Artificial Intelligence (AI) is reshaping numerous industries, and the travel sector is by no means an exception. In fact, it may already be influencing where you are planning to go on your next vacation. Sure, TikTok and other platforms may have human influencers but AI is the ultimate influencer.
How? Because unless you have turned off all ad preferences and the like then your search engine and Meta, and everywhere else you have an online presence, AI is gathering data on you and their algorithms are tailoring ads to lead you into what they think might be of interest to you. Even with all trackers and preferences turned off, like I have, I still get a lot of ads and suggestions that are way too on the mark for the ads I see in my Meta account and news sites, etc. Example, while researching the blog on the best places to find fossils, a week later I started getting a lot of ads about travel to Dorset in the UK which was one of the places I'd identified in the post.
Apart from perhaps subconsciously affecting your travel, how else can AI impact our travel behaviors and planning. It's not all subversive, there are definite benefits to using AI. From booking flights to packing for a trip, AI can improve the way people travel, offering new levels of convenience and personalization. However, with these advancements come challenges and downsides that need to be addressed. In this blog, we'll explore the various impacts of AI on travel, examining both the benefits and the potential downsides.
The Benefits of Integrating AI into Travel
1. Improved Booking Processes
Personalized Recommendations: AI algorithms analyze user preferences and past behaviors to suggest personalized travel destinations, accommodations, and activities. This can work to make sure travelers receive tailored suggestions that align with their interests and even budgets.
Efficient Booking: AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants streamline the booking process. They can handle queries, provide real-time information, and assist with booking flights, hotels, and rental cars, often faster and more efficiently than human agents. They can do all the monitoring of flights and send you alerts when deals come up. I know I've used that with Google flights often where I'll set my destination(s) choice and give rough dates and I get price alerts on those flights to help get the best price.
Dynamic Pricing: AI can help businesses optimize their pricing strategies, for example airlines and hotels can adjust prices in real-time based on demand, competition, and a myriad other factors. This, combined with the above types of real time notifications, can result in better deals for travelers who book at the right time.
2. Creating Better Itineraries
Smart Itinerary Planning: AI tools can create optimized travel itineraries based on user preferences, available time, and local conditions. They can suggest the best times to visit attractions, recommend restaurants based on your dietary desires and restrictions, and of course get you to where you are going via the most efficient route in the car (or on foot). They can even help you avoid speeding tickets (Thanks to all you Wazers out there)!
Real-Time Updates: AI-powered apps provide real-time updates on weather, traffic, and other travel conditions. This allows travelers to adjust their plans on the go, ensuring a smoother experience. Click below to see what kinds of apps we love when traveling.
Enhanced Experiences: By having access to vast amounts of data such as reviews and local news stories, AI can recommend off-the-beaten-path attractions and unique experiences that a traveler might otherwise need to spend hours combing through the web to find, if at all.
3. Streamlining Packing and Preparation
Packing Assistance: AI-powered apps can generate packing lists based on the destination, and planned activities. With access to the current and past weather tendencies, it can provide a list best suited for the climate that you would be expected to have for your trip. Given a list of family members and any specifics needed, such as a favorite stuffed animal, it can ensure travelers pack efficiently and avoid forgetting essential items. Between you and me, all that's what I'm working on in the background to achieve on our packing pages in the website. Stay tuned, a newly designed page and interface are in progress!
Travel Health: AI can provide personalized health advice, such as vaccinations needed for specific destinations and tips for staying healthy while traveling. It can alert you to any localized outbreaks of a disease, and can steer you clear of making mistakes like drinking non-bottled water in areas where it is unsafe to do so. If you identify exercise as being important in your profile, for example, it can give you locations of gyms or suggest apps that help you keep to your routine.
4. Enhancing In-Trip Experiences
Language Translation: AI-powered translation apps break down language barriers, allowing travelers to communicate more easily in foreign countries. This enhances the overall travel experience and can lead to a better cultural understanding. I personally tried out one that you fit into your ear some years ago that was pretty much a beta version so it was not particularly good. This was probably just after the time that Google Translate launched. It was pretty inaccurate and sadly to have a two way conversation the other person needed to use your extra set of ear buds. Not practical or very hygienic. I can only image how good the tech is today. I love Google Translate on my phone BTW, especially for using the camera to translate menus, or items at the grocery store, and the like.
Augmented Reality (AR): AI-driven AR applications can provide immersive experiences, such as virtual tours of museums, historical sites, or interactive maps that can guide travelers through unfamiliar cities. This can help a traveler navigate more confidently and can allow them a preview of some places they may want to add or remove from the to-do list.
5. Post-Trip Insights and Feedback
Trip Analysis: AI can analyze your travel experiences via various input methods and provide improved insights for any future trips. This could include things like identifying patterns in your travel preferences and if they change over time, and then it can make better at predicting what you might want for your next experience.
The Challenges and/or Negatives
1. Data Privacy and Security
Challenge: AI systems require access to a significant amount of personal data to function effectively, including travel history, preferences, family members, medical history, and payment information. This creates a substantial risk of data breaches and misuse of personal information. All that information can be readily made available on the dark web for unsavory actors to use.
Solution: Implementing robust data protection measures and ensuring compliance with privacy regulations (such as GDPR) are crucial. Governments need to step up and create better regulations, and better enforcement of those regulations. Companies must be completely transparent about data usage and provide users with total control over their information and how it is used, stored, and deleted upon their request. Hey (insert company name here - e.g. Meta, Google, X, etc.), read this paragraph again please!
2. Accuracy and Reliability
Challenge: AI systems rely on accurate and up-to-date data to provide useful recommendations and services. Inaccuracies in data or outdated information can lead to incorrect suggestions, missed flights, or booking errors, which can disrupt travel plans. I've had personal experience with this aspect numerous times in researching material for blogs. Asking AI for for some of the best pubs to visit while I was in England for example, so I could write about it later. Out of the 10 pubs it gave me, 4 were no longer in business, or were doing biz in another name. Fortunately I'd gone to their website to just check out menus etc. so I knew ahead of time!
Solution: Regularly updating AI algorithms and datasets, as well as incorporating real-time data feeds, can enhance its accuracy. Additionally, implementing fail-safes and introducing human oversight can help reduce the occurrence of errors. That last bit is pretty much just a fancy way of saying fact check your results.
If you happen to be curious as to what pubs made my list, take a look at the post.
3. Algorithm Bias
Challenge: AI algorithms can unintentionally perpetuate biases present in the data they are trained on, leading to recommendations that may not be diverse or inclusive. For example, AI might favor certain destinations or services over others based on biased reviews from real or very often bot users. This type of bias could cause you to avoid travel to, say, Turkiye under the misconception that it is a dangerous country so you book a trip to Florida instead. Well... maybe a bit of research could have helped with that decision. Not saying Florida is a bad place to go, I do love Disney World, but Turkiye is also a wonderful place to visit. The point is, don't be swayed by misinformation when you make your choices on where to go next vacation.
Unfortunately for AI all data is valid data to it. It doesn't recognize fake reviews. It doesn't understand racism, or any of humanity's forms of othering whereby it turns a group of people into an us vs. them situation. Sadly this hatred is spewed continuously on social media platforms and comments to posts etc. and while some are trying to curtail this vitriol, some platforms even appear to embrace and encourage it. The more of this kind of data that is out there, the more AI encounters it and incorporates it into its algorithms.
Solution: Developing and training AI models with more diverse and representative datasets, along with continuous monitoring and adjusting for biases, can help ensure fair and inclusive recommendations. In addition, social media companies and governments need to prevent misinformation and hateful messages from ever spreading in the first place. If that means banning a social media platform within a country's borders, or even beyond such as the EU, then so be it.
Get rid of any of them that do not actively and swiftly remove such content and ban users who post such material from accessing or creating another account again on similar platforms. Sound a bit over-the-top? Perhaps, but if there is a better solution to addressing what has truly become a global issue, I'd love to hear it.
Ok, no more soapbox.
4. Over-Reliance on Technology
Challenge: Heavy reliance on AI tools could lead to a decrease in travelers' problem-solving skills and their ability to plan and navigate trips independently. This dependency can reduce the spontaneity and flexibility that many travelers value. Granted, not all travelers are alike and some want predictability and routine. They probably won't mind so much in that respect but one also has to take into account access. Planning the trip from home using AI can be great but what if you have no connection while traveling and can no longer access AI tools you might need at your location. Or maybe your phone is broken/stolen/lost. Could be you were really relying on that translator to get you by at the local market. That's where the ability to problem solve and plan ahead might've come in handy, right?
Looking for a reliable and affordable way to make sure you keep that phone connected abroad? Then take a moment to look through our related post.
Solution: Encouraging a balanced approach to travel planning, where AI tools are used as aids rather than replacements for human judgment, can help maintain travelers' skills and confidence. If you are going to a foreign country or unfamiliar destination, do some research. Buy a language book you can take with you and learn a little of the language before you go, either from the book or using the AI tools. Print out itineraries and reservations and attraction tickets and anything else that you might have stored in your phone but nowhere else and take them with you. Be flexible and embrace any challenges as just another adventure on your trip. Some of the best places to stay, or eat, or just to visit, I have found were as a result of something else going awry.
Doolin, in Ireland, just happened to be one of those places that we stumbled upon and fell in love with. Read about an epic hike we had there!
5. Integration with Existing Systems
Challenge: Integrating AI systems with existing travel infrastructure, such as booking platforms, airline systems, and hotel management software, can be complex and costly. Compatibility issues and technical challenges can hinder seamless integration. In short, company A doesn't want company B to copy them or learn their secrets so they both have incompatible systems and what works for ones doesn't at another. Competition is great at times for the consumer but it can be a developers nightmare!
Solution: Investing in scalable and flexible AI solutions that can easily integrate with existing systems, as well as collaborating with technology partners and stakeholders, can make things go a heck of a lot easier.
6. Real-Time Adaptation
Challenge: Travel conditions can change rapidly due to weather, political situations, disease outbreak and quarantines, or numerous other unforeseen events. AI systems need to be able to adapt quickly to provide relevant and timely updates, which requires robust real-time data processing capabilities. Imagine if AI could have alerted you, an Aussie touring India at that particular moment, that a COVID lockdown in Australia was being implemented in the next 24 hours. Imagine that same AI takes an anticipatory action and, immediately after informing you of the impending lockdown, already has a list of flights ready to book at the touch of a "Yes, please save my backside!" button. Wouldn't that be great? You'd have been able to scramble and book a passage home before it took effect and not get stranded like thousands of Aussies ultimately did.
Solution: Improving on and implementing advanced real-time data analytics and machine learning models that can process and react to changing conditions promptly is essential to achieve this kind of adaptation. Partnering with reliable and respectable data providers can also enhance the system's responsiveness.
7. Ethical Considerations
Challenge: The use of AI in travel raises a boatload of ethical issues, there are no two. ways around that. Issues such as the potential for surveillance, the impact on local communities, and the environmental footprint of increased travel facilitated by AI. Not to mention the increased carbon footprint of server farms due to the energy they require rate just to keep that AI humming along. Then we should also consider the human impact of AI on the travel industry as it needs to be considered for all industries that do, or will, use AI integration.
Think of those with an occupation or hobby that are affected:
Travel/booking agencies (now AI automated)
Customer service reps (now 24/7 chatbots)
Hotel staff (now automated digital check in)
Tour guides (now AR tours)
Transportation Drivers (now autonomous vehicles)
Event Planners (now AI optimized)
Travel Blogs and Websites, like this one! (ominous music)
Solution: Developing ethical guidelines for AI use in travel, focusing on sustainability and respect for local cultures and environments, can help address these concerns. Engaging with stakeholders, including travelers and local communities, is also important for responsible AI deployment.
There is also the tricky matter of trust.
There needs to be the element of humanity in the bulk of the occupations above because in the long run, most people just don't trust a machine implicitly. They want a human to empathize when the **** hits the fan and your hotel reservation that you already paid for suddenly is gone upon arrival due to a third party overbooking error. They want that grateful feeling when that same person at the desk spends a half hour on the phone and gets you a new room at a nearby, even nicer, hotel for no additional charge. That one is for you Andrew at Vino Bello Resort in Napa; your above and beyond efforts were, simply put, amazing.
People want to hear personal experiences and tend to trust those far more than an algorithm. They want the essential human touch. This is true for reviews, tips and suggestions, and travel blogs. Especially for travel blogs, right?
Summary
AI is undoubtedly transforming, and will continue to transform, the travel industry. It does offer numerous benefits such as personalized recommendations, efficient booking processes, and enhanced in-trip experiences. However, it's crucial to address the potential downsides, including privacy concerns, job displacement, over-reliance on technology, and the overall ethics of it in general.
In order for this new tool to succeed in being a boon and not a bane it needs to strike a delicate balance between technological innovation and maintaining the human element in travel. Well, in all areas of its use if we cut to the chase. You may have noticed I used a balance of my own photography and some AI images I created on MidJourney throughout the post. That was intentional to show how AI can be integrated into the human experience.
This balance will be the key to ensuring that the advancements it promises truly enhance the travel experience for people of all ages, gender identity and expression, race, income level, etc. By staying aware and keeping in mind both the benefits and the challenges, you can make the most of AI's vast potential for travel applications while still preserving that sense of adventure and desire to explore that makes up your impetus for going to discover new destinations (or revisit longtime favorites) in the first place.
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