siliconindia | | October 20188By Vikram Kohli, President, FCM Travel SolutionsFCM Travel Solutions is the corporate travel business of the Flight Centre Travel Group. The company is headquartered in Brisbane and operates a network spanning over 90 countries across Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific and the Americas.T he year 2018 has been a year where the world is embracing smart technology in travel and hospitality. The industry has prepared itself to stay a step ahead of the increasingly tech-savvy traveller. With every passing day, technology is rapidly revolutionising travel by maximising efficiencies, improving experience and increasing choice and options for the average traveller worldwide, especially in the Indian market. Rapid penetration of smart phones, near field communication, in-flight WIFI, faster networks and many such advances are only accelerating the penetra-tion of technology into every aspect of travel. Services like Self-Booking Tools, Travel Analytics, Artificial Intelli-gence (AI), and Sharing Economy Services are not only here to stay but hold myriad and exciting possibil-ities for the future. Technology developments in AI-led trav-el, have expanded enough to include driv-erless trains and cars, chatbots in travel booking tools, drones and even driverless ships. Artificial Intelligence is changing the rules for the travel industry and the ability to predict the behaviour of trav-ellers, which would unlock new revenue opportunities for travel players. Global travel brands such as Marriott, Uber and Hilton are deploying AI solutions to un-derstand behaviour of travellers and identify `attributes' to enhance rev-enues and travellers' experience. These service providers provide travel services through a web-based platform with travellers experiencing human interaction only at the point of using the services. Sharing economy provides twin ad-vantages of lower costs (compared to incumbent travel service providers) and an online interactive user-friendly travel management platform. Artificial Intelligence is beneficial for both the business and the consumer. A few years ago, planning a trip had a list of time consuming procedures that had to be carried which includes a visit to the travel agent, booking the flight tickets and paying commission. The planning continues at the destination with things like finding a hotel, deciding on the places to visit and hiring a tour guide. But now-adays, in a technologically enriched and au-tomated world with interactive machines, travelling has become very easy! Just searching the name of the destination would give the traveller all the possible recommended places to visit, nearby hotels and rates to compare, and flight rates via advertisements or push noti-fications. This is all due to AI. Specifically, in the travel and hos-pitality industry, chatbots and virtual assistants are enabling a fundamental shift in how people interact with technol-ogy. Over the next decade, they have the potential to become a core part of normal experience across ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TO TRANSFORM TRAVEL AND HOSPITALITYVikram KohliIN MY OPiNion
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