How to Make or Break a Travel Business with AI

The rise and rapid adoption of artificial intelligence has catalyzed a tremendous shift in travel, transforming the way the industry conducts business, engages with customers and provides travel experiences.

With generative AI, travellers now have access to exceptional conveniences – from trip planning to on-trip support – and travel providers can benefit from new business models, customer touchpoints and value opportunities. GenAI solutions give companies a tangible competitive edge in the market by enabling them to upscale products and operations with a never-seen-before velocity.

However, with all the chatbot hype, organizations tend to overlook the challenges that come with AI implementation. Successful integration of AI technology into business will be largely determined by the company’s ability to develop a strong implementation strategy.

So, how can travel players tap into this significant game-changer to take their business and backend operations to a whole new level? And what lies behind the scenes of AI implementation?

Why AI technology is a boon to the travel industry

The impact of generative AI on the travel sector is already huge and growing. Let’s consider some of its biggest advantages for businesses.

• Insights-led business decisions - AI models can transform huge amounts of data into meaningful insights enabling impactful business decisions. Using advanced data analytics provided by AI tools, travel businesses can identify new trends, patterns and correlations to expand their customer base, adapt to evolving customer behavior, enhance the quality of service and improve operational efficiencies. 
• High-quality customer care - Getting first-hand traveller insights and dealing with customer issues instantly and efficiently helps companies improve their customer service. GenAI can orchestrate trip planning steps like deciding on the itinerary, finding a hotel and booking transport. Natural language processing (NLP) algorithms handle customer requests by providing information, resolving issues, and ensuring voice-based support, allowing human agents to prioritize more challenging tasks.
• Smart travel assistants and chatbots - Conversational AI can serve as a capable travel agent who can greatly enhance travel experiences and build trust with customers. Chatbots can find the best-fitting accommodation option through a thorough analysis of travel offering’s attributes or create bespoke tourist sightseeing routes based on interests, age, gender and many other parameters.
• New revenue streams - AI models also help travel businesses identify new profit-generating opportunities by discovering how certain traveller profiles might be matched better to ancillary sales and streamline complex operations between different support functions in-house. 

How data and GenAI enable personalisation at scale 

Generative AI is a powerful personalisation tool that can deliver superior travel experiences, give insights to travel providers on how to customize and refine their offerings and help businesses massively upscale operations and staff at all levels.

Merging data and AI that can process this data quickly and accurately can benefit travel businesses in personalising customer experiences and breaking them down to sub segments of interest travel that might not have been targeted yet or vanish in the vast sea of travel package offerings.

A good example of such hyper-personalisation is an AI-enabled travel platform created by a tech company TravelAI that captures a customer’s interest at their moment of inspiration. Using diverse marketing channels, TravelAI ensures a personalized approach, driving traffic to its partners’ services. This strategy relies on targeted outreach, engaging potential travelers who are matched with relevant offers that resonate with their current aspirations and needs.

By leveraging data insights, TravelAI segments its audience, delivering content and travel opportunities that align with specific traveller profiles. This streamlines the journey from the initial spark of interest to the final booking, enhancing the customer experience while boosting partner visibility and performance. It’s this blend of technology and marketing that positions TravelAI as a key player in the ever-evolving travel industry.

What’s behind the scenes of AI implementation? 

As with any new technology, AI is not without its setbacks. AI implementation can only be as effective as the data engineering, infrastructure, and governance behind it.

Issues with AI bots having gone rogue show that incorporating AI solutions into business operations requires compliance with additional regulations governing AI implementation. Companies also need to develop robust data management and governance frameworks around the solution architecture to ensure that data is managed effectively and AI is implemented in the right way. One of the most overlooked issues here is how to effectively steer AI models to take appropriate steps and provide the correct service direction. 

AI implementation should be guided by experienced AI consultants who can also serve as solution providers. Tech companies like Intellias use their engineering capabilities to review the existing data landscape, build the right architecture and data infrastructure for AI-driven solutions to work seamlessly and efficiently, and provide proper AI governance so the final product complies with all the necessary data and AI standards. 

Off to a new start with AI transformation

The use of AI in travel is inevitable, and more and more companies are venturing into this promising technology. The big question is how AI is implemented – it may either make or break your business. If done right, AI has the potential to revamp and future-proof virtually every aspect of travel. 

Partnering with AI experts and experienced technology providers enables travel brands to offer personalised, safe and enjoyable travel experiences, mitigate the risks of using AI, win customers’ trust and loyalty and differentiate themselves on the crowded market as a reliable travel services provider. 

Find out how you can embrace the advancements of AI technology for your travel business with services and solutions provided by Intellias.