ITB Day 1 - the ai highlights!

PhocusWright Research Report:

• The report reveals that the travel industry is increasingly adopting AI, with both large OTAs and startups at the forefront.

• There is a high level of consumer awareness regarding AI in travel, yet actual usage is still modest.

• Approximately 30-50% of the audience feels comfortable using General AI, though this is primarily among younger users.

• The report suggests a trend where travel agents are making a comeback through AI technologies.

• More people are beginning their travel searches on Google Maps, raising questions about its potential as a comprehensive travel app.

• The trustworthiness of AI-generated reviews and content is under scrutiny.

• There is speculation about a potential merger between Web3 and AI, creating a powerful combination by adding a layer of trust.

Glenn Fogel’s Insights:

• Fogel discussed how technology, especially AI, can simplify travel by bringing back a travel agent-like experience through advanced interactivity.

• He highlighted how AI could manage end-to-end itinerary planning, which is seen as a significant improvement.

• The importance of AI in answering last-minute customer queries to prevent drop-offs on booking pages was emphasized.

• Despite the time it takes to optimize such products, Booking.com has 400 technologists working on AI in Amsterdam.

• Fogel believes in the importance of Europe developing its own technology, although he notes that regulatory frameworks can be challenging.

At the Google Session:

• The session titled “How General AI is Changing Our Digital Future” was extremely popular, filled to capacity 10 minutes before it started.

• The presentation covered the pervasive role of GenAI at ITB and its potential as a catalyst for evolution.

• Despite humorous digressions, such as the debate over whether a hotdog is a sandwich, the session focused on significant advancements like the new Google search.

• Google’s emphasis on travel and digital integration was clear, with travel planning taking up a significant portion of the travel journey.

• Demonstrations included the use of Gemini for trip planning and insurance inquiries, showcasing Google’s ecosystem integration and the creative vs. analytical sides of AI.

• The presentation concluded with insights into conversational search and highly personalized results expected in the next 12 months.

Gary Wiseman from Sabre:

• Wiseman described the travel life cycle as complex compared to e-commerce, highlighting internal benefits for companies using AI.

• He provided an example where iGenAI significantly speeds up itinerary planning for travel agents.

• Sabre’s development of “Travel AI” aims to enable retailing scenarios, upselling, cross-selling, and dynamic pricing.

• The focus on conversational AI and voice commands will facilitate tasks like booking while driving.

• He mentioned a shift towards a retailing environment in travel, advocating for tech standardization and the use of open-source models for greater efficiency and personalization.

Airbnb

AI is going to transform the way we interact with the world. We will be leaders in the application of AI. You probably won’t see it or feel it, it will just lead to a more seamless experience for those using Airbnb.

Using it to improve customer service and for coders on the back end and on the front end using it for better of matching guests to the best properties for them.

there were no new announcements for the today….

“The best interface for travel is not a chat bot… this is where you’ll see Airbnb excel in the future.”

Weeva

Weeva, a company that fuses the two hottest (no pun intended) topics in travel, sustainability and ai, launched the latest version of their ai powered solution for hotels to achieve Net Zero in their business.

The CTO James Lever told the crowd that GPT’s are a source of language but not really a source of knowledge. It’s a great way to think about it and why most peoples first interactions with GPT’s is first totally mind blown and then as they dig in, find it to basically be a little bit crap.

Those companies who are building on top of LLM’s but not introducing a source of knowledge (data) for it to work with, just won’t get very far. We’ve seen a lot of this in the early travel planners for example.

One message was that compliance and regulation is coming.

Weeva sees AI is an enabler for sustainability. This can be via education of staff around what good looks like, energy management, water management and others.

Weeva delivers digital sustainability solutions via a 360 degree view across a large range of criteria. Gamification and tasks are used to nudge people into action.

Weeva 2.0 allows businesses to ask questions around sustainability and get immediate answers to those based on Weeva’s collective data set.

Check them out at Weeva.earth

Hotel Track and AI

The second biggest crowd for the day I saw was at the PMS and ChatGPT session by Daily Point. Great to see the hotel folk really embracing the opportunities of AI.

the core message was that the data in your PMS is the fuel you need to the best in digital hospitality.

The scenario outlined was that whilst hoteliers have become more open to movingPMS, they are often told it is easier to just start again from scratch rather than do an onerous migration. The message here was DON’T DO THAT!

The next section talked to doing advanced semantic analysis of review data to get down into the detail of the core areas of weakness. The example given was that whilst you might be able to identify that for example you restaurant is a weak point in your hotel operation but this Symantec analysis of reviews will tell you exactly why the restaurant was rated poorly. Just change the things that are highlighted as being poor. Don’t change the decor of the problem is lack of vegetarian option for example.

Data again was highlighted as core.