Technology is advancing at a rapid pace. We are surrounded by technology at all times, be it cooking, driving, watching TV or even something as basic as talking to our friends. Naturally, the travelling industry is no exception to this. Technology has engulfed the travelling industry in the most effective of ways. We are talking about artificial intelligence. In this article, we will tell you about how the industry is in the process of completely transforming itself like you have never even imagined before. If you are looking for a chance to travel, this will help. So, let us proceed.
Customer Support
Whenever you want to travel, the first and foremost thing you do is visit the official website of the travelling agency whose services you intend to avail. The moment you visit the site, you might see a chatbot popping up at a corner of your screen. The job of chatbots is to help you whenever you face any problem. Earlier, upon facing an issue, you had to approach customer care through SMS, phone or email. The agency will deploy a handful of professional experts in their support team. They would take a response time of a couple of hours. If the agency is understaffed, then the response time could be extended to even more than a week.
To avoid the delay, companies have started using chatbots. This is how you are now able to get immediate help. All you have to do is type in your query in the chat-box. The bot will detect the keywords in your message and start providing you with convenient solutions. This has done wonders to improve customer experience. This has also made the sites much more usable. You can select travel plans with the utmost ease.
Recommendations
Whenever you visit the official website of a travelling agency, you browse through the available options in order to select a preferable travel plan. Here is where things get really interesting. The moment you open the website, the site starts keeping track of your movements. Every icon you click, every tab you open – they trace it all. This is done in order to establish patterns in your purchasing behaviour. The site records your activities and once it is able to recognize the patterns, it can detect exactly what you are looking for. This is done through AI. The phenomenon is called machine learning or ML.
Once the site finds out what you need, the rest is simply a piece of cake. It just suggests the option at the top of its list of recommendations. In fact, it does not end there. The thing about artificial intelligence is that they take it one step further. As the site continues to observe more and more visitors, it is able to gather enough intelligence to be able to find out what you need before you yourself do. This is highly effective in triggering impulsive purchases. Hence, companies are able to increase their sales by a big margin.
Pricing
As we mentioned in the previous point, the site keeps track of the activities of every visitor while they use the site. The information continues being accumulated. Eventually, it reaches a point where the site is not only able to detect individual patterns but also patterns at a large scale. It is able to estimate the seasonal fluctuations in demand. It can even segment the market into different categories on the basis of a variety of factors like rate of usage, purchasing capacity, preferred mode of transport, preferred destination and so on. By taking these factors into account, the site is able to suggest to the company exactly how high it should price its products.
Companies are starting to use this feature for differential pricing and micromarketing as well. Price, of course, plays a vital role in deciding how much a product will appeal to different types of consumers. Factors like income level, occupation, age group, gender, etc are also used as parameters. So, companies can now find out how the same product can be priced differently for different consumers. This is profoundly impactful in profit maximization through the avoidance of underselling.
Direct Marketing
In the earlier days, travelling agencies used to either avoid direct marketing or hire a separate set of workers for it. The former would lead to decline in repeat purchases and the latter would lead to unnecessary pressure on working capital. On top of this, every time companies hire workers for the job, it will be prone to human error. So, now, AI is being used as a solution. It is a big advantage to build customer relations.
This not only results in decrease of long-term cost but also in increase of effectiveness. In direct marketing, whom you offer often proves to be more important than what you offer. By incorporating AI in direct marketing, companies are able to detect exactly which of its consumers are more likely to make repeat purchases through machine learning or ML. So, they are able to invest resources accordingly.
Virtual Reality
Every consumer likes to get a free trial of a product before deciding whether to really buy it or not. The free trial can provide an accurate depiction of exactly what to expect from the product. However, providing free samples is not as easy in the case of services as it is in the case of goods. That is why companies are starting to incorporate virtual reality. This enables consumers to get a free trial without the company having to bear a high expenditure.
Big Data
As we already mentioned, ML is often used to detect behavioural patterns in consumers and shape their offers accordingly. However, this is done through the accumulation of intelligence, i.e., big data. In fact, they tend to go hand-in-hand. It is able to complement AI, thereby helping the company effectively increase operational efficiency.
Blockchain
Blockchain is becoming increasingly popular among consumers, especially due to the boom in the usage of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. Blockchain practically acts as a fulcrum for cryptocurrencies. Some businesses are starting to accept cryptocurrencies as a medium of transaction. Blockchain is more secure due to end-to-end encryption.
Conclusion
The travelling industry is undergoing significant changes. Some of the processes will also be implemented in the sector of hospitality in future. For instance, facial recognition is already being used in almost every high-end hotel today. However, there are certain risks involved. ML is raising concerns in relation to your right to privacy as an internet user. Automation is raising concerns in relation to generation of employment. There is also the fear of competitors feeding artificial information to misguide bots. Nevertheless, we must remember that there is no such thing as a free lunch in the world of business. Industrial progress is not artificial. It is very much real. If you want to travel, never hesitate. Making a travel plan is just a click away.