Checking the AI hype against reality in travel

While artificial intelligence (AI) has made headlines in the past year, some members in the travel circle believe that the platform is “overhyped” and should not intimidate smaller travel players.

“It’s still okay if your company has not adopted AI yet. It’s just computers making sense of data,” expressed Jonathan Hardy, vice president Asia, ADARA, speaking at Digital Travel APAC in Singapore yesterday.

Due to the “huge range” of functions of AI that allows, Hardy suggests that greenhorns can get familiarised by starting with simple programming and side-personalisation.

Another easy introduction to AI applications is the chatbot, which has proven popular in recent years. However, industry players are cautioning against careless use of this solution.

Stephan Keschelis, vice president ecommerce & digital transformation, NH Hotel Group, shared: “Chatbots are good for improving usability, and you can access chat logs to see areas of improvement. However, hotel bookings come with a lot of fine print that can be hard to throw at the customer with just a bot.

“We have to be very sensitive, especially when the customer wants to compare rates that are not comparable – such as room types, and rooms with and without breakfast,” he remarked.

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