also in building stronger connections with those who can support them like DMO’s through similar tactics but larger scale. The role of AI here is streamlining workflow so that a single marketing coordinator can logistically handle supporting scores or hundreds of suppliers easily but at the same time, also do more effective marketing. I’d argue this is infinitely more impactful than what I was previously recognized for, and that is why I’m so bullish on AI.

Look forward to hearing what other ideas emerge.

If you are planning to go to WTM this year and are interested in chatting about adding vertical video scrolling by simply dropping a line of code on your website whilst also setting the scene for personalisation, hit me up.

Speaking of conferences - get FREE tickets here for Destination AI

Firstly, congrats to the winners of last week’s ticket giveaway to Future Travel Summit! If you missed out - fear not because here is another chance.

Destination AI is an event happening at the center of the hotel world in Washington D.C. on September 26, 2024.

According to Hotels Magazine: “Destination AI 2024 will help the hospitality industry gain a grasp of this still developing technology and ways it can be harnessed to make hotels and hotel companies run more efficiently and be more profitable.”

The agenda is on the website here and you can grab your tickets there too. There will be panel discussions and case presentations from companies showing real world applications of AI. Current participants include:

Hotel Chains - Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, Wyndham

VCs - Thayer Ventures, Plug & Play, Brook Bay Capital

Consulting Firms - PWC & Deloitte

Technology Providers - Microsoft, Sabre, Ideas

Startups - Mobi.Ai, Tyme Global, Legends, AiDaptive, NLX

We’ve got a couple of tickets to giveaway. To get your hands on one, please take this brief two question survey here (just two clicks). We’ll pick a winner from all those who respond.

Thomas Cook launches AI powered platform

No this is not a “from beyond the grave(yard)” story. Thomas Cook still lives on strongly in India as one of the main players in travel in that part of the world.

In this report from the Hindu Business Line we are told Thomas Cook “has launched its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered platform to help users book tour itineraries, adding itself to a growing list of firms that use technology for customer acquisition and sales growth.”

The article artfully neglects to mention where this tech has come from, but it just so happens we know the tech provider here who was one of the first to reach out to us when we first launched Everything AI in Travel. The company is called Pathfndr and is headed up by the awesome Varun Gupta. I’m going to try and twist Varun’s arm to come and have a chat on the podcast so we can all learn from the full backstory here. Stay tuned.

What does the tech do? As the article explains ““Creating a customised travel program has traditionally been an arduous task for holiday experts: from the discovery-research stage to creating an itinerary and then pricing and booking…With the Thomas Cook and SOTC’s AI-based platform, customised trip planning will now become seamless – in under 10 minutes.”

This is a product for travel agents booking multiple elements in a single interface and transaction. It does the whole process end to end. Not easy stuff.

The second part of the article hear is also AI related with the other of India’s big travel players, Make My Trip, who “has expanded capabilities of its generative AI-assisted chatbot named 'Myra' to assist customers with international flight bookings.”

“It can suggest the cheapest travel days for a destination and perform searches based on simple chat commands” CEO Rajesh Magow told analysts in a post-result conference call last month.

If you think someone (or everyone) you know or work with could grow from being more informed on the topic of ai + travel (or could use the training above) then please forward this email to them and they can click the button below:

FLYR raises $295M for its AI tech

With the markets collapsing around them. FLYR have burst through the mayhem like a Marvel hero to bag a huge Series D raise of $295M according to this report in Tech Funding News.

I’ve read a few reports on FLYR and actually I’m not really sure what they do.

In this report they explain “Powered by AI, it enables travel businesses to improve revenue, reduce costs, and modernise their reservation systems” & “It eliminates legacy constraints to enable real-time decision making and create the experiences travellers seek. Cloud native, FLYR leverages technologies including deep learning, an advanced form of AI. The company helps airlines and hospitality businesses around the globe improve revenue performance, reduce cost, and modernise their e-commerce experience.”

They have some big clients including “JetBlue and Avianca, and established new deals with Virgin Atlantic, Best Western Scandinavia, and The Boca Raton.”

I guess it is a new reservations system for airlines. It isn’t clear where the AI comes in but the investors are convinced so that’s all that matters!

GBTA & CVENT release new research

Lodging Magazine this week reported on a new study from the “Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) and Cvent titled “The Future Is Now: Technology Transformation in Corporate Travel.”

In terms of what people are interested investing in “Three-quarters of buyers (75 percent) are interested in adopting an AI-powered travel program chatbot to automatically answer questions specifically about their program. Half of buyers are interested in offering blockchain-based booking (51 percent) or payment (49 percent).”

They can (and should) find the best of the best in Chatbot category on our Marketplace where we have a number of different & exceptional vendors working with different segments and in different ways.

Pretty surprised by the blockchain-based booking number which shows some strong robustness on a ship I thought had long ago sailed.

According to Julie Haddix, senior director of marketing at Cvent. “While the business travel industry recognizes the importance of investing in technology, there is still a greenfield opportunity for both buyers and suppliers to truly embrace emerging technologies in a meaningful way.”

I think event booking definitely has room for innovation. I note in the report that 53% of respondents have invested in “event diagramming software” which I’m sure is important, but from what I can see, event spaces are still being marketed with a single photo and a laundry list of features when maybe the bride to be or young & hip event organizer might be more wowed by a well-crafted video tour of facilities. For mine, it is actually crazy how poorly presented the options currently are and this prize is ripe for the taking.

Slack Group!

How to work with Tony

The calendar is now very full I’m afraid.

The marketplace is now launched - please just jump on the site to grab your listing if you have an AI tool or service that you want the industry to know about. We are extending the grandfathering forever the lowest listing price for just one more week before moving to normal pricing. Jump in now if cost is a core issue.

Between existing consulting work and joining Videreo as co-founder, there isn’t really a lot of time for new consulting work I’m afraid. Still please reach out if you have something non urgent and is a decent piece of work and let’s discuss what might be possible.

At Videreo, we still have a couple places left in proof-of-concept group. If you are an organisation looking to really bring the power of video and personalization to your business and partners - please get in touch. In return we are offering a full-service approach, the opportunity to shape the product to suit your business and heavy discounting as our way of saying thanks in advance!

Most clicked last week was the link to the story on Glenn Fogel’s comments about traditional travel agents. Incidentally, last week was also the most clicked newsletter ever with lots of different stories piquing interest - so thanks for your interest.

That’s it - you’ve made it to the end of this edition. I’ll be putting the result of the most clicked post in next week’s edition so you can see where others are focusing. If I’ve missed something, you’ve got a tip or any feedback at all - you can simply reply to this email and it will come straight to me. I’m doing this for You so please don’t be shy to tell me what you think