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Google says AI will help travel companies maximise profits

As reported by Travel Weekly this week, Google didn’t mince its words on AI when presenting at the Lata Expo.

“AI is not like switching from a slow car to a fast car. AI is like driving on a day when every light turns green,” said Ajesh Patel, travel industry manager at Google. Well that sounds great! Tell me more!! “You can use AI to drive targeted, profitable growth,” he added. Brilliant! So how!!!

“Among the ways of boosting efficiency could be making chatbots a customer’s first point of contact with a travel firm”, Patel said.

Oh.

Honestly this doesn’t really help in the widening perception that Google is losing relevance. There are a bajillion ways businesses can & are driving real tactical efficiencies with AI. And these no doubt are finding positive notes on the bottom line. It’s not that chat bots are not one of those - but, you know - dig a little deeper, talk to those you are helping (if you are helping) and come back with something fresh and inspiring if you want people to be inspired by you.

I mean at least Meta are trying to put a new spin on the chat bot by having it operate via an avatar created by you, taking over your DM’s on the platform. Although Wired! does note: “File this one away in the “What could possibly go wrong?” folder.”

Quebec forms an AI working group for travel

I saw this post on LinkedIn form Pierre Bellerose about the forming of a regional tourism group dedicated specifically to keeping each other informed and up to date on the rapid advances of AI.

“This initiative aims to leverage artificial intelligence to drive innovation and competitiveness in Quebec's tourism sector. Over forty stakeholders from the AI and tourism industries are involved in this new ecosystem. Our mission is to provide strategic guidance, share knowledge, and ensure the ethical use of AI in tourism.”

My main thought is why isn’t every region organising something similar?

Americans love AI, Brits? Not so much..

Some new stats flowing through this week give us some very different perspectives on how AI is being viewed by the public across different geographies.

The first coming from MoneyLion’s “2024 Travel & AI Trends Report.” found “71 percent saying they felt using AI to research and plan travel would be easier than planning on their own”. Travel Agent Central reported “The Harris Poll, polled 2,078 Americans ages 18 and older and dug into how they are planning their travels, where they are planning to go, their comfort with financing travel, and their adoption of AI tools in these processes.”

“Among the top aspects of trip-planning that Americans would use AI for are: finding restaurants (56 percent), hotel recommendations (53 percent), destination recommendations (51 percent), local transportation and flight recommendations and planning activities (all 50 percent).”

So is this going to be a problem for Travel Agents moving forward? “Luxury Travel Advisor’s Ultra Summit showed travelers’ use of AI in a new light. Most notably, Janel Carnero of Embark Beyond said she doesn’t mind it at all when clients come to her with an AI-generated itinerary. “Honestly, I lean into it.” By this Carnero means that the client is preemptively doing a lot of the Q&A work that needs to be done at the start of a consult saving her time and getting more quickly to the fun stuff. “it helps move the conversation along,” said Carnero, in that it gives her insight into what the client was picturing for their trip.

So imagine now taking this a step further and proactively getting the client to do this yourself prior to each consult like in this example. Surely this is where it is all heading? (It is these types of efficiencies old mate Google could be pointing out???). What is important, I think (and advise) is that you give the customer the choice, for now. Let them choose - either old way they are comfortable with but will definitely have some wait time involved or “switch on AI mode to get started instantly.” Be overt and upfront that it is AI. Don’t try and hide the tech and trick the customer into thinking it human engagement just because it is human like. You’ll get much more leeway being upfront and giving choice.

Meanwhile on the other side of the pond “90% of UK Holidaymakers reject AI adoption for travel.” Wow. That the headline coming from Travel Daily Media on their reporting of a “new study1 by Sainsbury’s Bank Travel Money.”

In the study of 2000 Brits they found “the most popular pre-holiday research methods include using traditional travel websites (50 per cent), asking friends and family for recommendations (35 per cent) and speaking to a travel agent (21 per cent).”

For the first time that I can remember, we now also have a ranking of the AI travel planners in the market. “ChatGPT is the most popular tool for Brits who use AI, with 45 per cent using it to facilitate their travel, followed by Roam Around (27 per cent), Tripnotes (26 per cent) and Guide.com (25 per cent).” There is a full table in the article itself. What is weird about this is that Roamaround was acquired months ago with the brand totally deprecated….

Acquirer AskLayla doesn’t feature in the results. 🤔 Hmmm.

Why the discrepancy between US and UK? The TDM article possibly gives one hint. “according to Sainsbury’s Bank’s Travel Money research1, many UK holidaymakers (91 per cent) who have used AI for travel planning have faced some kind of constraint, limitation or shortcoming when using the technology.”

On MoneyLion’s own LinkedIn page reporting on the survey they focused in on a more nebulous statistic “.. more than half (54%) of younger Americans (35 - 44) said they would be very/somewhat comfortable taking on more than $1000 in credit card debt to travel this year..” The lawyers said don’t give financial advice, but screw it - why would you think you have more capacity to pay back the loan after the holiday than save for it before…..

What legal framework should you consider in light of the EU AI ACT?

A heave but important subject that GroupNAO have been covering as part of their AI Opener for Destinations program for DMO’s.

Joining the program for the discussion was none other than the chief architect and lead author of the EU AI Act, Gabriele Mazzini from the European Commission! Talk about getting it straight from the horse’s mouth. Another guest speaker in the session was Roxanne Steinhoff, US attorney who “ made it clear that DMO targeted visitors are still residents of their territory and its belonging jurisdiction.”

GroupNAO has an upcoming BotCamp for Destination Marketing Organisations in early September “where we will deep-dive into the strategic frameworks and we have also set sails for developing shared principles for responsible use of AI for destinations.” Contact details are in the post.

Could AGI kill the joy of travel?

When does too much planning, prediction and personalisation flip to making travel more soulless and perfunctory. This is the topic covered by Peter Syme in a recent post where he runs through a number of different scenarios including giving a rating on likeliness of them occurring.

Examples include:

1. Hyper-Personalised Travel Experiences

2. Real-Time Destination Management

3. Predictive Crisis Management

4. Seamless Multi-Modal Transport

5. Virtual Travel Companions

And loads more. 17 in fact. Dynamic Pricing and Revenue Management was given a 10/10 rating of likeliness to occur whereas Time-Bending Historical Immersions was only given a 1/10. Strangely enough one of the calls I had this week was on exactly this topic! At least one group I know off is tinkering with full (AI) production, 360 degree videos for the Apple Vision Pro goggles for things like Colosseum visits and other historical sites, which I thought was both likely, and probably pretty cool.

EY drops in with some stats

More cool numbers dropped in this week with Web In Travel releasing a report on the “WiT Japan & North Asia Travel Tech Thinktank 2024, sponsored by EY, explored the evolving role of AI and tech in travel.”

The headline number was a projected “35.5% CAGR through to 2030” of the tourism market leading to a 15-40% “boost to the market” with AI being the main driver! Wowser.

The best thing for mine in this (pretty incredible) report was piece around their being a shift back to the suppliers and away from intermediaries (OTA’s). The thinking here is that AI will allow deep personalisation (also one of Peter Symes’ points above which he gave 9/10 probability on) and our personal AI agents will look to have direct communication with the supplier to ensure that the service the user desires, can actually be delivered by this supplier. This will then lead to the booking being made directly with the supplier.

The question mark here is whether the supplier will be ready in time to facilitate this communication. OTA’s will be betting they won’t be. I’ll be working to ensure they are!

Expect to hear a LOT about this moving forward. It dominated the Slack group discussion this week (not because of this report actually).

In fact, this is probably the most groundbreaking report I’ve seen on AI in tourism - maybe ever. It is packed full of intelligent hypothesis and potential answers and is relative gold mine for developers looking for real problems to solve with AI. Around 2009 PhocusWright did a report that for the first time quantified the size of the Tours & Activities business and that kicked off a decade long boom and maturation of that sector (which I also got caught up in for a decade). This report has that same feel to me. I expect it to be cited in many a startup deck to come!

PS: When you are rich and famous because you developed something after reading it - remember me!! 😃 

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:

What is AI’s role in travel publishing?

A few weeks ago I added a survey into the newsletter here that had we got enough response; we would have ALL got a really incredible overview of what is happening especially in the future role of content agencies. Alas - we didn’t get enough responses so we will all be left guessing on that one!

Anyhoo - we have another chance now! Does your business publish travel content? (If you are reading this, the answer almost has to be yes). Stuart McDonald is running a small survey to find out what people are thinking about the nexus of travel content and AI.

The survey comes in five parts and should take five to ten minutes to complete. At the end of the survey there are some links for further reading if you’d like to learn more about AI.

I’m sure Stuart will share the collective findings and I will also share those here.

Let’s get involved people if you want to help shape the direction of AI and content rather than just being a dandelion waiting for a big puff of wind!

Tell me again about this AI concierge thing?

In Hotel Travel Management this week, Anthony Karakkal from LTI Mindtree writes “Virtual assistants have become a mainstay for hoteliers and other travel service companies, as an efficient way to address customer inquiries and solve basic guest needs and requests.” And yet “Although usage is pervasive, hoteliers have not yet maximized the effectiveness of conversational AI technology.”

The theme of Karakkal’s article is around personalisation and as he says “AI-infused virtual assistants engage with customers in multiple languages, using natural language processing technology to detect user intent, anticipate needs, and extract historical patterns to generate more relevant and personalized responses. NLP technology utilizes an embedded recommendation engine to provide personalized offers based on the customer’s profile, preferences and transaction history.”

And yet I don’t think we are there yet on some of this, in particular the “anticipate needs, and extract historical patterns to generate more relevant and personalized responses” bit. Keep an eye out for an upcoming podcast with Stephanie Daniel from Legend DNA who just might be one of the missing pieces to achieving this.

So where are we at - right now? I saw this post from Vinay Dhavala this week who demos exactly what is possible right now in the video. Watch Vinay dial up the hotel and go through his request list (including “heated parking space” - which was a new one on me! gets pretty cold in Minnesota it seems - too cold for cars!).

I chatted to Vinay after watching the video and he mentioned he is looking for some proof-of-concept customers - which generally means; you get it cheap and you get your version reasonably custom (your PMS and your other systems hooked up on the delivery end). Being a PoC customer for startups is an awesome hack and I’m not sure why more people aren’t proactive in jumping in on things they see and like to get themselves a bargain and a say in how it actually works.

Catch Vinay on LinkedIn if interested.

Slack Group!

How to work with Tony

The calendar is now very full I’m afraid.

Lots of work going on to launch the marketplace for buyers and suppliers to find each other with ai solutions. If you have an ai solution in market (product, SaaS tool, service) - please get in touch to get information about being listed. We are grandfathering forever the lowest listing price for those who are in for the launch. Look out for the pre-launch announcement to grab this offer - probably next week! Here is sneak peek:

The consulting calendar is now full. I might have some availability around October - please reach out if you have a project where I could be of help.

Want to follow in Propellic’s footsteps and get in front of a highly engaged audience of travel decision makers by sponsoring the newsletter? We are booking Q4 sponsorships now. Also email me on that one for rates and details.

Most clicked last week was the link to the link to the headline story of whether AI will become the new UI in travel. The EY/WIT report above has some strong feeling on that subject too!! 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 focussing. 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