Khaberni - Hotels, tourism companies, and travel agencies are racing to launch their own electronic tools and loyalty programs to confront the future competition from robots capable of arranging users' trips.
A survey conducted by OnePoll showed that 38% of the participants, totaling about 22,000 people, reported they would use AI tools to search for travel destinations, while 33% said they would use them to plan their trip itinerary.
According to a new report by the Financial Times, Jean Francois Gilmard, the chief data and AI officer at the French Accor hotel group, says "this is not futuristic."
He adds that the processes of planning and booking vacations have "already undergone radical changes."
So far, travelers have primarily relied on artificial intelligence to search for destinations, compare accommodations, and make reservations through online travel agencies such as Expedia, Booking.com, or hotel systems.
But Accor group, which owns brands like Sofitel, Mercure, Fairmont, and Raffles, "is already preparing for the next step, which is the step of agents," Gilmard says.
This direction includes investing in integrated applications that facilitate booking and payment operations directly within wide-ranging linguistic models, such as ChatGPT, in addition to promoting customer loyalty programs.
Bank of America analyst Justin Post, in a report issued in January, pointed out that loyalty and personal rewards systems will be crucial for travel companies aiming to stay at the forefront of customer interests in the era of rising artificial intelligence.
Gilmard says that guests who wish to delegate an artificial intelligence agent to book on their behalf will want to ensure their satisfaction. He adds, "If the customer trusts a loyalty program, it will have a significant impact."
Hotel industry optimists hope that artificial intelligence agents will offer a cheaper alternative to online travel agencies like Booking.com and Expedia, which have long been a source of dissatisfaction for some due to their fees.
However, others fear that AI tools may shift business away from major companies in this sector by reducing brand awareness.
Potential Pressure
And intermediaries may face the greatest amount of pressure if consumers turn to "smart" chatbots powered by artificial intelligence capable of arranging their trips without using their services.
Since the beginning of the year, shares of Booking Holdings, which owns platforms like Booking.com and Priceline, have dropped by 15%, while shares of its competitor, Expedia, have dropped by 7%.
Bryan Batista, CEO of Skyscanner, says that overcoming this threat means "connecting with customers wherever they are."
In addition to developing an app within the ChatGPT platform, Skyscanner has recently activated the "interactive search" feature on its website to meet the needs of customers who rely on artificial intelligence.
For example, a user might search for "a cheap sunny walking holiday from London for a week in November" to receive recommendations that include information on the average price and daily temperature for each suggested destination, such as Tenerife and Madeira.
Batista adds that this could make travelers more open to new destinations, thereby helping to distribute demand and alleviate congestion in the busiest tourist areas.
Batista also emphasizes that brand importance will increase in a world that depends on artificial intelligence.
He says that travelers' fears of being deceived by artificial intelligence push them to "demand more reliable guidance based on experience and real data."
Meanwhile, he points out that AI-supported coding tools help companies respond to customer requests and develop features tailored to specific events.
He adds that Skyscanner took less than a week, using smart coding tools, to develop a service for searching football match trips, directing users to flights to follow World Cup teams.
Customization has become crucial to companies' relationships with their customers: "Travelers now expect us to remember them, and we have no excuse not to do so because learning management systems do that very efficiently," Batista says.
As for Gilmard, the rise of artificial intelligence is not a threat but just a different channel through which Accor can sell hotel rooms.
But he acknowledges that customer costs will change, saying that there is "no ready-made plan" for how this will happen.
And "what was well known in traditional classic search - search engine optimization and so on - has now become much more ambiguous with artificial intelligence."
