How will AI solutions allow hotels to shift bookings away from the OTAs?

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Can ai help independent hotels pull back market share from OTAs?

Hospitality.net published a great article this week where they got input from 12 people from within the Hotel sector to give their thoughts on if and how hotels can claw back some of the advantage that has been handed over to OTAs by using ai.

The outlook didn’t come back too rosy I’m afraid… The one word answer to the question posed would be: No!

Frederic Gonzalo summasised “… not likely in my opinion” whereas Max Starkov opined that “I am afraid, the ultimate winners of generative AI will be, once again, the OTAs”.

As a general theme there was much talk about the resources inequity but little about how SaaS could make that gap narrower for the independents, which I think is an oversight. GenAI might be just too shiny and new for quality B2B SaaS to be emerging just yet as early entrants chase the B2C gold.

One other thing that shone through was how this sector may be its own worst enemy with a reluctance to move and act, with quite a few participants saying the sector still has lots of legacy issues around its content and presentation without going after the shiny new thing.

It is the fragmentation of supply that created the opportunity for OTAs and in 30 years, no movement to try and unite and push all the benefits of a direct collective relationship between the independents and the customers at large, has got any traction at all. I’m sure the OTAs love it that way.

Ai by itself seems unlikely to change that. If that changed however, then ai can help. I won’t hold my breath.

There are a worrying amount of articles about why travel agents shouldn’t worry!

A few different sources this week struck on the topic of why travel agents have nothing to worry about from ai.

In the first from Travel Weekly, Simon Powell, chief executive of travel technology firm Inspiretec, insisted: “This is a game changer, but it isn’t going to replace the travel agent.” He went on to say “We need to augment travel agents, provide them with the technology and help them to do a better job.” It should be noted his firm creates this exact software.

More disturbingly Mr Powell stated “I recently started an online cruise business and all the content we generate has been through ChatGPT.” Errr… OK (by which I mean not OK).

The second from Travel Market Report comes in video form where none other than Bertrand Sava, Managing Director of Bedsonline weighs in. Sava says ai is your ally, not your enemy and gives lots of examples as to how exactly you can utilise ai to optimise your work.

Sava goes on to say that what travellers want is “that human touch” and that only a travel advisor can listen to what the customer is asking for and personalise it.

Finally in the ‘don’t worry’ column we find Matthew Upchurch at the recent Virtuoso conference who is reported as saying “AI will never replace a trusted relationship between an advisor and a client. Luxury travelers want customized, tailored experiences. Virtuoso advisors get to know their interests and what excites them. Then they make it come to life.”

Meanwhile over at Skift, friend of this newsletter* Jason Calacanis made almost the same arguments, except in favour of ai and says travel agents are absolutely in the gun. Calacanis argues that the conversational nature of GenAI is exactly the technology breakthrough that was required to be able to mimic this quality of the travel advisor, drive deep personalisation and he suggested “in one year”, the agent in your pocket (rather than the one down the street) will be booking everything.

*joke from past edition

iWander jumps in first on the ai audio guide anywhere opportunity

Having earlier reported on Tailbox raising a bunch of money to inspire us once we hit the destination with contextual audio, we noticed this (almost) launch from iWander being reported in Travolution.

Marius Nigond, CEO of iWander.io, is reported as saying: “Guided tours is a $65bn industry, but only 3% of tourists take a guided tour when they travel. Our new platform is built for the 97% of tourists who still want to learn more about the places they visit with a solution that is instant, personalised and allows them to explore independently.”

Marius who has a long history in audio storytelling in tourism via his VidiGuides business is joined by Thomas Bangert, former Europe director of TripAdvsior and sales director of lastminute.com who joins as co-founder and supported by Dan Christian’s Acceleration Team for the launch.

This is a super interesting area to watch because Tailbox is founded by MIT graduates with no tourism background. Is that an advantage or a disadvantage? Having personally messed around with building this same tech, they probably don’t need tourism connections to make this work as it is more likely about local area advertising than industry intergrations as a business model.

Somewhat surprisingly iWander is launching with API’s and a White Label suggesting they are going B2B and that may be the big differentiator here between these competing teams with Tailbox going B2C and Free.

New podcast covering Business Travel & ai

I was alerted to a new pod that is niching down further and covering off the connection between business travel and ai specifically.

My favourite quote from it was “A.I. is not going to replace humans today; however, A.I.-augmented companies are definitely going to replace those that haven’t embraced A.I.”

The podcast comes to you from the Global Business Travel Association and is out quarterly.

Africa gets in on the ai + travel trend

The Nigerian edition of Business Day reported on TravelStart launching the first ai travel assistant on the continent. This really shows the pace of innovation that GenAI is taking with the Nigerian OTA outpacing many of it’s counterparts from other parts of the world with their release.

Nigeria is known as one of the emerging tech powerhouses coming out of Africa and it is great to see that those engaged in travel there are leaning into this advantage.

“Travelstart, said the AI travel assistant can chat in Pidgin English, can create personalized and custom itineraries, make budget-friendly recommendations, and give global travel advice.”

Airlines leading the ai charge

3 differnet stories coming out of airline land this week with Alaskan Airlines making an investment into Assaia, a company which “uses AI to reduce turnaround times and improve on-time-performance, which in turn improves the passenger experience.” The company focuses on “enabling real-time responses to increase gate availability, and ensuring safety on the ramp.”

Meanwhile Phocuswire reports on Delta seeing “uses for AI in all parts of its business, both internally and consumer-facing, including operations at the airport, in the air and beyond.” The story talks to luggage systems, weather detection systems and how the airline uses data to better improve customer service.

Phocuswire also covers a story around Royal Air Maroc partnering with Fetcherr who says its technology "enables uniquely granular high-frequency pricing, inventory management and publishing capabilities in one complete system that fully automates processes... " which the airline will utilise as the core part of its revenue management system.

“We should be more worried about artificial intelligence than climate change”

Umm… not sure about that.

The quote belongs to Visit Oulu, Finland CEO Yrjotapio Kivissari. His beef with ai seems to be around other Tourism Boards using ai created imagery.

TTR Weekly reported that Kivissari felt “the technology is being abused by destinations which were happy to mix fake images with real ones in their marketing.”

Let’s maybe leave the hyperbole at home. Some touched up blue sky in a photo probably won’t make our planet unihabitable.

There was some interesting information about Wanderlust Magazine getting into AR video which was both surprising and interesting.

Looking form the outside. Insights from DoorDash on opportunities in travel.

What would Gayatri Iyengar who is Head of Engineering for Dasher Growth platforms And Last Mile Logistics at DoorDash do if she were in travel? No need to guess as she has laid it all out for us in this article in Forbes.

Whilst the article was obstensibly around marketplace businesses in general, Gayatri used short term rental accommodation to make one of her ponits. When comparing how someone like Airbnb operates now she says “I believe this model will very soon be replaced by the network understanding more about the consumer and going beyond what's typically shared in search queries or profiles. It will delve into their travel history, specific preferences and even past experiences to truly understand their ideal vacation. This will then become a personalized vacation planner, recommending not only the perfect property but also suggesting local activities, dining options and even travel routes. On the other side, property owners can benefit from an AI assistant that understands their unique property features and helps optimize pricing and marketing strategies.”

It shows the approaches on both sides of the marketplace that ai can impact.

FWIW I think she is on the money. The missing piece is how this personalisation of the prompt occurs. Is it via existing data point or just simply asking? Established brands have the whip hand in both scenarios.

Three ai powered startups found their way into the inaugural Travel Tech Titans awards at the $0-$10M in funding category.

They were

Deal Engine: a software company transforming the travel industry. Using proprietary AI and APIs, Deal Engine brings automation to travel, eliminating manual processes, and making sure people spend their time where they generate more value.

Grapevine: an AI-powered digital concierge providing personalised ‘right time, right channel’ offers to business travellers. We work closely with Travel Management Companies (TMCs) to increase ancillary attachment rates and capture in-destination spend.

NLX: who transforms customer contact into automated, personalized, multimodal self-service experiences.

Most clicked last week was the link through to the report by Skift and McKinsey on the state of ai and travel. Only surprise there was for me - that so many people had not seen it on Skift first! Great to have you all here! 😃 

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