The Significance of Artificial Intelligence in the Tourism Industry

Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to technologies or robots that mimic human intelligence and make decisions based on data they acquire and learn from. Artificial intelligence is becoming more prevalent in the tourism industry with each passing day. The tourism sector is projected to reach unbelievable levels in the future as a result of the widespread application of innovative technology. It has changed the lives of customers in recent years. For instance, how people eat, sleep, and work, among other things. Experts have yet to agree on a single definition of AI, owing to its complexity and ongoing growth.

According to a latest report, between 2010 and 2023, the worldwide travel tech market, which includes Artificial Intelligence, is predicted to expand by more than 9%.

AI is a pretty modern and extremely strong concept. More research on the AI idea and its implementation in the industrial tourism scenario is required. Additional research will be conducted to give insight on the issues that may occur in the tourism industry as a result of the use of AI technology.

Advantages of AI

AI is used by businesses for a number of reasons, including analyzing and better understanding customer behavior, creating personalized and innovative content to improve the user experience, and collecting useful data. Furthermore, AI helps businesses to create smart items and solutions as well as innovative business models and organizational structures. Customers gain from AI because it enhances their daily lives, for example, AI application in home technology, education purposes, jobs, medical, travel, and security. These firms can improve client experience, decision-making, save money, and boost performance by implementing AI.

AI's potential in the tourism business

Despite the fact that artificial intelligence is an emerging topic, there are a good couple of noteworthy findings that have prompted the use of AI in the Travel, Tourism, and Hospitality Industry. Companies like Tata Consultancy Services, Google Travel, Trip Advisor, and others have recently conducted studies on the use of AI in the travel, tourism, and hospitality industries.

According to surveys, this could be due to the sudden growth of digital travel bookings, According to Google Travel & Trip Advisor, 74% of consumers planned their holiday travels to use the Internet, with more than 45% of consumers using Smartphone’s.

Tourism and Artificial intelligence

In the field of Artificial Intelligence, various new technologies have emerged. This solutions aided in providing clients with a unique experience like facial recognition, chatbots, robots, artificial intelligence in Google Maps etc.

1.    Facial Recognition

Facial Recognition is uses extensively in the travel and tourist business. Passengers, for instance, must go through a series of rigorous procedures, such as the scrutiny of travel documents by different authorities such as customs, immigration, and airports.

This pattern may be noticed in the travel business as well. Many airports, for example, have begun to use facial recognition to make check-in and immigration clearance better efficient and easy for passengers. Travel businesses that provide apps might integrate facial recognition technology to allow app to the people to access the personal accounts more quickly and without any credential.

2.    Chatbots

"A chatbot is software which delivers a discussion using audio or text modes." Textual message-based and voice-based bots are the two basic forms of chatbots. It is respond to clients' questions via text messages for which is the reason they are commonly known as text message chatbots.

It is natural that almost all hotels would want their visitors to give them a positive and pleasant feedback which ultimately facilitate their growth. Tourists will invariably require a detailed insight regarding the services and hospitality ratings of the particular hotels, here is where the role of chatbots comes into play, especially in the case of Audio chatbots where they deliver a high-profile, detailed and customized information regarding the services of the hotels or such tourist places to the clients. For example, enable a travel agency to give 24/7 customer support via live chat or online replay, also when staff is unavailable, resulting in incredibly fast response times.

3.    Robots

Another kind of Artificial intelligence that is growing rapidly in the tourism business is ‘Robots’. This innovation aides the use of  Internet of Things (IoT) to perform duties like turning on the lamps in the rooms, shutting off the TV, controlling systems to guarantee baggage is checking in properly, and greeting the clients.

Improving the client experience, to simplify the work flow, enabling the human workforce to concentrate more on other operations, and increasing the tourist company’s efficiency are few of the many key benefits of the application of robots in the tourism sector.

The usage of robots has the potential to increase speed, value, time and even correctness.

4.    Google maps

One of the major and most useful applications of artificial intelligence in our day to day life is the use of Google maps. Almost the whole worlds relay on it, especially when it comes to travelers, they are guided by Google Maps, where the use of GPS technology keep them updated on the routes. Google Maps' use of Artificial Intelligence technology increased the information by informing travelers about accidents and traffic delays.

 

The future of Artificial Intelligence

AI can turn a hotel room into a popular tourist destination. Consumers can choose to change their hotel room into their preferred destination area after entering the room. When choosing this option, the entire area is turned into a virtual 3D world that closely mimics their favorite vacation place.

This robot provides tourist information to consumers who speak to it using AI and speech recognition. Every human connection also contributes to the robot's learning, which enhances the efficiency of all future communications.

 

Author: Arun Purayidathil Pavithran

Keywords: #chatbots #machine learning #robotics #facial recognition #artificial intelligence #tourism #tourism business

References

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7.     Makar, M.G. and Tindall, T.A., Delfin Project Inc, 2014. Automatic message selection with a chatbot. U.S. Patent 8,738,739.